Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re Asashoryu, the sole yokozuna in sumo for three and a half years, a near-unbeatable champion of a sport that demands not just physical prowess, but ritual stoicism and dignity. You report an injury from the most recent tournament in Nagoya, where you won your 21st Emperor’s cup, and return to your native Mongolia to recouperate from your injuries. Then you appear in a charity soccer game in Mongolia, apparently well enough to run around on the field. Obviously, you’re a faker, a fraud, a charlatan, who deserves punishment, either by losing your rank (which would mean retirement from the sport) or by being suspended from tournaments.

Okay, now let’s pretend that you’re a 26 year-old Mongolian named Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj. You live and work in Japan, where people loathe you. You’re constantly accused of participating in match fixing, which seems a bit odd as you win almost all your matches - shouldn’t they be accusing your opponents of throwing matches and complaining about their lack of honor? You’re criticized for transgressions real and imagined - being “too aggressive” and “staring too hard” at opponents in a sport that demands that you throw them to the ground or out of the ring, but also for pulling hair and for scraps with fellow wrestlers outside the ring. Your appearance at bars is the subject of constant tabloid headlines. And you’ve got a temper, which complicates matters.

On the other hand, you’re a national hero in your native Mongolia, and - unsurprisingly - you do your best to spend as much time there are possible. Despite recouperating from a back injury, friends ask you to take the field with Japanese soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata at an event designed to promote soccer in Mongolia. When this causes a shitstorm in Japan, the Mongolian embassy formally apologizes on your behalf, saying:

We put pressure on him to be on the field to allow children to interact with a national hero. The original plan was to let him leave the field after a brief while, but his presence generated so much enthusiasm that we could not allow him to do so. We apologize for having caused this serious incident and for putting both the Japan Sumo Association and yokozuna Asashoryu in an unpleasant situation.

The Japan Sumo Association has issued an unprecedented sanction against Asashoryu - they have cut his annual salary by 30% and suspended him from the next two tournaments. Many Japanese fans don’t think this is sufficient - 46% want to see Asa banned from sumo altogether, while only 7% thought this punishment was too harsh. Unsurprisingly, Asa is feeling a bit depressed - a JSA doctor describes him as being “days away from a breakdown”. The big man is locked in his apartment, and a 90 minute meeting with his stablemaster didn’t convince him to either return to training or to seek medical help for both physical and psychological ailments.

Sumo is an unusual sport, inasmuch as there’s really only one country where one can make a living as a rishiki… and in that country, the sport is viewed as vastly more than just an athletic contest. Simply being the best athlete in the sport is insufficient to be a celebrated Yokozuna - Asashoryu is expected to respect the ritual of the sport and to set an example for other wrestlers. His task is complicated by the fact that Hakuho, a new Yokozuna (and a fellow Mongolian) is respected for being quiet, unassuming and uncontroversial. The idea of throwing Asa out of the sport is likely more palatable given that there would still be a grand champion.

There’s been a meeting of cultures in sumo for years, since Takamiyama - the Hawaiian-born Jesse James Wailani Kuhaulua - won an Emperor’s Cup in 1972. Hawaii has a strong sumo culture , connected to Japanese emigration to Hawaii throughout the 20th century. While Takamiyama became thoroughly assimilated into Japanese sumo and ended up opening his own sumo stable, other rishiki have not had as smooth a path. Konishiki and other darker-skinned Hawaiian wrestlers were sometimes referred to as “the black ships” - a reference to Commodore Perry’s ships that forcibly opened Japan to international commerce in 1854. There’s some discomfort with the current Mongolian dominance of sumo, which some argue is turning Japanese fans off from the sport. I nearly provoked a fight at a baseball game in Chiba when I told a Japanese acquaintance that Asashoryu and Kyokushuzan (both Mongolians) were my favorite rishiki - he was deeply offended that I listed two Mongolian wrestlers as my favorites.

I realize that I’m biased and that I’ve got a big soft spot for Mongolian wrestlers in general and Asa in particular… but it seems like there’s a remarkable lack of compassion for Asashoryu in this situation. He’s in a difficult situation - unable to practice his sport except in Japan and unable to do so in Japan without a flood of criticism. Yes, many of his wounds are self-inflicted, and other Mongolian wrestlers have managed to assimilate more smoothly than he has. But it sometimes seems like Asa’s biggest crime is not being Japanese enough, a crime the patriotic Mongolian would likely confess to.

