Free Chad Rowan!!!

[Mr Punch]

With every family size nappy pack!:D

OK OK I mean, let's free Akebono from the constraints of sumodom into a well-rounded MMA superstar Chad Rowan!

I reckon

1) 2 hours a day working kicks on a heavy bag;

2) 2 hours a day sparring with kickboxers and an aim to setting up those kicks;

3) 2 hours a day of regular sparring;

for 6 mths...

a change of management to get him into Pride, so at least he can use palms, slams and throws... though I think we should leave the groundwork till he can roll onto his side without a small crane...

Anyone else reckon it can be done?! :D

If so how?!

Chad for KFO's champion!!!

[CrippledAvenger]

I don't mean to hijiack this thread or anything, but I remember reading that sumotori were originally very muscular and not obese at all. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, why and when did the change occur?

[Merryprankster]

While Akebono and Musashimaru are indeed VERY heavy, take a look at most of the sumitori and you've got guys that look more like NFL linemen than big fat slobs. Sure, they're carrying a little extra, but you can see they are enormously powerful guys.

Why'd they get heavy? Because in a sport where the object is to get any part of the body other than the soles of the feet to touch the ground or push somebody out of an area, size matters :D

[Chang Style Novice]

Free Chad Rowan!

(with purchase of two Chad Rowans of equal or greater value)

;)

[Mr Punch]

No-fat style. (http://www.claireworks.net/sumo/images/chiyonofuji1-small.jpg)
Maybe the last of the great old style:
(Excerpt from The Joy of Sumo by David Benjamin. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1991. pp 40-41).
Chiyo, or "the Wolf" as the press liked to call him, retired in May of 1991. He was a wrestler who bore the unmistakable mark of immortality, like Pele or Julius Erving. He quietly forced the entire sumo galaxy to revolve around him. Other sumo wrestlers have recently begun to emulate his regimen, physique and style, but when I began to succumb to the pleasures of sumo back in 1987 there was no one even close to Chiyonofuji.
For one thing, he looked different. He had, f'rinstance, no boobs--just a smooth, granite slab of pectoral muscle. No jellied blankets of suet rippled beneath his skin. His belly, a small hard bulge above his belt, did not bounce like a cantaloupe in a nylon bag. His arms were not the elbowless sausages with baby-fists that seem obligatory among sumo wrestlers. His arms, really, were the striking feature of Chiyonofuji's aspect. They reminded me of the coal miners with whom I onced worked, round-shouldered mountain men whose arms were a paradox of mass and dexterity. Such arms are not huge and distended like those on the denizens of Gold's Gym. But they are heavy--too heavy, certainly, to lift with a normal human shoulder--with bulges at forearm and bicep that never seem to relax, as though they've been artfully packed with riverbed stones. Yet, such arms--coal-miner, Chiyonofuji arms--swing and flex with feathery lightness. Chiyonofuji carried truncheons, but moved them like wings.
Chiyo, even without the usual indulgence one grants to the swollen face of the large athlete, was handsome. Not matinee-idol beautiful, but handsome. He affected none of the theatricality of lesser wrestlers; he was almost trancelike in his demeanor from the moment he entered the arena and bowed...to the instant of his victory when--suddenly--he betrayed himself as perhaps sumo's most expressive, emotional competitor.
One noticed Chiyonofuji, irresistably, because in his face, his body, his skill, one could see the art and discipline of sumo.

Keiko no oni:

From here. (www.claireworks.net/sumo/ facetoface1.html)
Chiyo was the son of a fisherman up in snowy Hokkaido, and since childhood he sailed with his dad and learned to haul in the nets--this, his dad claimed later, was the reason why he was able to develop arms so strong. The boy was a born athlete, all grace and balance, but he never considered joining the cloistered world of sumo, until the sumo scout offered him a plane ride to Tokyo. At 15, Mitsugu (Chiyo's real name), like many a young boy, wanted to go high up in the skies by aeroplane. When he entered the sumo-beya, his ascend was far from easy. For one thing, he was relatively skinny. Fighting at the salaried level, he dislocated his left shoulder repeatedly because his best technique, the nage (arm throw), required him to take down men more than twice his weight. His left shoulder took the brunt of it all, and the guy became prone to injury. Again and again his arm and shoulder got wrapped in a sling. Some people thought he'd just turn his back and cut off the mage, the top knot that identified a sumo guy. It was this fact--that he was so vulnerable--that made him the perfect hero. When he had enough of getting constantly broken up, Chiyo turned into a keiko no oni (training devil). He sculpted his upper body with grim determination. While his peers napped after a hard morning's training, Chiyo remained in the practice ring, doing 500 push-ups everyday. He lifted weights like there was no tomorrow. He practiced until he collapsed. And it worked. He packed in pure meat. His shoulder stopped getting dislocated. He started to beat everyone. He became the strongest, most sculpted sumo guy ever, and it was all through constant effort, the unwillingness to give up. Chiyo may have been blessed with an innate fighter's instict, but he was not born an invincible athlete. So he made himself into one.

Portrait (http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/d-sinagawa/chiyonofuji.jpg)


But back to Chad... :D
Obviously I'd teach him wing chun to utilize his straight blast style...
And Thai boxing for his kicks...
Anything else could for picking up a kicking arsenal quickly?
Within six months he'd be a third of the fighter Chiyo was! :D
Anyone else...?

[Chang Style Novice]

Sounds like a badass. Got photo?

Google image search strikes again!

Chiyonofuji's 1000th victory in the circle! (http://www.claireworks.net/sumo/images/chiyonofuji2-small.jpg)

[Mr Punch]

I prefer the one on the top of my previous post! :D

[Chang Style Novice]

For some reason that one 404ed for me before. Oops!

Anyway, I like the action shot of that throw. Nice form.

(Like he needs my opinion to validate his record:rolleyes: )

[Merryprankster]

Two up and coming stars--both mongolians--are similarly packed with muscle...

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, Asashoryu is one of the guys I think you mean. He's currently my favorite to watch.

[Merryprankster]

Yep, that's one. I like Takanohana, of course - Kaio too.