Open a Can of Excitement
By ALEX ISAO HERBACH
RAFU CONTRIBUTOR
Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008

The 2008 U.S. Sumo Open draws a boisterous crowd to the L.A. Sports Arena.

Photos by ALEX ISAO HERBACH/Rafu Shimpo
Georgi Otsetarov, left, and Karsten Grap wrestle in the heavyweight division at the U.S. Sumo Open, Saturday at the Sports Arena. Grap won the match.

175-lb. Trent Sabo sizes up all 354 pounds of Petar
Stoyanov before their open weight match.

LOS ANGELES.–One of the more surprising things that a half-naked, 350 pound man can do is creep up on you.

But that’s exactly what European sumo champion Petar Stoyanov did to current world champion Byambajav “Byamba” Ulambayar at last Saturday’s U.S. Sumo Open at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The brawny Bulgarian avenged a loss earlier in the day and unseated the undefeated Byamba–with startling quickness–in the afternoon’s final’s match.

After losing to Ulambayar in the heavyweight division final, Petar finally dispatched his rival with a quick jerk of Byamba’s belt in the open weight final, sending the Mongolian superstar to the mat in less than three seconds.

It was Ulambayar’s first loss at the USSO in two years.

“[Byamba] just got outsmarted,” referee Kenji Osugi said. “I saw [Petar] reaching for the belt earlier and he let his guard down a bit.”

Petar and Byamba have faced each other dozens of times in Europe, as well as here in the States. Until Saturday, Byamba had won every meeting, including three straight championship matches at the U.S. Sumo Open.

Perhaps most amazing about Petar’s win over Byamba was that it somehow outshined the pair’s meeting in the heavyweight final earlier in the day.

After cruising through qualifying and pool play, the two met in the gold medal match undefeated. At the start, Petar tried to bully Byamba out of the ring by shoving the world champion before he could get his feet set. The strategy appeared to work, as he sent Byamba to the edge of the dyoho, and at one point pushing the Mongolian onto his back heels.

But somehow, with an impossible display of strength and balance, Byamba strong-armed Petar back into the center of the ring. An instant later, he threw his nemesis to the ground, much to the ecstasy of the thousand or so fans in attendance.

Even the other competitors appeared dumbfounded as they looked on.

“In sumo, a lot can happen in three or four seconds,” former USSO champion Kelly Gneiting said. “It’s the world’s fastest chess game.”

There was plenty of drama throughout the day, as medals were handed out in six separate weight classes, including two women’s competitions.

“The level of competition was extraordinary,” event organizer and director of the California Sumo Association Andrew Freund said. “The matches and the rivalries were extraordinary. I’m still recovering from it.”

Munkhjargal “Muugii” Ulziibayar of Mongolia went undefeated to defend his USSO lightweight crown, beating Northern California native Peter Panayotopoulos with a push to the chest that sent Peter tip-toeing out of the dyo-ho.

Erdenebileg “Bilegee” Alagdaa, a USSO lightweight champion in 2006, won the middleweight championship over first-year sumo wrestler Robert Ashworth in the final. Even though Bilegee was considerably outsized at 199 pounds, he won the title with only one loss during qualifying.

The longest match of the day was waged between German Karsten Grap and Mongolian
Bayanbat Davaadalai during the heavyweight quarterfinals. The two behemoths, over 600 combined pounds, fought a two minute 17 second battle that left both men immobile from exhaustion. Grap won the match, but lost to Byamba in the semifinal, most likely weary from the previous encounter with Davaadalai.

Crowd favorite and U.S. heavyweight champion Dan Kalbfleisch—or “Sumo Dan” to his fans—took home a bronze medal after easily defeating the tired Grap.

Already one of the top heavyweight wrestlers here in the States, Kalbfleisch’s win over Grap—a member of the strong European contingent at the USSO—showed a marked improvement over the past year. After the match, he was quick to acknowledge the help of his new training partner: Ulambayar.

 “Byamba’s great,” Kalbfleisch said. “He teaches me how to beat him, which is very giving of him…I’m the best in America, so I want to help him get better, too.”

After Byamba took down Petar in the heavyweight final, the Open switched gears to focus on the openweight competitions. One of the biggest attractions at the USSO, the openweight tournament pits every wrestler against each other–regardless of weight class–in a round robin format to determine the tournament’s overall winner.

It’s like the best in show competition at the Westminster Kennel Club; only the Dobermans wrestle the toy Poodles. Needless to say, the match-ups are great to watch.

The most entertaining was between American Trent Sabo, a six-time U.S. champion lightweight, and Tamir Dolgormaa, a heavyweight from Mongolia. Despite spotting his opponent 100 pounds, Sabo won the match with a clever leg sweep that sent Dolgormaa sprawling to the mat.

Embarrassed, but deferential to the move, Dolgarmaa gave Sabo a friendly bear hug after the match. Sabo was all but lost from view during the embrace.

For casual sumo fans, the open weight competition shows that the sport is not dominated by being the biggest or fattest, but that strategy and agility are far more important than simply being, as Gneiting says a, “big guy with [a] bully button.”

“[Watching sumo] on the boob tube, it just looks like two big guys running into each other,” Los Angeles City Counselor Bernard Parks said after his addressing the crowd at the start of the tournament. “But seeing it live, you really get an appreciation for the immense strategy involved.”

“It’s part of a culture we in L.A. may never get to see in person.”