The May basho at Ryogoku Kokugikan ended yesterday with a clash between two profoundly talented rikishi. One was Asashoryu, who has been the sole Yokozuna - grand champion - of the sport since Takanohana retired in 2003. The other was Hakuho, who held an Ozeki rank (one rank below Yokozuna) and defeated Asashoryu to win his second Emperor’s Cup in a row. (The match was truly one for the ages - very much worth the ninety seconds it will take you to watch it.)

The criteria to be promoted to Yokozuna aren’t exact, but it is generally accepted that winning two tournaments in a row as an Ozeki is sufficient for promotion. So unless the Japan Sumo Association does something very expected - shrugging off the recommendation of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council - Hakuho will be named Yokozuna, and sumo will have two Mongolian Yokozuna.

This is very, very good news for sumo fans. There’s been a stunning degree of predictability to sumo since late 2003, when Asashoryu became Yokozuna - he won five of six tournaments in 2004, all six in 2005, and went 4-2 in 2006 - he was forced to withdraw from one of the 2006 bashos with an elbow injury. Basically, there were three years where you could expect Asa to win every match he fought, where his few losses were worth watching closely to see what had happened.

Some of Asa’s dominance comes from the fact that he’s an utterly remarkable wrestler. He’s quite light for a rikishi - about 148kg - and wins his matches with a combination of speed, technique and strength. For those of us who watched huge wreslers like Akebono dominate sumo through their sheer size (Akebono’s fighting weight orbited around 235kg), Asa has been a revelation to watch, tangible evidence that sumo is an art form, not overweight men running into each other. But Asashoryu has also looked good because so many of the Ozeki have looked really, really bad - Kaio and Chiyotaikai in particular have probably held their rank too long, and Bulgarian rikishi Kotooshu has dissapointed since being promoted in January 2006.

My hope is that Hakuho, five years younger than Asashoryu, roughly the same mass, and still polishing his technique, will threaten Asa in many basho to come, giving fans a possible rivalry to follow. But sports rivalries aren’t just about great athletes - they’re about great storylines, and it’s unclear what storyline will prevail in the Japanese media.

Asashoryu isn’t very popular in Japan, to put it bluntly. He’s viewed as an anti-traditionalist: he’s been known to show emotion on the dohyo when winning matches, occasionally displaying a minor fist-pump; he pulled the hair of Kyokushuzan in the July 2003 tournament leading to his disqualification; he has been photographed wearing a suit (yes, this is considered a major transgression for rikishi). Asa’s strong Mongolian identity has helped cement the ire of some Japanese fans - some foreign rikishi have become figures in Japanese popular culture, becoming sumo commentators or entertainers. Asa has refused Japanese citizenship and caused something of a scandal when he chose to get married in Mongolia rather than in Japan. (This argument centered on the obligations a rikishi has to his oyakata - the “stablemaster” of a sumo training stable. Traditionally, the rikishi gives 60% of all earnings to the oyakata… and those earnings include wedding gifts. Asa’s oyakata demanded his share of Asa’s wedding gifts, despite the fact that the wedding was held in Mongolia, leading to an apparent confontation between the wrestler and his management.)

If you believe the Japanese press, Asashoryu is a rude, abusive drunk with no respect for sumo’s tradition. More to the point, you’d be led to believe he’s a cheat. One set of accusers claim that Asa has been paying opponents $6,500 a match to let him win bouts. Another set claim that Asa has been paid $25,000 by Hakuho to throw matches and let him become Yokozuna. A flurry of defamation suits have been filed against Shukan Gendai, a controversial Japanese weekly which has published the majority of these accusations.

The problem with sumo, of course, is that there can be a note of truth to these stories. Steven Levitt and Mark Duggan published an extraordinary paper with an econometric analysis of the final matches of sumo tournaments - they found evidence that wrestlers with losing records lost far more often than you would expect in their final matches against opponents who are “on the bubble” - i.e., with 7-7 records. This wouldn’t suggest that Asashoryu - who’s basically never had a losing record - would throw matches to Hakuho, but it opens the specter of match-fixing in a sport where there’s always a backstory to the action in the dohyo.

