Some Sumo Media -- Sharing the Sumo Love!

What a basho!

Feb 04, 2025

I don’t want to assume that just because you’ve landed here, you know all the English-speaking (and some non-English-language) sumo sources, so let me share what I watch, read, and listen to!

The Heart of Sumo Love: r\SumoMemes!

The most positive online sumo community I have been is is the SumoMemes subreddit. My reddit username is AOmeep, but I’m more of a watcher/liker on reddit than a commenter/poster.

I love grabbing the memes for my own purposes, and I’m a big lover of the URA MAGIC.

Yes, yes, people complain that anything including URA gets up-dooted, but tough.

I post my sumo stats on r/Sumo, but those guys are often grumpy. Lighten up, y’all.

The r/SumoMemes crew also posts non-meme content, which introduced me to some of the below.

YouTube Channels

Yeaaaaah, I’m not sharing any of the streaming channels. They tend to disappear (we all know). I do wake up around 2-3 am ET naturally, so yes, I grab what streaming channels I can find when I wake up. Sometimes it’s a bit of a searching expedition.

HOWEVER!

There are other sumo-related channels I watch, whether during or after the tournament:

Sumo Prime Time!

I like Hiro’s JSA-sponsored English language channel: Sumo Prime Time

Here’s one of his recent videos:

JSA’s Channel!

This is not English language, of course. I do know some Japanese — I studied the language for 3 years when I was in college, and I do look at it daily on Duolingo to try to keep fresh. I can read kana and a few kanji (I can read a lot of the rikishi names), and after the mono-ii, I can tell if the gyoji’s judgment stood or was overturned (or if we get a torinaoshi).

https://www.youtube.com/@sumo-video

Here is the video on Hoshoryu’s being named 74th Yokozuna:

Don Don Sumo

I am very kimarite-focused, as well you know, and I love his technique compilations.

Henka!

Sumo Jason!

It was Jason’s coverage of bouts that got me & my late husband Stu back into sumo. It’s a pity what happened with his old videos (and yes, we loved Natto Sumo as well), but as I’ve found other sources for the bouts specifically, I like his commentary.

Podcasts

SUMO KABOOM!

Love these gals — they’re doing some video now, but I mainly listen to their audio podcast.

They have their own angle on basho coverage, but I really like their between-basho episodes. They cover all sorts of aspects of sumo culture, and do individual rikishi profiles, and provide sumo content I don’t get anywhere else in the English language fan sites.

Sumo Mainichi

During the tournaments, I wake up ~2-3am and watch the matches live, and then some hours later I listen to the Sumo Mainichi coverage to hear their take on what I just watched. It helps me to digest how everybody is performing.

Grand Sumo Breakdown

Just some bros having fun talking sumo. It’s not as frequent as the other podcasts, which is great. When I’ve exhausted the other sources, this gives me a longer format program to listen to and think about.