As photos circulate on social media of sumo wrestlers riding Lime bikes and recreating the cover of The Beatles’s Abbey Road, a question springs to mind: is there a more enigmatic sport than sumo? A more widely known yet less consumed sport internationally?
Indeed, sumo (the “wrestling” is effectively redundant in the translation) has thundered throughout worldwide popular culture for decades, and yet its actual competitions have been almost exclusively contained to its native Japan. In a historic turn, this week marks just the second time ever that a professional sumo contest is being hosted abroad. How’s that for a stat?