(My favorite, completely non-confirmable and wholly undocumented backstage story: According to one of the rowdy, unreputable sumo sites I read, Asashoryu attended the celebration of Hakuho’s wedding in Mongolia and promised the crowd that he would give Hakuho an unusual wedding gift: a GAZ-69 jeep. While these former Soviet-army vehicles are quite popular in rural Mongolia, it’s likely that Hakuho already has a much nicer car, leading to speculation that this was code for Asashoryu “giving” Hakuho the title as the 69th Yokozuna. Since Asa came into the final match yesterday at 10-4, with Hakuho at 14-0, there was no need for a “gift”… but sumo fans will speculate that Asa might have thrown the playoff match in the previous tournament, which gave the victory to Hakuho…)

Hakuho seems to have a great deal more support in Japan that Asashoryu. His backstory may help out - he was so small (62kg) when he first came to Japan that no sumo stable would accept him. Kyokushuzan, a widely-respected and pioneering Mongolia rikishi, intervened and found a place for him in his stable, coaching him through some of his early matches. Unlike Asa, he got married in Japan, and has made it clear that he wants to be “a yokozuna that everyone loves.”

Good luck with that. The Yokozuna many Japanese fans want to love is a Japanese-born rikishi. But given the poor quality of Japanese wrestlers, and the increasing dominance of the foreign born, it’s likely that Japanese fans may need to settle for a more loveable Mongolian, at least for a few years to come.

Bonus links: Banzuke.com has video footage of the first 14 days of the May basho - I’m anxiously awaiting the 15th day, so I can see the match between Asa and Hakuho. I recommend Hakuho’s defeat of Kotooshu on day 12 as a useful introduction to his skills. (Hakuho’s on the left - the Bulgarian is the tall guy on the right.) While you’re at it, watch my main man Ama bully the big Bulgarian on day 10…

Bruce Wallace with the LA Times has the definitive Asashoryu profile, as far as I’m concerned.

The 2007 sumo season is off and running, and we’re five days into the New Year basho at Ryogoku Kokugikan. There’s less excitement than some would like, at least in the pre-match standings - Asashoryu (4-1) is still the only yokozuna, and of the five ozeki who might look towards promotion to yokozuna, fellow Mongolian Hakuho (3-2) looks like the only rikishi likely to threaten his dominance. Hakuho is recovering from a broken toe, and while he’s pretty fighting well so far, he won’t likely be promoted after this tournament, even if he outpaces Asashoryu, as he missed last year’s final two tournaments. (Indeed, a bad tournament and he’ll likely drop from Ozeki ranks.)

The drama so far, for those of us who root for the Mongolian wrestlers, has been Ama’s brave performance right after his father’s death. The smallest (124kg!) of all wrestlers in top-level sumo, Ama (4-1) has risen to #4 maegashira rapidly with a combination of brilliant technique and a great deal of self-confidence. But he’s clearly shaken in this tournament by the news he received on December 29th of his father’s death in a car crash and his brother’s injury. He returned to Mongolia soon after, and didn’t come back to Tokyo until the day before the basho.

Ama asked his stable manager to allow him to sit out the basho - according to reports from Sumotalk, he wasn’t able to eat for several days after receiving the news, and asked some of his stablemates to sleep in his room. Photos of Ama after his first match - a hard-fought victory over the Estonian Baruto - show him with his face buried in a towel. (Image stolen from SumoTalk, who you really should be reading every day during this basho.)

Despite his psychological struggles, Ama’s having an excellent tournament - he won his first three matches before losing to the Georgian Kokkai (2-3). He’s had strong support from his countrymen, including Asashoryu, who said that he’s drawn inspiration from Ama’s brave performance. Ama’s father was an elite wrestler in Mongolia and had urged the Ajigawa-oyakata (the stablemaster of the Ajigawa stable) to bring his son to Japan, saying “Please take him. He will give you his all.” So far, the son has honored the father’s promise.

I’ll be rooting for Ama this tournament… then again, I’m always rooting for Ama. But I have high hopes that Ama will perform well enough to win his second fighting spirit prize. I remember Brett Farve’s 41-7 victory over the Raiders just a day after his father’s death as one of the most extraordinary football games I’ve ever seen. Sustaining that sort of intensity over a fifteen day tournament, while grieving? That’s an amazing test of character.

Asashoryu lifts Ama out of the ring at a demonstration match in Las Vegas, 2005. Still think these guys aren’t athletes?

