Sumo Fan Magazine

Amateur Sumo – the sport as it should be Mark Buckton Sakai World Sumo Champs – not all about winning Las Vegas Koen Joe Kuroda Our man reports from the fight capital of the world Rikishi of Old Joe Kuroda A look at a rikishi of yesterday with Kotozakura – our man for October Heya Peek John Gunning John’s early morning dash to Azumazeki-beya & report on TKOTU SFM Interview Katrina Watts sits down with SFM’s Mark Buckton to discuss amateur sumo Photo Bonanza SFM’s best yet – Aki Basho/ Las Vegas / Amateur World Champs / Azumazeki-beya visit – seen nowhere else Aki Basho Review Lon Howard Lon gives us his Aki Basho summary, along with the henka sightings results, and his take on the tournament while ‘gem’ of the basho takes a break Lower Division Rikishi Mikko Mattila Mikko Mattila returns to cover lower division ups and downs Kyushu Basho Forecast Pierre Wohlleben & Mark Buckton Pierre predicts the Kyushu Basho banzuke while Mark previews the ones to watch next time out Sumo 101 Barbara Ann Klein Discovers and explains amasumo & ozumo variations Kimarite Focus Mikko Mattila Mikko once again walks us through his chosen kimarite Minusha John McTague John’s unique bimonthly view of news from outside the dohyo Online Gaming Zenjimoto of ‘game fame’ covers some of the very best sumo games around – his own! Kokugi Connections Todd Lambert Todd’s focus on 3 of the most interesting online sumo sites today Fan Debate Is the limit on foreign rikishi fair? See what our debaters had to say SFM Cartoons Benny Loh In the first of our cartoon bonanzas, sit back and chuckle at Benny Loh’s offerings Let’s Hear From You What was it that made you a sumo fan? Gernobono tells all Readers’ Letters See what SFM readers had to say since our last issue Sumo Quiz The Quizmaster Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.	Let's Hear From You! What Made You A Fan? by Gernot aka Gernobono		(mostly printed ones) turned out to be very interesting and I learned much from all the books and trading cards. Sumo not only satisfied my interest in all kind of sports, but also opened a universe of stats, which I also like. Going through numbers is something I really appreciate. In most aspects my career as sumo fan went as anyone’s. There are two developments which differ from the experiences of others. Firstly my friends always stood behind me. I never ever got the much treated “men in diapers”- comments. My friends even tried to inform themselves about sumo and I got positive feedback from nearly all of them and even my colleagues in the office only had positive remarks when I hung a banzuke in my office. Secondly and most important to me is that I found my love through a sumo chat. We are a sumo loving household for 3 years now and there is no discussion about getting up at 5:30 am to watch sumo. A confession at the end. I no longer am a simple sumo fan. I am a sumo-addict. Home
	Each issue of SFM, We’ll ask one of you to tell us something about you and sumo. Think you have something readers would like to know? Write our letters section! Enjoy.
	My first contact with sumo was during the 1995 jungyo which also led the rikishi to Vienna. Then the obvious eyecatcher was Konishiki. They were on Austrian TV on some shows. I got interested but my interest died when there were no TV appearances afterwards. The real sumo-fandom started in the common way for German speaking fans. I stumbled across sumo-broadcasts on Eurosport (a sportschannel broadcasting in many European languages, German being one of them). It was around 1998 and I had the internet on hand to do some research. My absolute favourite was Akebono. I liked his “you-are-mine” look. The most disliked ones clearly were the Hanada-brothers. Hooked that way I started to search the	internet. There was nearly no information in German for me to find, but a small forum which was more of a guestbook of a site where the owner provided results of honbasho and the users posted their questions and sometimes got answers from other users. For some time there still only was the one TV channel to see the action in Japan. It was in 2000 when I first discovered the livestream in some very strange video format. Nearly too late to see Akebono on the dohyo, but that really gave my interest another boost. Since then I am following the action “live” on my pc whenever I can. I am a member of the valuable sumo mailing list and both the English and German sumo forums. Collecting sumo items