{"id":248,"date":"2014-08-18T22:44:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T22:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/us-sumo-open-to-bring-over-60-competitors-from-across-the-globe-to-long-beach\/"},"modified":"2014-08-18T22:44:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T22:44:27","slug":"us-sumo-open-to-bring-over-60-competitors-from-across-the-globe-to-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/us-sumo-open-to-bring-over-60-competitors-from-across-the-globe-to-long-beach","title":{"rendered":"US Sumo Open to Bring Over 60 Competitors from Across the Globe to Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-30131\" src=\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Sumo.jpg\" alt=\"Sumo\" width=\"640\" height=\"459\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy of the US Sumo Open.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Get ready to rumble, Long Beach; the sumo wrestlers are coming, as over 60 competitors meet on September 20 to compete in the largest sumo competition on the planet outside of Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The 14th Annual US Sumo Open will find its newest home at the Walter Pyramid under the auspices of event producer Andrew Freund, who has been producing the event since its inception in 2001. Then, it was held at UCLA (where Freund taught) and began to move around as popularity grew: from the LA Convention Center to the Sports Arena to Little Tokyo, the US Sumo Open has catered largely to an Angeleno-specific audience.<\/p>\n<p>Until now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically I can\u2019t find a better venue than the Walter Pyramid,\u201d Freund said. \u201cThe only concern is that geographically most of our fan base is LA\u2014but I think we\u2019re not only gonna develop a new fan base but also show off Long Beach to the fans in LA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The inaugural Open saw just under a thousand attendees while last year\u2019s saw over 4,000\u2014a number Freund is hoping to top as the event invades Long Beach&#8217;s blue&nbsp;architectural icon. Men and women of several weight classes will show off their skills across some 100 matches in just three hours.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oR_TePMw8KM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>While one might be shocked at the idea of female sumo wrestlers\u2014traditionally speaking, sumo wrestling was for men only and featured no weight classes for an all-out, push-to-the-edge battle\u2014Freund said that nearly a quarter of the open\u2019s competitors will be female. In fact, it was at the first US Sumo Open where women first competed in the US.<\/p>\n<p>The openness to female sumo wrestlers largely rests on the fact that the International Sumo Federation\u2014the Japan-based organization that oversees sumo worldwide\u2014has been pushing since the early 1990s to get sumo wrestling into the Olympics as a formal sport. This led to the creation of weight classes and the inclusion of women to seem more appealing to Olympic officiates in terms of equity and accessibility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery year, we see more and more women,\u201d Freund said, \u201ca fact that we love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the formal September event, Freund has invited Yamamotoyama Ry\u016bta\u2014Japan\u2019s heaviest man ever weighed, coming in at a staggering 584lbs.\u2014to Long Beach in a rare class to be offered to CSULB students. One of sumo wrestling\u2019s most respected competitors, \u201cYama\u201d will work directly with CSULB Club Sports students, from wrestling students to jiujitsu students, to teach them the skills needed to sumo it out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am told that a handful of the students are actually going to train for the competition in September,\u201d Freund said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not a stretch because most Americans who join sumo come in from football and martial arts and other arenas. They lack any formal training and just go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the chance to see some local students attempt to win a title come September, attendees will have the rare chance to watch one of the oldest sports on the planet\u2014and one that Freund emphasizes is fast and quick to understand. With a pin-him-down or push-him-out rulebook, viewers are easily drawn in as they can watch a handful of intense matches in just under 30 minutes (or watch all the matches over the course of the Open&#8217;s 3-hour length).<\/p>\n<p>For Freund, beyond just showing new minds and eyes the art of sumo, he is excited to bring the open to Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are really psyched to go down to Long Beach,\u201d Freund said. \u201cWe love the campus and the Pyramid and the City\u2019s overwhelmingly supportive response. I\u2019m genuinely looking forward hosting a competition there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The US Sumo Open will occur on Saturday, September 20 at the Walter Pyramid at CSULB, located at 1200 Bellflower Blvd. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usasumo.com\/ussumoopen2014.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">For tickets and more information, click here<\/a>.<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usasumo.com\/ussumoopen2014.html\"><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>{FG_GEOMAP [33.7820574,-118.12238409999998] FG_GEOMAP}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get ready to rumble, Long Beach; the sumo wrestlers are coming, as over 60 competitors meet on September 20 to compete in the largest sumo competition on the planet outside of Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":16587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[56,88,57],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-csulb","tag-sumo-wrestling","tag-walter-pyramid","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}