A brief pause from the serious events of the world to ask a key question:

Dude, how did Hakuho not get promoted to yokozuna?

After a slow start to his basho - two losses by day 9, Hakuho won the remainer of his bouts to finish 13-2. That last, thirteenth win wasn’t exactly a minor achievement - it was the defeat of Asashoryu in what sounds like an excellent, tense bout. And the powers that be had indicated that Hakuho would likely be promoted if he won 13 of 15 and either won the tournament or was runner-up. 13, check. Runner-up, check. Promotion, nope.

The audience thought he deserved promotion, cheering the match with great vigor. But it was not to be:

However, the Mongolian 21-year-old’s hopes of making yokozuna after only his second tournament as an ozeki were dashed by association chairman Kitanoumi, who along with other officials, confirmed that Hakuho’s promotion–and that of sekiwake Miyabiyama to ozeki–would have to wait until after September’s tournament.

“The tournament had already been decided,” Kitanoumi said in reference to Asashoryu’s triumph on Day 14. “But Hakuho did a good job chalking up 13 wins. We just want to see another tournament.”

This last comment is an interesting one - Kitanoumi is implying that Asashoryu might not have fought as hard in his final match as he would have if Hakuho had been capable of snatching the Emperor’s Cup - Asashoryu’s 17th. Given that Asa and Hakuho are countrymen - causing commentators to refer to the match as “the Battle of the Khans” - there’s additional speculation that Asa might have wanted Hakuho to have the win.

You might view this as disrespectful to Hakuho for implying that he can’t beat Asa in a fair fight - he’s 4-7, by my count, not a bad record agains the yokozuna - or to Asashoryu for suggesting that the yokozuna might throw a match. But it may just mean that Kitanoumi is a fan of Freakonomics.

One of Steven Levitt’s most discussed (though, perhaps, not one of his most read) papers is a collaboration with Mark Duggan, titled “Winning Isn’t Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling”. Quoting from the abstract:

A non-linearity in the incentive structure of promotion leads to gains from trade between wrestlers on the margin for achieving a winning record and their opponents. We show that wrestlers win a disproportionate share of the matches when they are on the margin. Increased effort can not explain the findings.

To unpack a bit: Finishing a tournament 7-8 is a lot worse than finishing 8-7. The difference between 9-6 and 8-7 is pretty minor - they’re both undistinguished winning records - while the difference between the 7-8 losing record and an 8-7 winning record can mean the difference between remaining at a high rank and being demoted, with commensurate losses in sponsorship, pay and so on. So when two rikishi face off on the 15th day, with one at 7-7 and one at 8-6, the first rikishi has a lot more on the line than the second.

Using statistical techniques I don’t even pretend to understand, Levitt and Duggan demonstrate that just sheer effort can’t explain how often the 7-7 rikishi wins those matches - they speculate that rigging takes place, observing that matches with wrestlers in the same stable show strong rigging evidence, and that rigging tends to decrease in times of increased media scrutiny.

The point in this case is that there is some part of the phenomenon attributable to increased effort. Asa is going to win the Emperor’s Cup whether he finishes 14-1 or 15-0. Hakuho, however, has lots more on the line - at 13-2, he believes he’s going to get promoted, while at 12-3, the probably won’t be. Perhaps he gives just a bit more and Asa a bit less, even if the two haven’t discussed the situation, made any agreements or chosen to consciously throw the match.

One way or another, we’ve now got a rikishi who can consistently threaten the Yokozuna… unlike the other ozeki, who largely struggled to put together barely-winning records. Whether Hakuho is promoted now or after the next tournament, it’s coming soon, and it should make sumo even more exciting to watch.

Israel and Lebanon are at war again, and bloggers IM one another across the border while missles land in their cities. Bloodshed in Iraq has escalated to the point where more than 100 civilians per day die violently. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, forcing US and Afghan troops to retake villages from their control. Iran and North Korea both threaten possible nuclear calamity. And the world’s largest democracy - after facing flooding and terrorist bombs - is ham-handedly squashing online speech.

I understand if you haven’t been keeping up with the world of sumo. It’s okay, I’m here to fill you in.

