An average sumo wrestler is about 185 cm tall and weighs around 150 kilos.
The loincloth belt of a sumo wrestler is about 6-7 meters long.
The sumo wrestlers live about 65 years shorter than an avg. Japanese.
The sumo wrestlers eat chankonabe beef stew mixed with vegetables. They consume around 20,000 calories of food a day. That is why they can get fat so easily and quickly.
There are no female sumo wrestlers and women are not allowed to enter the sumo ring. Some say if a woman enters the ring it must be purified again.
Sumo wrestlers are prohibited from driving a car because of a car accident that injured a sumo wrestler years ago.
In the recent past there was a notion in Japan that the champion sumo wrestlers marry with the beauty pageants.
Sumo wrestlers cannot be independent, they must belong to a sumo house or stable. Each stable can only have 1 foreigner.
Sumo wrestling was performed in Japan as a shinto ritual as early as 250 AD.
The gunbai fan the referee holds is the same with the war fan the daimyos had.
In the past 10 years there was only 1 Japanese champion and he did not continue. Most sumo champions are Mongolians.
The referees (gyoji) carry knives to give the message that they are ready to commit seppuku if they make a mistake.
