JAPANESE WRESTLERS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 37, 15 May 1917, Page 2

JAPANESE WRESTLERS.

WHERE WEIGHT TELLS. In this country, when a man of average height takes on girth his weight runs up to three hundred pounds or so, bis friends have grave doubts about his condition and advise him to diet in order to bring back a slim elegance of figure. In Japan the contrary is true. If a man can carry three hundred pounds of flesh with any agility he is of the material from which heroes are manufactured, and if he can work up to the four hundred or four-hundred-aad seventy-five pound notch, and becomes a wrestler, he is in the running for a championship. Wrestling is to the Japanese what boxing is to ns, and more. The populace goes crazy over it, and the magnates of the big game handle great sums in the way of gate receipts. The ToMo Wrestling Association controls the flower of Japan’s heavy-weights, and at its head is a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound veteran, T. Dewanoumi, the holder of the championship for eleven years in succession—a record feat. This notable personage has just shown Americans the national game of Nippon, taking thirty-two of the greatest athletes of that country to participate in a fourday tournament in Los Angeles. It was a curious spectacle to see a couple of hippopotamus-like brown men, weighing three or four hundred pounds each, preparing to wrestle, attended by silken-robed dignitaries of a priestly aspect, who acted as judges during the bout, and performed a stately ceremonious rite beforehand.

The entrance of a wrestler into the arena is a ceremonial in itself. The huge bulk of a man assumes poses of fierce dignity, like a combative bull, and mbs handfuls of earth upon his expanded chest; he raises first one majestic leg and then the other and stamps upon the ground. After tossing a pinch of salt in the air to propitiate their divinities, the opponents crouch before each other with knees bent, fists on the ground, and foreheads touching. Then they spring, and things become more interesting. If the stately efforts that went before seemed like a scene from the “Mikado,” what follows is more like a duel between elephants. According to the rules of the game, it is not necessary for the better man to throw his opponent so that the shoulders touch. If any part of the body besides the feet is brought to the ground that decides it. Of course it is a more thrilling triumph if the loser can be slammed all over the thirteen-foot ring, or even tossed clear out of it, and this often happens, Sometimes the loser has to be carried out, and this is a severe strain on the attendants.

Unfortunately, however, the suave courtesy that usually characterises the sons of Nippon is sometimes forgotten in the heat of combat; so also are the rules of the game. In a bout op the second day of the tournament, the wrestlers were crouching for the spring, when one of them suddenly straightened up and waddled tbwards the corner. He had forgotten to get a drink of water ; also he wished to toss a pinch of salt in the air for luck. His opponent rose in disgust, and, running /after his enemy so far forgot his dignity as to administer a severe kick to the procrastinator ! The repartee was to the point—to the point of the jaw, in fact—and was effective, though it shocked the silken-robed judges. When quiet was restored, the wrestler who had received the kick was still enraged. He took the drink of water, and he reached for the salt of ritual, but instead of a pinch he snatched a handful, and threw it into the eyes of the man who had insulted him. From that point things ceased to be clear to the observer, for the two human mountains met like battling eleelephants. Such exciting times cannot be expected at every bout of course, but there was sufficient feeling of rivalry in all the contests to 1 keep even the white spectators interested, while the Japanese, who had their own favourites, expressed frantic delight at every throw. “Wide World Magazine.”