We’re 11 days in to the summer basho in Nagoya, far enough in that we can make some predictions about likely outcomes of the next four bouts. After missing the previous tournament with an elbow injury, Asashoryu is back in fine fettle, 11-0, and is unlikely to face a serious challenge for the Emperor’s cup, which would be his 17th. While the dominance of the graceful Mongolian is hardly news, there’s an interesting set of subplots that are surely worth your attention.

Ozeki Hakuho, a young Mongolian rikishi who has been tearing through the ranks of professional sumo. He came to Japan young and underweight, and was evidently only able to find a stable through the intervention of Kyokushuzan, the grand old man (he’s my age, 33) of Mongolian sumo. Hakuho has grown into a classic sumo body - 192cm, 153kg - and has proved a threat to almost everyone but Asashoryu. He was promoted to Ozeki at the March basho and won the May tournament… the tourament that Asa was forced to skip.

The sumo authorities have suggested that Hakuho will be promoted to Yokozuna, creating a truly unusual situation in sumo - two Mongolian yokozuna. The usual criteria for promotion - winning two consecutive tournaments as an Ozeki - is probably impossible with Asashoryu’s current dominance. Instead, if Hakuho wins 12 or 13 matches and finishes as the runner-up, many believe he’ll be awarded the wide rope. With two early losses, this looked unlikely, but Hakuho appears to have regained his confidence and is currently tied for second with three other wrestlers. It will require skilled wrestling and more than a little luck for Hakuho to join Asashoryu this tournament… but it’s certainly something to watch.

Unfortunately, some of my other favorite Mongolians are having dreadful tournaments. Ama, the smallest rikishi currently competing, is 3-8… and his most recent victory was against Kyokushuzan, who must be thinking about retirement after a miserable tournament, where he’s currently 1-10. Kyokutenho is 3-8 as well.

Would two Mongolian yokozuna be good or bad for sumo? With sumo’s popularity reaching new lows in Japan - only one prospective apprentice turned up for the physical exam preceding the Nagoya tournament, tying an all-time low - it seems reasonable to look for the future of sumo outside of Japan. Two Yokozuna would change the dynamic of tournaments - instead of watching Asa destroy the competition and wonder whether he’s go undefeated, there will be speculation about whether he’s getting older and whether Hakuho is getting better.

But foreign-born sumo are making headlines for the wrong reasons in Japan as well. Roho - the Russian bear - was recently suspended after a “tantrum” following an ugly match with Ozeki Chiyotaikai. Roho evidently broke a window and slapped two photographers after exchanging words with the Ozeki. He’s been suspended for three bouts… which he’ll probably need to let his hand heal. And Ozeki Kotooshu - the tall, handsome Bulgarian - has had disappointing tournaments since his promotion - 8-7 in May, 9-6 in March, 10-5 in January. At 6-5, he seems to continue his losing trend.

Will Asashoryu remain undefeated? Will we see two Mongolian yokozuna? Which eastern European will get into trouble next?

I promise to keep you up to date, so you can go back to worrying about all that less enjoyable (and more important) world news.

Sanjay was kind enough to ask for links to sumo video available in the US. Goo Sumo used to offer video of all the matches - they continue to provide a real-time video service, but I usually try to be asleep at 4pm JST. Looking for an answer to his question, I found myself back at Banzuke.com, marvelling at their amazing collection of movies - almost every bout heading back to 2000. Only two days of the current tournament are posted at present, but you can check out the Roho/Chiyotaikai match that led to Roho’s “tantrum” and suspension. Looks like Chiyo was badly out of line, having words with Roho in the dohyo, a tremendously disrespectful thing to do.

My Tivo periodically reminds me that I’m a sumo fan, recording random sumo-related TV shows. Because I live in the US, these shows rarely include actual sumo matches. ESPN used to show highlights of Japanese tournaments, but stopped some years ago. So most of the “sumo” I’m exposed to is like tonight’s, a cooking show that focuses in part on Chanko-Nabe, the protein-rich stew rishiki (wrestlers) eat to bulk up and generate energy.

So I rely on the Internet, which tells me that the Mongolian invasion of sumo is proceeding nicely. Asashoryu continues to be the sole yokozuna, despite two somewhat dissapointing tournaments this year. Hakuho had two great basho, and became the sixth non-Japanese ozeki, joining Bulgarian Kotooshu. Meanwhile, two of the three Japanese ozeki had a terrible March basho, dropping out with injuries. (My guess - Kaio gets sent down soon, while Tochiazuma is promoted to Yokozuna by year’s end.) In recognition of the increasing relationship between Mongolia and sumo, Mongolian prime minister Enkhbold attended the final day of the Osaka tournament, and the Japan Sumo Association is planning a “training tour” of Mongolia this summer.

