The Samoan they

call Dump Truck

EVEN for sumo wrestler, he looks on the large side, weighing half a ton and aptly nicknamed Dump Truck. His nature, fortunately, is gentle, and a habit of bursting into tears after winning each bout has endeared him to fans.

But this blubbery behemoth of the dohyo, as the sumo ring is known, is more than a prize example of what industrial quantities of food can achieve: beyond trade and commerce, the mighty hulk is the latest potential threat to fragile Japanese-American relations.

Dump Truck is American Samoan raised

in Hawaii. His real name is Salevaa Atisanoe otherwise known as Konishiki, meaning Little Brocade. His problem is he is American, This in itself should matter little; several foreigners have taken up sumo wrestling in Japan, including an Argentinian, a Sri Lankan six Mongolians, But Dump Truck’s real crime is his success. So adept is he at shoving, slapping and lifting his opponents out of t h e ring that he has pushed authorities into the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to award him the ultimate sumo honour: the rank of

yokozum, or grand champion.

Only 60 wrestlers have been crowned yokozum in the 300-year history of the sport, which is thought to have orig inated in a religious ritual. None was a foreigner, however, let alone American, and the thought of conferring the honour on the tender-hearted colossus from Hawaii filled the arbiters with angst.

The qualifications needed for promotion to yokozum are uncertain; in the end, the august committee, comprising senior politicians, decided to obfuscate, suggest ing it might crown Dump Truck if he won the next big tournament. But few doubted that a Japanese wrestler with Dump Truck’s awesome record would have been elevated long ago. To an official in the American embassy it was an example of the “structural impedi ments” that block American goods from entering Japanese markets.

The issue arose March 22 when Dump Truck won his third national tourna ment by defeating 13 out of 15 op ponents. George Bush, not known for an interest in sumo, cabled hearty congratu lations.

To the Japanese, who recalled how Bush

had vomitted over the trousers of their prime minister during his disastrous visit to Tokyo earlier this year, it seemed another

example

of Ameri can

insensitivity. In some quarters, the rise of Dump Truck epitomises everything that is wrong with Japan: when he won a previous tournament in November, one newspaper headline trumpeted, “Sumo Conquered by Foreigners, National Spirit in Crisis”.

So seriously do Japanese take their sumo that when Dump Truck started along the road to stardom he began receiving death threats. “They had voodoo dolls of me,” he said.

When he flattened The Wolf, a legendary yokozum, in 1984, Japan was horrified.

One famous writer advocated abolishing sumo tournaments altogether simply to prevent a foreigner from becoming champion. Magazines suggested ways of “crippling” or poisoning the “monster” and some advocated he be bribed to lose important bouts.

But neither hate mail nor the press hostility could halt the march of Dump Truck. And his gentle manner won him

Dump Truck In action: 576lb of trouble for the nationalist-minded Japanese

His wife: Shioda

fans among younger, less nationalistic Japanese intrigued by his habit of bursting into tears after bouts.

Soon he was a celebrity. When he married Sumika Shioda, a petite, 27-year-old model - her waist is the size of One of Dump Truck’s thighs - a quarter of Japanese households tuned into the five television coverage.

Inevitably Dump Truck’s enemies

allege that the 5761 b (261 kg) giant lacks real skills and simply overwhelms his foes with flab. They say that as a foreigner, he lacks Japanese shingitai, or “fighting spirit”.

But their criticisms smack of sour grapes. “Frankly speaking, I think foreigners have more of the Japanese spirit and they are hungrier,” said one master of a sumo stable.

Even top Japanese wrestlers are failing to inspire. The Wolf retired suddenly last year. Some said he wanted to avoid the ignominy of more defeat at the hands of foreigners. The country’s only other yokoguna has hardly been seen in recent months because he has been “sick”.

To the uninitiated, sumo wrestling looks like a game of mindless strength as the contestants, clad in nothing but a bizarre loin-cloth, try to force each other 3ut of the ring. An American author of in unflattering book on sumo described

it as “two fat fag

gots undressing

each other in a sandbox”.

But to the Japan ese it is a national cult. Apprentice ship involves years of relentless gorging on a stew of fish, meat and veg etables: the result is thighs the size of tree trunks and rolling folds of fat that are the hall mark of any self

respecting wrestler.

Dump Truck

cannot be criticised in the falb depart ment. But a mem ber of the Sumo Association of

Japan said Dump

Truck had yet to prove he deserved it, despite his im pressive triumph in the last tourna ment. □

Dump Truck: one of the best but not Japanese