It’s all in getting a foothold

Monday, Sept. 20, 2004 | 10:18 a.m.

Until the open, unrestricted-weight battles took place Saturday at the U.S. National Sumo Championships, the competition had been interesting and intriguing at the Riviera.

Then Trent Sabo stepped into the makeshift Royale ballroom dohyo against Kelly Gneiting, a relative shrimp against a nikudan.

To the amateur sumo fan, that latter terms generally refers to a "meat bomb," the heavier of the heavyweights. At 465 pounds, Gneiting is a card-carrying nikudan. At 175, Sabo was dwarfed by his foe.

Fellow lightweight John Gonzalez went up against Gneiting in an open match last year.

"I ran," Gonzalez said. "From my point of view, why would you stay in front of a charging bull like that? So I circled and circled and circled him. Matter of fact, we had gone out (of the dohyo, or ring) together and had to do it again.

"So now it was funny, like, 'C'mon you (officials), I won!' They said, 'No, do it again.' Kelly said, 'I'm not running. I'm not chasing you. Here.' And, boom, I was gone. He swatted me like a mosquito on the back of a rhino."

With a turn and a push, Gneiting, who recently spent several weeks learning from the masters in Japan, shoved Sabo from the ring Saturday afternoon.

"With Kelly, I have to stay low so he can't shove me back, because he's so strong," Sabo said. "He turned me sideways and I missed his belt. When I stood up, he hit me in the chest with his hand and that's pretty much all she wrote.

"I flew out and landed like a pancake."

The mixed matches capped an eventful sumo weekend in Las Vegas in which lightweight Gonzalez and middleweight Troy Collins, a 6-foot-2, 250-pound patrol training officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, won their divisions to advance to the World Sumo Championships in Germany next month.

Paul Rolandelli, a Riviera guest who has studied judo for years, slipped into the ballroom after taking a detour from the hotel pool and joined a regular spectator crowd of about 100. He stayed until it ended.

"I like the physical competition," Rolandelli said. "I decided to take a look at my first sumo matches, and it's definitely interesting. It enlightened me quite a bit."

Joe Davis, a Los Angeles-based lightweight who trains under Svetislava Binev's guidance, understands a neophyte's misconceptions of the sport.

"When people hear 'sumo,' they think of big, fat guys ... or the diaper, which is called the wawashi," said Davis, as he unfolded and rolled his 16-foot loin cloth. "There's a lot more to it than that. There's some ceremony, and it's aggressive."

After taking up sumo three years ago when a fellow officer happened to pick up a flier advertising an event in Long Beach, Collins, 37, won the most important basho, or tournament, of his career Saturday to earn a spot in the worlds.

The intense training regimen he maintained over the last few months with Binev paid handsome dividends for Collins.

"He taught me to study people on the line," said Collins, who excels at smacking opponents to the mat by snapping the back of their heads. "Before they charge, I look at their feet and butts. If they drive forward, they'll most likely have their hips high in the air and the head closer to the mat.

"And they dig their feet into the mat. (Binev) told me, when I see that, don't stand up all the way. Meet them at head level. Don't take a step back, but spin one foot around ... like a matador does with a bull."

Ted Vitor Barbanito beat Gneiting to win the heavyweight division, but Barbanito's Brazilian citizenship prohibits him from representing the U.S. at the worlds.

Instead, James Brewster Thompson, a 51-year-old parole officer from Northern California who has an extensive judo background, fell in line to go to Germany after he beat Gneiting in the second-place match.

Yoshisada Yonezuka, an acclaimed judo and karate instructor from Japan who landed in New York in 1960 and started the U.S. Sumo Federation in 1991, said Thompson would likely compete in Germany.

Yonezuka, known as "Yone" to friends but mostly as "sensei" to students at his famous club in Cranford, N.J., ended his second and final two-year term as president of the North American Sumo Federation on Friday.

He also serves as the vice president of the International Sumo Federation and is working toward Olympic acceptance for the sport.

"In a study not long ago, sumo was voted as the No. 1 next sport to get into the Olympics," he said. "We have very good hope."

"Like soccer. It's not as big here as it is in other countries. But slowly, sumo is growing."

Collins embodies the growth, if not hope, of the sport in this country. Last year, he met its past when he entered the ring against Akebono -- the retired Yokozuna, or grand champion, who carries 525 pounds on his 6-foot-8 frame -- in an exhibition in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

"I don't get intimidated at all, really, but I was very intimidated then," Collins said. "I respect him so much, and I knew he was doing that to honor the sport. No other Yokozuna has entered an amateur tournament or given an exhibition. I was in awe.

"I came off the line and got ready to hit him when he just slapped me in the face and knocked me out of the ring. Just from one slap, his hand is so big. It's like me wearing a baseball glove. Huge."

Collins shed huge tears after punching hit ticket to Germany late Saturday.

"Overjoyed," he said. "I've been training hard for the last four months, five days a week. I stepped up the training a couple of notches and here I am at the top, at least for today, and going to the world championships to represent the U.S.

"It will be nice, a great honor."