And I rent movies, like the excellent Sumo East and West. Released in 2004, the film focuses on the last foreign invasion, the arrival of Hawaiian wrestlers in the top ranks of Japanese sumo. Akebono became sumo’s first foreign-born Yokozuna in 1993, following in the footsteps of Konishiki, sumo’s first foreign-born ozeki. Both men were from Oahu - Akebono is better known at home as Chad Rowan.

Also from Oahu is the central character of the documentary, Wayne Vierra. Vierra was working his way up the ranks of sumo in Japan, training in the same stable with Akebono when his pancreas burst. (This wasn’t strictly a sumo injury, but a congenital defect aggravated by sumo.) It took him long enough to recover that he was ineligible to continue wrestling in Japan.

This was a major tragedy, as Vierra was really, really good. He also fell in love with Japan, learning the language amd acclimating to the culture. Vierra tells us that he was capable of beating everyone in his stable other than Akebono… But Vierra hasn’t given up on sumo, becoming one of the most successful rishiki in the international amateur circuit, and coaching young wrestlers at home in Oah, including his wife, who’s competing in women’s sumo.

There’s a long history of sumo in Hawaii. The sport was brought from Japanese immigrants, who came as contract laborers to work in sugarcane fields. One of the most memorable bits of Sumo East and West is a short clip of film, shot by Thomas Edison in Hawaii in 1903, of a sumo tournament. After the second World War, many Japanese-Americans were anxious to assimilate, and gave up sumo for more “American” sports. But Polynesian and haole wrestlers took up the sport, inspired by Japanese goodwill tours and exhibition matches, which began in 1962.

After the first of these tours, Jesse Kuhaulua came to Japan from Maui and became Takamiyama, the first foreign wrestler to win the Makuuchi division championship. Takamiyama never became ozeki, but holds the record for competing in the most tournaments at the highest level. He took Japanese citizenship and opened a sumo stable - the stable ultimately responsible for training Akebono.

But it hasn’t always been an easy relationship between Hawaii and sumo. Many sumo fans believed that Konishiki deserved Yokozuna promotion at the height of his career and was held back due to racism. Some fans made reference to Commodore Perry’s “Black Ships”, which opened trade between the US and Japan - the reference was a not-so-subtle reference to Konishiki’s large size, and his dark skin color, as well as reference to Japan’s markets being forced open. Konishiki has had the last laugh - late in his career, he became extremely popular with Japanese fans, and has carved out a career as a singer and entertainer in Japan.

In the 1990s, it was popular to talk about how Hawaiian wrestlers were changing the face of sumo. Now wrestlers from the former Soviet Union former Soviet-influenced nations, especially from Mongolia, are transforming the sport. And it’s a good thing - as the filmmakers point out, very few Japanese schoolchildren are interested in learning sumo. I have high hopes that, in a few years, we’ll see “Sumo East and East”, a documentary about the rise of Mongolians in sumo and the links between bayirldax and sumo.

Or that ESPN will start showing highlights from the tournaments again. Or both.

A few months back, a friend asked me a wonderful question: “What have you learned about life from watching sumo?” I offered the following answers:

- The biggest and strongest don’t always win.

- When a huge man rushes at you with violence on his mind, stepping out of his way is sometimes the best option.

- Days are 86,400 seconds long. Most matches last about 3 seconds. Counterintuitively, the other 86,397 seconds are equally, if not more, important.

- It’s hard to maintain your composure and dignity when you lose. It’s even harder when you win.

- If you are centered, balanced and of good character, people will see your power, gravitas and grace, even if you’re wearing a silk diaper.

It’s been a lively 48 hours in Mongolia, a country where it’s never too cold for political tumult. On Wednesday, ten ministers in Prime Minister Elbegdorj’s cabinet resigned, forcing formation of a new government.

Elbegdorj was named Prime Minister in 2004 as part of a compromise “Grand Coalition” government. 2004 parliamentary elections were very close - the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP - the former Communist party) lost their dominance of Mongolia’s parliament, the Grand Hural, winning only 38 of 76 seats. They were forced into a coalition with the Democratic Union Coalition, a coalition of reformist parties. The head of the DUC, Elbegdorj was named Prime Minister, but the majority of ministerial positions were given to MPRP members.

