(I’m surprised to hear there are even any sumo wrestlers from Russia.) There are a lot of foreign sumo wrestlers, in fact the best wrestler according to rankings is from Mongolia. Some people blame the foreign wrestlers is to blame for a drop in popularity in the sport. (Are these guys big names?) Yes, they’re certainly famous faces. This Russian wrestler was caught and banned for possession of marijuana. The reason he was caught was he lost his wallet and it was handed in by a passerby and they found his ID card and a marijuana cigarette. (Why does marijuana cause a full out ban?) Well sumo is a sport with a long history and in Japan, the wrestlers are held to much higher moral standards than, say, a baseball player. So they’ve let down their sport. But marijuana possession in Japan is also taken very seriously, it can land you in jail for five years with forced labor. (So where does this leave sumo as a sport?) It’s very much in decline, it’s not as exciting to younger generations. The other problem is young Japanese know they can make more money in other sports than in sumo.
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