Behind the scenes of “Kohaku” is the astonishing viewership rating that has yet to be broken

Akebono, who is from Hawaii, came to Japan in 1998 and joined the Azumazeki stable. After his debut at the Spring Tournament that same year, he was promoted to the 64th Yokozuna after the New Year Tournament in 1993, using his thrusting style of sumo to his advantage, taking advantage of his massive physique of over 204 cm and 200 kg.

As a rival of the “Wakataka Brothers” Wakanohana and Takanohana, he contributed to the unprecedented popularity of sumo, won 11 championships, and retired after the 2001 New Year Tournament.

After his retirement, he remained in the Sumo Association as a stablemaster, but left the association in November 2003 to become a martial artist. On New Year’s Eve of that year, he competed in the martial arts event “K-1” held at the Nagoya Dome, where he faced Bob Sapp, an American who was hugely popular at the time.

Although it was a crushing defeat with a first-round KO, the live broadcast on TBS, which was broadcast against NHK’s “Kohaku Uta Gassen,” achieved a peak audience rating of 43% in the Kanto region (according to Video Research), surpassing the ratings of the “Kohaku” program itself. This is an astonishing audience rating that has yet to be surpassed by any other program broadcasting against the “Kohaku.” These figures show just how much of a shock Akebono’s “K-1 debut” made on the Japanese archipelago 21 years ago, and how much interest it attracted.

The person who introduced Akebono to the world of martial arts was Tanigawa Sadaharu, who was the producer of K-1 at the time. Tanigawa paid tribute to Akebono’s sudden death at the age of 54, saying, “It’s so early. I’m sad,” and he shared the details of the turbulent days he spent scouting Akebono.

Why did Tanigawa decide to retire from sumo and have his stablemaster, Akebono, enter “K-1”? He explains the background to this: “2003 was a turbulent year for the martial arts world.”