Re: SUMO: Itai & Yaocho

[Masumi Abe <abe@accesscom.com>]

The list of "yaocho" rikishi and the matches Itai thought they are very
suspicious are not from the press meeting, but from Weekly Gendai, a weekly
magazine published by Kodansha. This weekly magazine is a good (or bad?) rival
to Weekly Post published by Shogakukan. Both are major book and magazine
publishers in Japan. Their typical targeted readers are middle-aged and older
Japanese men.

-Masumi


Doreen Simmons wrote:

> At 0:32 -0800 2/2/00, Masumi Abe wrote:
> > Former Sekiwake Itai came back to Foreign Press Center in Tokyo and
> > talked about yaocho in Ozumo the second time.
>
> Foreign Correspondents' Club.  The FPC is a small Japanese foundation set up
> to assist foreign media.
>
> He insisted that his story
> > is the truth. He said all his three matches against Takamiyama, current
> > Azumazeki Oyakata, and all four matches against Kotonishiki.
> >
> > Itai's List of Yaocho Rikishi as of Kyushu-basho in 1999
> > Akebono, Chiyotaikai, Kotonowaka, Kotonishiki, Hamanoshima, Kyokushuzan,
> > Terao, Kaiho, Minatofuji, Asanowaka, Higonoumi, Shikishima, Aogiyama,
> > Asanosho, Otsukasa, Tokitsuumi, Ohinode.
>
> I don't recall hearing this list of names. He merely said he stood by
> everything he had said last time. In fact, he became noticeably shy about
> making any new accusations, especially when he began getting questions from
> three or four people who showed that they were not depending on him for
> information about sumo.
>
> My own question was: "At the time of your retirement, I heard a lot of
> people say that the Kyokai refused you permission to hold a public
> hair-cutting ceremony. Is this true? And, if it is true, doesn't it indicate
> that the Kyokai was well aware of your activities and took this step to
> punish you and to warn others?" There was dead silence from the whole room.
> Then he fudged: "I held my own haircutting ceremony.....". Not much later
> Marty Kuehnert, a well-known sports writer,  asked several increasingly
> tough questions, really pressing him about who knew what, and when (and
> trying to link him with his stablemaster, Onaruto oyakata - Itai refused to
> be drawn and insisted he had no knowledge of the matters in Onaruto's
> accusations - as if nobody knew it was his own stablemaster in a very small
> stable!);  the answers got more vague or evasive. The newbies asked some
> more polite questions but it was clear to most people, I think, that this
> press conference was not going as smoothly as the first. He started refusing
> to name any more names, saying that you always forget a thrown bout. A
> Japanese journalist even asked him if it was true that he owed a lot of
> money to a present member of the Kyokai and was he now going public because
> of debt problems: he replied indignantly that that was a really low kind of
> question, and that he was concerned only to see honest sumo.
>
> I'll be interested to see what reports come out this time. Sorry I'm too
> tired to write more. Please bear in mind, too, that I am writing from memory
> at the end of a very long and busy day.
>
> Doreen in sumoland
>
> ♪Telepathic message follows:♪

--
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* Masumi Abe (aka Masumiriki / Imanonami)
* mailto: abe@accesscom.com
* WWW: http://www.accesscom.com/~abe
* from Sapporo through Tokyo to Palo Alto, California
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