The ten ministers who resigned were all MPRP members. It’s widely speculated that they’ve resigned in order to force formation of a new government with an MPRP Prime Minister at the head, marginalizing the DUC.

The ministers’ resignation led to street protests by supporters of Elbegdorj and the DUC. Supporters marched from the parliament building to the headquarters of the MPRP, where they smashed windows and attempted to enter the building. While the rioting took place, the Grand Hural voted to accept the ministerial resignations, dissolving the government. Next week, the Hural will reconvene to find a path forward, which could include a new coalition, or plans for a general election.

Mongolia’s not Ukraine, despite what the US blogosphere is likely to write once right-wing bloggers hear that people are rioting in the streets against the former Communists. Elections in Mongolia have been free and competitive since shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The government elected in 1996 moved far from the policies of Communist Mongolia - when free market economics proved a challenge for a previously state-controlled economy, control of the Grand Hural swung back to the Communists in 2000. The dissolution of the coalition of the Communists and their opponents is hardly a surprise, and points to the fact that Mongolian politics is freewheeling and democratic. (Chris Miller, writing from Ulaanbaatar, has more insights on Mongolian politics and recent developments.)

Nathan Hamm of Registan (and Global Voices, where he edits Central Asia and Eastern Europe) is following the events from afar and links to several blogs with perspectives on the situation, including yuu bna?, Mongolian Matters and Tom Terry.

Mr. Terry, a Christian missionary, and one of the organizers of independent Mongolian television station, EagleTV, has a particularly interesting view of the events on the ground, as his reporters are rushing around Ulaanbaatar to cover the parliamentary debates and the street protests. His criticism of Mongolia’s state-owned television stations is a bit self-serving, as his venture competes with them, but his accounts have some great details in them:

Meanwhile, a quick scan of local channels reveals the irresponsibility of Mongolian TV stations as every single one of them is busy showing Sumo wrestling pirated from NHK in Japan instead of the dramatic changes taking place in their government today - sometimes with violence.

(Well, duh. Asashoryu’s 4-1, as is Ama, and former Sekiwake Hakuho is undefeated at 5-0. Maybe Tom’s not a sumo fan.)

Writing today, Mr. Terry wonders if the CUD’s supporers’ decision to call off protests until Monday suggests that the protests will fizzle out. Protests so far have been unusually lively, including burned effigies of MPRP leaders. Terry reports:

Mongols tend to be very respectful of their leaders, even when they disagree with them - or hate them. But today Mongolian politics rose to a new level when protesters burned President Enkbayar, parliament member Badamjugunai, and Chief of Public Transportation Puvedorj in effigy. Such a thing has never happened in Mongolia.

Indeed, one of Mongolia’s great assets is that it’s been a stable, sane, democratic state in a tough part of the globe. I suspect Mongolian pragmatism and good humor will lead to a rapid solution to this current tumult… but it’s certainly going to be interesting to watch.

I’m on my winter vacation from now until January 5th, which means, according to the circular I just got in the mail from the International Bloggers Union, Local 137, I’m not required to post every day and I’m encouraged to post on topics my regular readers may not care about.

You know, like sumo.

(There’s now a sumo category on the blog, so that all those who could care less about the sport can make a point of ignoring any post on the topic.)

Like all of you (:-), I’m waiting with bated breath for the January Basho at Ryogoku Kokugikan. Will Asashoryu continue his amazing dominance of the sport, breaking more records in 2006? Will Kaio and Chiyotaikai, two of the most mediocre ozeki in history, get demoted yet again and make room for some of the young wrestlers to ascend? Just how good is Kotooshu, the new Bulgarian ozeki? Will he challenge Asashoryu? What would it mean for the sport to have two non-Japanese yokozuna?

If Japanese commentators are to be believed, Kotooshu’s success could be sumo’s downfall. If a Mongolian and a Bulgarian dominated sumo together, it’s possible that attendence at matches would fall even further from today’s disappointing numbers. A recent commentary in Kyodo News asks “Why can’t Japanese beat Asashoryu?“. The answer - because he’s really, really good - doesn’t appear to be satisfactory. Instead, there’s concern that Japanese wrestlers don’t train enough, don’t eat right, and generally aren’t offering Asa the sort of competition he would have seen a decade earlier, if he’d had to wrestle yokozuna like Takanohana and Wakanohana.

