Cheap gags, to be sure. But with them Konishiki has gone from being a controversial outsider to Japan’s best-loved pitchman. The crusty old men who rule sumo once rejected Konishiki for their highest honor. One of them even suggested that foreigners lack the hinkaku, or integrity, to become grand champions of Japan’s national sport. But sumo is changing, and Japan is changing even faster. Today no one questions the integrity of Konishiki, 35, who grew up as Salevaa Atisanoe in Hawaii before coming to Japan to wrestle in 1982. Japanese love his pitchman persona, whether he’s fleeing down a mountain with a bear on his heels (for a whisky commercial), hip-hop dancing (for a fashion designer) or sitting in a tree with a puppet parrot, singing and playing a ukulele (for another whisky commercial). Says Tatsuo Sekine, the president of TV Commercial Research Center, a think tank: “He’s 10 times as popular now as he was when he was a wrestler.”
Japan has forgiven Konishiki the controversy he stirred up in 1992. He had just won the coveted Emperor’s Cup for the third time and seemed on track for promotion to yokozuna, or grand champion. But the Sumo Association balked at making Konishiki the first foreigner in the sport’s 300-year modern history to reach the top rank. Rather than accept his fate, Konishiki publicly accused the association of racism. “If I was Japanese,” he said, “I would already be yokozuna.” A year later, the sumo authorities made a Hawaiian, Akebono, the first foreign-born grand champion.
To this day the Sumo Association has never accepted Konishiki as a symbol of the most Japanese of all sports. When he retired in 1997 it tried to stop him from using his ring name, which means “small brocade.” Technically, the names belong to the sumo training “stables,” which bestow them on active wrestlers. Though the association had allowed wrestlers to keep famous ring names in the past, it refused Konishiki. Eying a new career as an entertainer, he persisted. Finally, the association cut a unique deal: Konishiki kept his name, but must write it in English instead of Japanese.
Still, that has not stopped him from overtaking Arnold Schwarzenegger as Japan’s most successful foreign-born pitchman ever. In 1992 Schwarzenegger appeared as the Terminator in ads for a vitamin drink, and topped the TV Commercial Research Center’s monthly popularity poll of Japanese commercials. Konishiki has taken the top spot four times since his first TV commercial last May. Konishiki now makes commercials for Suntory, United Airlines, Hawaii’s Tourism Board, Uniden electronics company and DDI international telephone services. Industry executives believe he earns “millions,” but nobody will know until the Tax Bureau reveals Japan’s top taxpayers next month.
It is the big man’s vulnerability that most appeals to Japanese. They remember him when he first arrived, a former football player with zero experience in sumo. He kept getting knocked and slapped out of the ring, but he persevered to compile one of the best records in sumo history, 733 wins against 498 losses. And after matches, he seemed always to wear a smile. “Win or lose, it didn’t matter,” says Shinichiro Kawakami, 42, a computer consultant and an avid sports fan. “He was spellbinding.”
Konishiki may yet follow the path of the American former pro-wrestler Jesse (The Body) Ventura, the new governor of Minnesota. Konishiki has set up a foundation for needy Hawaiian children, and often appears at fund-raisers for other charities. He does commercials for the Education Ministry, telling kids to study. “It’s entirely possible he could ride his popularity to become Japan’s first foreign-born lawmaker,” says Hidehiko Sekizawa, executive director of the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, the research arm of a major Japanese advertising agency. Konishiki spokesman Eijo Ushijima sees “virtually zero” probability that the former wrestler will enter politics, but he wouldn’t rule it out. And why not? After performing in a sumo loincloth and then a pink bunny suit, Konishiki might find a blue suit easy to carry off.
