Читать книгу Ali vs. Inoki. The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment онлайн

69 страница из 81

Under Takeshita’s leadership, sumo was not targeted by the Allied Powers’ budō prohibition. Speaking on the seventieth anniversary of the end of the war, Sokichi Kumagai, seventeen years a top-ranking sumo referee, or gyōji, told the Mainichi, a major daily Japanese newspaper, that he received word to reconvene with his stable and get touring again soon after Japan’s surrender. “The biggest problem was securing enough food for the wrestlers, who were all voracious eaters,” Kumagai said. The tour was called komezumo, or “rice sumo,” and in lieu of money, spectators were required to offer a payment of rice. “At the time we toured in groups of related stables,” Kumagai told the paper, “and all the groups toured in areas where rice farming was common.”

Soon enough the sumo association issued a notice that a Grand Sumo Tournament would be held in Tokyo in November 1945. Though his reputation remained strong and positive, and he was unaffected by the Butoku Kai purge, Takeshita announced plans to step down as the head of sumo when the honbasho ended. Rikidōzan had earned a spot in sumo’s top division, the makuuchi, and reached the sport’s third highest rank, sekiwake, by the time Takeshita passed away in 1949. He competed until September 1950, and, citing financial reasons, retired.