June 2026– date –

The Nagoya basho is the July edition of professional sumo's six annual grand tournaments (honbasho), held in Nagoya and run across fifteen straight days, Sunday to Sunday — in 2026, from July 12 to July 26. Since 2025 it has taken place ...

A sumo wrestler, or rikishi, is a professional athlete in Japan's national sport of sumo, who wins by forcing his opponent out of the ring or to the ground. Sumo has no weight classes, so a lighter man can be matched against a far heavie...

The chonmage is the traditional topknot sumo wrestlers wear, and which style a man wears is decided by his rank. The Japan Sumo Association states it plainly: the rank of a wrestler determines how his long hair is arranged. Makuuchi and ...

The dohyo-iri is sumo's ring-entering ceremony — a ritual procession the wrestlers perform before the day's top bouts begin. The top-division wrestlers file into the ring together in ornate ceremonial aprons, form a circle, and perform a...

The dohyo is sumo's ring: a clay platform 6.7 metres square and 60 centimetres high, with a fighting circle just over 4.55 metres across. The circle is marked by rice-straw bales half-buried in the clay, the surface is dusted with sand, ...

A maegashira is a rank-and-file wrestler in makuuchi, the top division of professional sumo. Maegashira are every top-division wrestler who does not hold a titled rank — yokozuna, ozeki, sekiwake or komusubi. They are listed by number on...

In sumo, sekiwake and komusubi are the two junior titled ranks of the top division, sitting directly below ozeki and above the rank-and-file maegashira. Of the two, sekiwake is the higher: the order from the top runs yokozuna, ozeki, sek...