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If the promise of grunting, sweating bare butted men is not enough of a distraction from the every day, sumo’s grand champion bad-boy is once again kicking up an eastern storm.
A series of seemingly tame incidents — including a Japanese TV commentator calling the sport’s premier fighter Asashoryu "porky" — has the cheeky Mongolian yokozuna and his fans reeling.
But the new controversies may just further pin down his reputation as the sport’s premier dark side.
Asashoryu, at 28 years old, is one of the greatest combatants sumo has ever known. But while such elite fighters were once beyond reproach, the Japanese media, and even those within the sport, have taken sharp aim at Asashoryu’s wild side.
“They were once like top politicians or royalty,” Chris Gould, editor for the online Sumo Fan Magazine, explains of wrestlers of old.
“Thirty years ago, sumo was a national sport, and people were determined to keep in squeaky clean,” he explains to Sun Media on the line from his home, a short drive outside Tokyo.
A dwindling audience, including young people who would rather follow western celebrities and sports stars, has opened sumo contenders to a new world of criticism. As for their top draw — though Gould argues he’s been great for the sport — there are those who say Asashoryu doesn’t have the dignity to claim the elite rank of yokozuna.
Earlier this year, he had to hire security, to keep him safe after threats.
“We’ve even seen him under house arrest,” says Gould, who’s been following the sport for more than 20 years.
That penalty followed an incident where he played in a football game after handing in a doctor’s note claiming a bad back for sumo.
Asashoryu also got into a fight in a communal bath.
And don’t get traditionalists started on the Hawaiian shirts he wears.
Supporters say the battle between Asashoryu and the Japanese press — he recently told journalists to drop dead — has a slightly xenophobic tone. Demonstrations in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator have pushed that point.
The "porky" comment was made soon after Asashoryu’s marriage broke down.
Asashoryu’s response was: “I’ve proved people wrong in the past and I’ll do it again.”
But his days of causing tremors with fighting prowess, if not his attitude, may be coming to an end.
Promoters have been billing him as the bad guy in fights against fellow Mongolian Hakuho, the sport’s other yokozuna.
“He’s a guy you could bring home to…mother,” Gould explains of Asashoryu’s nemesis.
“As for good versus evil, Hakuho is four to one against Asashoryu this year, so good is definitely triumphing.”