A Study of the Moral Aspects of Match-fixing in Sumo Wrestling:

Focusing on the Public Discourse and Practices of Sumo Wrestlers in Professional Sumo

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to examine match-fixing (yaochō) in professional sumo from a moral perspective. Match-fixing has been a practice since the Edo period, and the morality of that action has been brought into question through various sumo matches in the practice’s long history. This paper focuses on the process by which moral views are formed as evident in public discourse on match-fixing as well as the realistic motivations for match-fixing by sumo wrestlers. While citing anthropological research on morality, this paper discusses the multiple dimensions and aspects of the morality of match-fixing. This perspective means that this paper focuses on (1) morality as a dynamic related to the reciprocal changes in the institution and practice of sumo wrestling and (2) the moral logic that underlies the interpersonal relationships between sumo wrestlers. With regard to the former, I will explain the process by which match-fixing was rebuffed and eliminated due to the moral influence of “Bushidō/Sumō-dō,” which was created with the trend toward modernization and nationalism during the Meiji period, and a series of institutional reforms in professional sumo. With regard to the latter, I reexamined “mutual assistance” among sumo wrestlers, which has often been pointed out in previous studies on match-fixing, and I present the varied meanings of match-fixing, which is based on different morals that cannot be reduced to the logic of exchange and reciprocity.