My sumo-savvy buddy, John, clued me in to this piece of K-1 USA News:
In a press conference at the Imperial Palace Hotel, K-1 announced today that Sumo star Akebono will fight Bob Sapp on New Year’s Eve.
K-1 is Japan’s premier kickboxing promotion, and Bob Sapp is their latest star. He’s 6’7″ and 374 lbs (with defined abs) — and Akebono dwarfs him.
Akebono was born Chad Rowan in Oahu, Hawaii. In 1993 he was given the fighting name Akebono when he became the first non-Japanese to achieve the ranking of Yokozuna (Grand Champion), Sumo’s highest honor. In his nine years as a Yokozuna, Akebono amassed a sparkling record of 432 wins in 554 bouts.Said Akebono at the press conference: “I would like to announce that I, Taro Akebono, applied for leave from the Japan Sumo Association on November 5th, and today this request has been granted. From now on, I will take up a new direction as a professional fighter in K-1. I would like to thank the Japan Sumo Association and Azuma-Seki Oyakata [Akebono's stable master] for supporting me, and also everyone in the K-1 organization.”
Akebono’s announcement garnered a phenomenal amount of interest. The press conference attracted a total of 300 media people, including Japanese national broadcasters NHK. In all a total of 23 TV cameras were focused on the 34 year-old Yokozuna, making this by far the biggest-ever K-1 press conference — two TV stations went so far as to interrupt their regular programming to carry the announcement live!
Akebono said he learned about K-1 from fighters such as Francisco Filho and Ray Sefo, and wanted to compete in K-1 to show his three children (too young to have followed his Sumo career) that their father still has his fighting spirit.