Police question Hakuho as witness in assault case

Its taken 2 weeks to get the statement of the man who broke up the fight?

And the Sumo chief has already promised to fellow sumo wrestlers that “problems of violence would never happen again”.

A rather inaccurate and unrealistic statement.

A Japanese Yokozuna would have probably had this reduced to a bow and possibly a few crocodile tears.

Stop blowin smoke up our arses, and get this over with. We all know not a dang thing will happen to the guy.

Harumafuji decided to retire.  Have the story soon.

There has been something "fishy" going on in Sumo for a couple of years now. The wins and losses are not consistent. When one Yokozuna's get too far ahead in wins, they mysteriously lose a couple of matches. I suspect they are pressured to do this to keep the customers attention. In the last tournament, everyone heard the referee shout stop, that is why Hakuho stopped fighting and got pushed out of the match for his only loss. The judges let it stand. Hakuho protested and now is being reprimanded for his actions.

Harumafuji decided to retire. Have the story soon.

I recall Asashoryu doing it much quicker after his brawl.

@droll. Ever heard of match fixing? Common in European football. That’s why I lost interest.

Everyone knows sumo is largely fixed. Even the die hards are resigned to it. That’s why there’s not much interest.

In any case, the JSA is attempting to clear the Mongolians out for dominating for so long. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hakuho gone soon.

Can someone please clarify how there are so many claims of match fixing and so many claims of systemic xenophobia at the same time? I'm not particularly doubting either of them, but they're a bit difficult to reconcile.

Either they're fixing matches and letting the foreigners keep winning anyway, or they're against foreigners winning and trying to get them out and can't do much about it.

[to clarify, I'm in NO WAY doubting that a lot of fans would like to see more Japanese do well instead of lots of foreigners. I'm talking about the sumo bigwigs who would make these decisions]

The TV news this morning said that Hakuho was interviewed for 7.5 hours, which seems a little excessive for an innocent witness.

Which is why many people, myself included, don't like to come forward when witnessing something here. Giving an eyewitness account becomes a full on interrogation.

So a bar brawl got a bit out of hand. It happens from time to time even amongst friends.

I hope that this can be resolved "the Japanese way" that is "in house".

@DaDude

Agree... I once found a boat adrift about three miles off the coast, it was a japanese registered fishing boat. I called the J/coast guard and reported it. The next day I was "requested" to come to the local office for an "interview". It lasted just over 3 hours. They then hounded me for a couple of more months with the same questions........how many ways can you say you saw the boat floating, investigated, no one was on board and then you called the Coast Guard.