Sumo University or Actual University? College Sumo Wrestlers Over Time
Last week we explored age at debut in the top 6 Sumo divisions and how over the most recent decades we’ve seen average age at debut drift upwards. Just casually knowing some of the current top prospects, and even wrestlers such as Onosato and Takerufuji shows a shift in where the top prospects come from1. Well a couple folks requested it in the comments and my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look into quantifying just how many wrestlers are going to college before joining the professional ranks, and furthermore how that has shifted over time. Spoiler alert: it’s more and more college wrestlers over time, and the trend may even be accelerating. I am pleased that looking around online, I don’t believe anyone else has quantified it in this manner. I’m always proud when we’re able to provide research and analysis that either hasn’t been done elsewhere or done with similar rigor. We also break down the top colleges for wrestlers and how college vs non-college wrestlers’ careers compare.
First, some notes on the data: I used the same set of wrestlers I did last week. That means if you participated in a Basho from 1958-2023 in the top 6 divisions, and have a birthday on SumoDB, I queried that wrestler and their university status. As for the university status, I simply used the records at SumoDB and looked to see if there was a line for “University”. Here’s Onosato’s page showing what that looks like, and here’s Atamifuji’s showing what it looks like with no university - it really ought to just be that one line difference.
So without further ado, let’s look at the numbers
As we can see, already in the 2020’s, the percentage of college wrestlers has gone up substantially. In fact, it was only in the 2000’s that University wrestlers became more than essentially a rounding error. Between this and last week’s piece on age of wrestlers, there’s a PhD thesis on changes in Japanese culture, society, and potentially demographics and how that feeds into these manifestations we’re seeing. But this is a sumo blog so carrying on!
Here’s another fun thing to check out: which universities did these wrestlers go to?
It turns out Nihon University is the largest university in Japan (per Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt) so in that respect it makes sense.
Let’s go even further. I compared the average number of Bashos participated in for wrestlers with a university background vs those without. I also looked at their average peak rank. In my system, Yokozuna 1 East is rank 1, Yokozuna 1 West (if there is one) is 2, and so on, so like golf it’s better to be lower.
Investigating that, I saw there have actually been a couple of men with university backgrounds who reached Yokozuna. Confusingly Wikipedia says Wajima “remains the only wrestler with a collegiate background to reach its highest rank.” However, Asahifuji also made Yokozuna having attended Kinki University per Wikipedia also2. Asanoyama went there too. You likely are more familiar with Asahifuji nowadays for being the stablemaster at Isegahama Heya. Regarding the discrepancy on Wikipedia, I’m guessing it has to do with graduating, but yep, Onosato and Takerufuji won’t be our first college Yokozuna - if they make it of course!
Looking at the numbers we can see that Rikishi with No University background wrestle longer, and don’t reach the same heights in the Banzuke. In fact, that difference of 27 career Bashos divided by 6 Bashos per year comes out to an extra 4.5 years wrestling on average for the No University group. I’ll have to eventually look at age of retirement on average and see if the two groups are retiring at similar ages. Similarly, I’d like to examine down the line if they have similar amounts of injuries, but that’s another post.
As for Peak Rank, 71 is just outside the Sekitori (top 2 divisions; 42 for Makuuchi + 28 for Juryo). For the No University wrestlers, a Peak Rank of 334 is in the Sandanme. So pretty good evidence that the University cohort are generally better wrestlers.
This was a fun piece. I thought it would actually be a bit boring and dry but not particularly insightful but seeing the trends over time, getting an idea of the top universities for Sumo and then comparing college vs no college wrestlers I think we learned a lot of interesting stuff. Thanks for reading!
Recall that in examining Yokozuna and their origins we learned that most Yokozuna reach Makuuchi by 21 or so. Obviously if they’re in college that becomes quite difficult if not outright impossible.
It is now known as Kindai University literally to avoid the association with “kinky” in English. Again, per Wikipedia which I’m showing might not be the most reliable?