He did not deserve to be a Yokozuna and I bet Hakuho, Akebono and Musashimaru would feel the same way.

There was an incident years ago, when Akebono the recently designated Yokozuna caused property damage, I believe when he broke the chouchin of an izakaya when he was drunk.

At least Akebono apologized and showed ‘repentance’ and people let it go. Even then, Akebono was no where near Asashouryu. I have never heard of Musashimaru nor Hakuho cause trouble.

Asashouryu was trouble from day 1 and he deserved what he got. No he should have been kicked out way before.

Japanese people are more demanding, as in comparison to other sports, cause it is a national, traditional sport funded in part by the taxpayers.

The time of Akebono/Musashimaru and Taka/Waka brothers were the last time when it was the good ol sumo days. They showed technique with class and not the ‘wresling’ style with only strength.

That’s why sumo is losing popularity in Japan for all the non-sense that is going around and I hope with this incident, the Sumo Kyoukai gets it right by going back to the basics. Don’t tell me it’s racist, as if Akebono, Musashimaru, Asashouryu and Hakuho can be Yokozunas, so can other foreign sumo wrestlers.
They just have to work hard to show they deserve it.

BTW: it is true that it was unfair to deny Akebono the title, as he was a foreigner, but at least he got to be a Yokozuna.

pretty much lost the respect of everybody, his paying big time for this and his career chances have basically gone down the drain. He will have a very tough time recovering from this.

But every nation is almost same that Tiger Woods sex addiction thing exploding all over or Stefi Grafs’ tax evasion adventures exploded a decade ago, every nation has similar dirty laundry after all.

anyway, asashoryu has retired, i am rooting for harumafuji now.

What?

He smacked a dude, quite hard in the face…hard enough to break a few bones. If that wasn’t enough, he then threatened to dump the guy’s body in the river!

I think he got off easy. If any other so-called ‘Foreigner’ or Japanese person did the same, he would be looking at the world through some iron bars.

Try doing the same thing in Roppongi tonight and see where it gets you.

Foreigner or not, he committed a crime. There is NO discrimination here. Just justice.

Damn I hate it when the ‘race’/'discrimination’ card gets pulled. Surely we’re able to be more objective and educated than this?

I AM NOT JAPANESE! For the record.

Being a mongolian that loves Asashoryu, i can honestly say I loved the guy, he showed pride, he showed everything that a Mongolian would do, unfortunately having too much pride is one of the downsides we have, drinking is the other common one. Those 2 together don’t lead to any good, as we all can see.

Sure there must have been some but very little discrimination, I would personally hate having a foreign wrestler win all the national wrestling, most Mongolians would. But Japan, seems to me, is far more tolerant, if it was vice versa there would have been some kind of a rule that would deny any foreigners to compete.

And I believe I would be beaten quite badly pretty soon for saying all this.

And I think people complaining about Asashoryu haven’t paid much attention to the history of other disgraced participants.

Nationality has nothing to do with it – if it did, Asa would have been shoved out long ago.

Rikishi are public servants (sumo is a tax-funded sport) so the Japanese people were not going to stand for this stuff much longer. The Mongolian official is right; they used this to push him out. However, he definitely had it coming.

He probably screwed foreign rikishi from becoming yokozuna for a while, I bet. Too bad too, because a few ozeki are foreign and getting pretty good (and Hakuho is a great wrestler, but so boring).

I don’t think this is an anti-foreign conspiracy. Hakuho is still in Yokozuna position, and many foreign Rikishis(sumo wrestlers) are really active in Sumo. Sumo is even the most tolerant tradition in Japan, don’t you think so?

While he’s a remarkable athlete in the sumo ring, outside of that ring, he’s made some very foolish decisions unbefitting a grand champion of the sport.

I doubt there is any grand conspiracy to it but judging by the tone of the news programs today (including viewer mail) there is certainly an air of “he wasn’t properly trained.” This was not always implicitly stated as a foreigner-thing, but more than a few people suggested that his stable master bears great responsibility in this mess.