Taro Akebono, a Hawaii-born sumo wrestler who grew to become the game’s first international grand champion and helped to gasoline a resurgence within the sport’s reputation within the Nineteen Nineties, has died in Tokyo. He was 54.
He died of coronary heart failure in early April whereas receiving care at a Tokyo hospital, based on a press release from his household that was distributed by the USA navy in Japan on Thursday.
When he grew to become Japan’s sixty fourth yokozuna, or grand champion sumo wrestler, in 1993, he was the primary foreign-born wrestler to realize the game’s highest title in its 300-year trendy historical past. He went on to win a complete of 11 grand championships, and his success set the stage for an period throughout which foreign-born wrestlers dominated the highest ranges of Japan’s nationwide sport.
Akebono, who was 6-foot-8 and 466 kilos when he was first named yokozuna at 23, towered over his Japanese opponents. Painfully shy outdoors the dohyo, because the sumo ring is thought, he was identified for utilizing his top and attain to maintain opponents at a distance.
Akebono’s rivalry with the Japanese brothers Takanohana and Wakanohana, each grand champions, was a serious driver of sumo’s renewed reputation within the Nineteen Nineties. Through the opening ceremony for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, Akebono demonstrated the sumo ring entrance ritual for a world viewers, commanding the world together with his hulking physique and charming stare.
Taro Akebono was born Chad George Ha’aheo Rowan in Waimanalo, Hawaii, in 1969. He performed basketball in highschool and briefly at Hawaii Pacific College earlier than shifting to Japan in 1988 on the invitation of a fellow Hawaiian wrestler who had turn into a coach.
Figuring out nothing about Japan and talking virtually no Japanese, {the teenager} started dwelling and coaching at a sumo secure ruled by strict hierarchy, cooking and cleansing for extra skilled wrestlers. Quickly he was charting a meteoric rise via the game’s ranks, dominating together with his measurement.
“We have been simply brute power,” he mentioned in a later interview, referring to himself and fellow wrestlers from Hawaii within the Nineteen Nineties. “We gained quick or we misplaced quick. We weren’t too technical.”
In 1992, the Yokozuna Promotion Council, which decides which wrestlers are worthy of sumo’s prime honor, denied it to a different Hawaiian, saying no foreigner might possess the dignity befitting the title. The choice prompted allegations of racism and raised questions in regards to the council’s choice course of. Solely a handful of wrestlers maintain the title on the similar time, and they’re chosen via a vote from candidates who’ve gained two consecutive tournaments.
A yr later, simply 5 years after arriving in Japan and becoming a member of the game, Akebono broke via that barrier.
He later mentioned in interviews that he not often thought-about his nationality within the ring, pondering of himself as a sumo wrestler firstly. He grew to become a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1996, and adjusted his title to Taro Akebono. His chosen sumo title, “Akebono,” means daybreak in Japanese.
“I wasn’t pondering, ‘I’m an American, I’m going to go on the market, plant my flag in the course of the ring and tackle the Japanese,’” he informed The New York Occasions in 2013.
He gained acceptance and recognition within the sumo world partially as a result of individuals in Japan appreciated his devotion to the game, regardless that in his early competitions, cheers from the group have been far louder for his Japanese-born rivals.
“He makes me overlook he’s a foreigner due to his earnest angle towards sumo,” Yoshihisa Shimoie, editor of Sumo journal, mentioned in 1993. By the early 2000s, dozens of the ranked wrestlers have been international, together with Mongolians, a Georgian and an Argentine.
Akebono is survived by his spouse, Christine Rowan, daughter Caitlyn, 25, and sons Cody, 23, and Connor, 20, based on the household.
In 2001, he retired from the game at 31, citing power knee issues. He went on to coach youthful wrestlers, and likewise competed in kickboxing, skilled wrestling and combined martial arts.
“I’m retiring with a sense of nice gratitude for being given the prospect to turn into a yokozuna and expertise one thing open to solely only a few individuals,” he mentioned on the time of his retirement.
Motoko Wealthy contributed reporting.
