Despite scandals, sumo fans hold on

Call it the red carpet treatment for large, lumbering men 300 pounds and up.

In bright robes and slippers, their hair gathered back in tight, elegant buns, the giant ones arrive, glaring at the average-sized humans around them with a withering smirk that says, “Out of my way. And don’t even think about asking for my autograph.”

They’re sumo wrestlers, converging at a fabled Tokyo sports arena for one of the biggest body-tossing pageants of the season, the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament.

Despite sumo’s fall from grace among many Japanese -- because of internal scandals, a lack of homegrown heroes and competition from imported sports like soccer -- there are still fanatics who live and die by the matches.

At the arena, it still costs $100 a ticket to get in. But out here on the street, a glimpse or even a photo can be had for free.

It’s a place many insiders know as the back gate, and at this arena, it’s the fans, not the wrestlers, who jostle for position.

Think of paparazzi crowding for a good shot of the Academy Awards starlet walk and throw in the awe of a small child watching jumbo jets touch down at an airport and you get the idea.

“The best spot is over there,” 70-year-old Hiroshi Miyata says, jealously eyeing a place tantalizingly out of reach behind some pylons. “You can see them coming and going from there.”

The biggest luminaries arrive in limousines, out of public view, of course. They include Asashoryu, the sport’s bad boy and one of just two wrestlers bestowed with the top rank, yokozuna, who is defying his critics and unexpectedly leading this tournament.

But the up-and-coming stars and a few former top-flight wrestlers who have fallen from grace arrive by taxi or private car, or take the short stroll in their slippers and colorful yukata robes from the subway.

Each is greeted with oohs and aahs by an adoring crowd that views these blubbery-looking men as modern-day samurai.

Their bulk can disguise incredible swiftness. Sumo is a combustible mix of power and speed, marshaled for the explosive collisions in which wrestlers try to force each other out of the ring or bring any part of their opponent’s body other than their feet in contact with the ground.

Sumo is as much art form as sport, but its reputation has taken a battering in recent years. There have been allegations of pot smoking and match fixing. Sumo’s brutal disciplinary customs took a tragic turn two years ago when a young wrestler was beaten to death by several teammates after trying to quit the sport.

There is also muttering among some Japanese fans about the huge influx of foreign wrestlers. Foreigners have won all but one tournament since 2003, and both Asashoryu and the other current yokozuna, Hakuho, are Mongolian. Hakuho’s rise has stirred a rivalry with his fellow Mongolian that has been good for the sport, but many Japanese still long for another native champion.

None of that, however, appears to have soured Miyata on his heroes.

As a 10-year-old boy, the now-retired construction worker fell in love with this ritual of girth and grace. Today he knows most of his sumo men by name, and can even recite their won-lost records. Those he doesn’t recognize he looks up in his guidebook.

Another taxi pulls up. Two large men who fill the back seat lean forward and one pays the tab. Slowly, they ease their bulk out of the car as younger men in blue robes rush up to assist with their oversize purses.

“The best wrestlers don’t have to carry their own things,” Miyata whispers, as he watches the men waddle past, shuffling slowly in their slippers. “People do it for them.”

Ikeya Yoshiko, 65, wearing a black beret, sees the big wrestlers as overgrown boys who are polite to older women like her. Although the heaviest can weigh in at nearly 600 pounds, they are gentle souls, she says, who save their fury for the ring. She likes the foreign fighters best. “I wouldn’t be afraid of meeting one of them in a dark alley,” she says. “But I would a normal man.”

On Friday, the crowd was reasonably light and most fans could get a glimpse of their favorite gladiators. But the weekend here at the back gate will bring pushing and shoving, not unlike what goes on with the big guys inside the arena.

Miyata says many sumo wrestlers have been chastened by the recent scandals and have adopted a less hostile persona toward their adoring public. But he understands why he never gets a smile.

“They have their faces clenched in the fighting mode,” he says. “You have to respect them, so I don’t ask for autographs or pictures.

“Maybe after the bout,” he says. “But only if they win.”

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john.glionna@latimes.com