The 8th Annual US Sumo Open came to the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Saturday. As expected, this yearly demonstration of the popular Japanese sport drew a colorful array of competitors. While the women's division was cut short by a combination of last minute dropouts and injuries, the heavyweights more than made up for the loss with a ton of great matches. World champ Byambajav "Byamba" Ulambayar walked away with the gold medal for the......

Photo by Chuck Green 1. This is the perfect primer. The Grand Sumo Tournament was held in Los Angeles back in June. It was a great showcase of traditional sumo, complete with ceremonial performances and an air of formality. The open is more what you’d see if sumo were an Olympic sport. If you’ve never seen sumo wrestling before, the diversity of wrestlers, many of whom are part-timers (this year includes a rock drummer......

It was almost a year ago that LAist was blown away by the US Sumo Open at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The day of amateur sumo wrestling action, yakisoba noodles and free sake made us understand why the sport is followed so religiously in Japan. With the lousy weather keeping us homebound this weekend, it seemed like a good time to start researching the 2008 event, as we’re anxious to see the return......