OVER nearly three centuries, the sport of sumo was practised by Japanese wrestlers alone. A critical sumo match won by the god Take-mikazuchi forms part of Japan’s national founding myth. Yet now Japanese fans of sumo are so accustomed to foreigners’ dominance of the sport that when in January the reigning Mongolian champion, Hakuho, carried off his 33rd Emperor’s Cup (beating not only his Japanese opponent in the ring but the formerly unbroken record of the legendary Taiho, from Hokkaido) only a few described the result as regrettable. Of the 26 most accomplished wrestlers in Japan, which is the only location of professional sumo contests, ten are non-Japanese, and seven of those are Mongolian. The last time a Japanese wrestler won one of six annual grand sumo tournaments in the country was in 2006. Why are the Japanese no longer on top in sumo wrestling?

There would be many more foreigners in sumo—and probably near the top—were it not for a strictly enforced regulation that each of 43 stables in Japan may accept only a single foreigner, or gaijin. Some stable masters initially tried to skirt the restriction by encouraging foreigners to seek Japanese citizenship; such tactics were later met by a decision in 2010 to apply the foreigner regulation to all those born outside Japan. Aficionados of the sport argue that the quality of wrestling is all that matters, and foreigners must steep themselves in Japanese language and culture. “When I am on the dohyo (wrestling ring) I have the spirit of Japan laced in my top-knot”, declared Hakuho upon winning. Many observers point out that the great late Taiho himself had a Ukrainian father. Yet much soul-searching goes on nonetheless over what accounts for the foreigners’ long winning streak and the absence of a native-born comeback.

The chief reason is that the number of Japanese boys entering training to become sumo wrestlers has been plummeting for years. A worsening labour shortage resulting from Japan’s rapidly falling population is at its very height in sumo. The typical, and far more successful, recruit of earlier centuries was a poor and often hungry youngster from a large family from Japan’s remote rural regions. Nowadays families are smaller and richer. Foreigners tend to hail from poor countries with hard-scrabble backgrounds and have proven that they have what it takes to prevail. They employ the same wrestling techniques as the Japanese (though the Mongolians use leg trips far more frequently) but have more drive to win. Yet even they find the harsh life of brutal training and rigid hierarchy hard to endure. When Oshima Oyakata, a notable stable master, recruited six Mongolians to his stable in 1992, five of them soon attempted to flee—though in the end, the sixth wrestler talked two of them into staying.

Having refused properly to modernise its culture, the sport itself must also take much blame for its diminished appeal to Japanese youths. Their parents particularly don’t want their sons going into sumo. Not long ago a 17-year old trainee died after being beaten by his stablemates with a beer bottle and a baseball bat. A series of gambling scandals in 2010, in which wrestlers were caught forming illegal betting rings with yakuza gangsters, further lowered the sport’s standing, compounded by evidence of match-fixing the following year. The sport’s deeply conservative governing body, the Japan Sumo Association, has until now resisted change. Last year, recognising a crisis in the sport, the government changed the association’s legal status, brought in outside experts on sumo and increased its powers over individual stables. But it is yet unclear whether such changes are bold enough to bring Japanese champions back to the dohyo.

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