(It’s hard for me, as an unabashed Mongoliaphile, to understand how Asashoryu can be shown such contempt in Japanese sumo. Not all, but some, sumo fans have begun treating the three Japanese ozeki as yokozuna - when I attended a match this spring at Kokugikan, the smiling ladies of the sumo fan club were handing out folders emblazoned with images of ozeki Tochiazuma, not of Asashoryu. And when Asa beat ozeki Chiyotaikai to win his seventh consecutive emperor’s cup, some fans threw square cushions at the dohyo, which is traditionally done when a yokozuna is defeated.)

For anyone who’s worried about the increasing non-Japanese dominance of sumo, the event I watched on ESPN2 a few days back has to be worrisome indeed. “The World Sumo Challenge” - held on October 22nd in Madison Square Garden, New York - was advertised as “the first stop on the North American Sumo tour”. It’s unclear whether Big Boy Entertainment, the organizers of the event, were able to schedule any additional stops on the tour, or whether the 8,000 fans who watched a round-robin tournament of 24 rishiki from around the world fight have become sumo fans, or whether they simply enjoyed the novelty of big men wearing mawashi.

Some of the “additions” made to the format to make the sport more interesting to non-Japanese audiences were pretty absurd. The organizers decided to organize the wrestlers into four “timeless warrior clans” - “Black Tiger”, “Iron Mountain”, “Shadow Jin” and “Wrath of Heaven” - perhaps in the hopes of giving the audience teams to root for. The format didn’t really allow for this, though, as the playoff format forced wrestler to fight other wrestlers in their “clan”, before advancing the two most successful to the single-elimination finals round. And I’ve never seen a match in Japan begin with the announcer yelling, “Let’s get ready to sssssSUMO!”

(This wasn’t the only non-traditional aspect of the match. The wrestlers didn’t purify the ring with salt before the matches. The dohyo was a wrestling mat with a raised ridge, not straw bales and clay. I got the pretty clear sense that retired yokozuna Musashimaru, providing color commentary, thought the whole experience was a pretty pale shadow of actual Japanese sumo. Or he might just have been pissed off with his insipid co-anchor, Al Pawlowski, who appears to work as a soccer commentator most of the time.)

On the other hand, the actual bouts were pretty damned good. Most of the folks competing are high-ranked amateur fighters in Europe. I was hugely impressed by Sydney Carty, who’s been sumo champion of the Netherlands several times, and handily won his earlier matches with flawless uwatenage (arm throws). It was a great chance to see a number of terrific wrestlers from Eastern Europe, especially Bulgaria and Georgia, which appear to have deep reserves of small (roughly 130kg), strong, fast wrestlers. Bulgarian Petar Stoyanov was extremely impressive and stayed in competition until the last bout with Mitshuhiko Fukao, a massive Japanese wrestler who offered a clinic in slapping techniques, ending most of his matches with tsukidashi victories (pushing the opponent out of the ring with repeated thrusts).

Fukao was the crowd favorite, perhaps because he looks like Americans expect sumo wrestlers to look: Asian and profoundly obese. And there’s no denying he’s extremely talented… But if you’re looking for the future of sumo, there’s good evidence that there’s talent in Bulgaria beyond Kotooshu and in Georgia beyond Kokkai.

It would be exciting to see the two major experiments in popularizing sumo in the US - the MSG event, and the Grand Sumo Las Vegas tournament, which featured most of the leading Japanese rikishi - could be combined. Would any of the amateurs featured in New York have a fighting chance against the top competitors in Japan?

And if they did, how would that change the sport? Is it possible that sumo could become truly globalized, with a regular international match that pitted the top atheletes in the sport against one another? One intriguing possibility - if sumo became a sanctioned Olympic sport, we would likely see some of the world’s best face off every four years.

And that could lead to some interesting developments. Basketball was invented in the United States and has become a religion here, at the NBA and college level. And yet America’s Olympic team (which, admittedly, didn’t include many of the nation’s best players) got clobbered at the 2004 Summer Games… shortly after getting clobbered in the 2002 World Basketball Championships. If Japan shares sumo with the world, will they face a similar fate?

I’m crossing my fingers for a chance to find out.