On Friday morning, July 31, 1914, Japanese sumo yokozuna (grand champion, the sport’s highest rank) Tachiyama and about forty other top professional Japanese sumo wrestlers arrived at Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i aboard the steamer W. G. Hall to give wrestling exhibitions on
On Friday morning, July 31, 1914, Japanese sumo yokozuna (grand champion, the sport’s highest rank) Tachiyama and about forty other top professional Japanese sumo wrestlers arrived at Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i aboard the steamer W. G. Hall to give wrestling exhibitions on Saturday and Sunday at Lihu‘e Park, which was located in the area now occupied by Lihu‘e Big Save, the Pi‘ikoi building and adjoining parking lots.
Tachiyama (1877-1941) had made his sumo debut in 1900 and had advanced steadily to become sumo’s 22nd yokozuna in 1911.
At 6-feet 2-inches tall and weighing 330 pounds, Tachiyama was celebrated for his enormous strength and skill, recording 195 wins, 27 losses, 10 draws, 5 unresolved, and 73 absences during his 18-year sumo career.
Tachiyama never suffered a losing record in Japan’s national sport and as yokozuna lost only three bouts. Between 1909 and 1916, he won 99 out of 100 matches. He also won eleven top division tournament championships before retiring in 1918.
While on Kaua‘i, Tachiyama and other sumos were quartered at Hotel Fairview, situated where Kalapaki Villas now stands on Rice Street. Subsequently renamed twice, it closed as the Kaua‘i Inn in 1963.
Prior to the matches, the Lihu‘e Park athletic field was fenced in, a dirt platform was built near home plate of the baseball field, and seats were extended outward in all directions. The grandstand was also available.
Immense crowds of mostly Japanese attended the matches and a few tested their skill against some of the visiting wrestlers without success.
At the close of the exhibitions on Sunday, Tachiyama wrestled one of his colleagues who “was little more than a boy in the grasp of a giant.”
Later on Sunday, the wrestlers boarded the W. G. Hall and steamed off to Honolulu.
