Kuchikomi Dec. 21, 2010 - 07:15AM JST ( 9 )

TOKYO —

On Dec 5, police in Fukutsu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, arrested a 17-year-old sumo apprentice on the charge of attempted burglary.

Weekly Playboy (Dec 27) reports that at about 4 a.m. the same day, a woman sleeping on the second floor of a building that housed a drinking establishment downstairs was awakened when he opened her door. After she challenged him, he muttered, “Excuse me” and fled. She summoned the police, and based on her description, the intruder was tracked to the facility where he was staying. He admitted to the break-in.

“It’s a sign of how sloppy the world of sumo is over money,” remarks Mr A, a former wrestler. “Some dishonest youngsters do gravitate to the sport, and in our stable, money got pilfered from wallets or wristwatches got ripped off, but we kept the details from outsiders. But I’ve never heard of an outright burglary. I can’t sympathize with this kid for what he did, but since he apparently wasn’t getting any ‘hone-ori’ (wrestler’s slang for pocket money), he must have been really hard up.”

Apprentice wrestlers in the bottom jonokuchi division receive a subsistence-level stipend of 70,000 yen once every two months. Without the additional “hone-ori” supplements from their stable master or higher-ranked senior, they can barely manage.

Unfortunately, patrons’ generous cash gifts to senior wrestlers have been drying up, due both to the economic recession and the general decline in sumo’s popularity. “You see very few generous patrons these days,” says a source inside the sumo world. “In the old days, it was common for a rikishi to rake in more in cash gifts from patrons than his own salary.”

In better times, for example, when a grappler made an appearance at a gathering of his supporters, he would be handed an envelope containing several tens of thousands of yen as his “kuruma-dai” (car fare). Another cash bonus would be forthcoming in tournaments when he achieved “kachi-koshi” (a majority of 8 or more wins, making possible promotion up the rankings ladder).

“That was when times were good, but not now,” says the aforementioned source. “The other day a promising young rikishi was boosted into the second-tier juryo division, and when he met his supporters, they didn’t even give him a celebratory bonus, let alone car fare. In the old days, this would have been unthinkable. So if it’s come to this for the upper-ranked wrestlers, think how bad things must be for the unsalaried youngsters at the bottom, who can’t benefit from ‘trickle-down’ economics.”

The recent scandals over illegal betting on baseball games, or revelations that yakuza bosses obtained tickets to special box seats at ringside—which led to highly publicized efforts by police to wean sumo of its ties to gangsters—also appear to have had a pronounced effect on wrestlers’ incomes.

“That’s because the hoods were a lot more generous,” says A, the former wrestler. “They’d present a wrestler half a million yen at a time and say, ‘Here’s some pocket money for you.’”

Grapplers are also feeling the pinch because they are expected to foot the bill for services that they once received for free.

“Before, rikishi didn’t have to pay for their medical treatment,” A says. “The doctor would just tell them, ‘Go out there and give it all you’ve got,’ and waive payment. But now even the younger ones have to pay out of their own pocket. Things are getter tighter all the time.”

A staff member of an investment company relates how he was recently approached by a juryo division wrestler for advice on capital management. “He said to me, ‘My colleagues are all anxious about their future.’ It seemed so un-sumo-like to me, as wrestlers are well known for their ostentatious spending habits.”

Perhaps, mulls Weekly Playboy, the apprentice arrested for the break-in was unacquainted with an old saying promising fame and fortune that goes, “The sumo ring is like a tree from which money falls.”