This is something that just popped into my head. Keep in mind I know pretty much nothing about Sumo. To me, Sumo involves very large men leaning on each other and grabbing each others' g-strings until one of them gets tossed out of the ring. ^_~
The Japanese have such a deep martial cutlure that has created some excellent systems. Many of these systems focus on amplifying strength through leverage and/or were created to allow smaller, perhaps weaker opponents to defeat much larger and stronger opponents. Because of this, it baffles me as to why the Japanese developed a system whereby it's practitioners seek to gain new and obscene levels of body mass perceivably to gain an advantage over their opponents. Why did they do this?
I'm probably missing something that the rest of you who are knowledgable about Sumo are aware of. Is there some history behind Sumo that explains this? Or perhaps it was something religious?
In any case, your information is much appreciated. ^_^