Shannon’s Adventures: I saw a Sumo Wrestling Tournament!?!?

Okay-so a few weeks ago my boyfriend saw that there was going to be a Sumo World Championship at the Prudential Center in Newark and we thought "yeah let's go to that if we can."

And we could! I was off of work that day and we were both off the next day so it worked out! We had pretty good seats in the center of the arena... we weren't super close up but we weren't that far away. Plus if we needed to get up for a bit we could- it was pretty easy!

So we didn't know too much about Sumo before we saw the game- We researched it a bit beforehand but we didn't know much. We've also never been to a sporting event together- so that was kind of fun to learn how sporting events go. I don't think anyone in the audience knew much about sumo wrestling- I think maybe they knew a bit about wrestling but... it's definitely worth it to just go in blind and see what it's like along the way. It was a fun crowd, and all the matches were really exciting.

It was kind of clear early on who the front runners were- it isn't always the biggest guys... all of the wrestlers are really strong and a lot of the smaller guys were really quick and they all had good strategies to win. You could tell the guys that knew each other and that have fought each other before and... it was exciting to see their strategies.

The two people that seemed like the frontrunners were Oosuna Arashi from Egypt- also known as The Great Sandstorm and Soslan Gagloev- known as Big Bear- who I think is Russian- but he's also from Florida and it had him listed as a USA fighter. This is an international sumo league- so there were fighters from all over the world. It was really exciting when these two were in a match. They're both amazing fighters- and the other fighters are also really good and they showed how they kind of strategized to kind of try to win. Big Bear follows me on Instagram now... what a cool guy.

My favorite wrestler to watch was the 3rd place winner- his name is Kamal Basira and his wrestling name is Big Kimo. Everyone loved Big Kimo. Immediately this guy was a legend. When the announcer asked what he liked to eat and he said "everything I like to eat everything!" He was just... such a charismatic guy and he was fun to watch and the whole crowd was chanting for Big Kimo. He was very happy to bring his 3rd place trophy home with him. It was great. There was a moment where Kimo even had Big Bear off the air... and that was incredible.

Overall it was awesome to watch- I would love to go to more matches in person... I would also watch it at home. We both had a great time. It was only $31 a ticket... and that was worth it for me. It was really fun!

I haven't been to a sporting event at the Prudential Center- but I was really impressed by the staff and the stadium itself. It was nice, they had a selection of food- but not much for vegetarians- which I may talk about next week... and the staff made me feel really safe while being respectful to the crowd. I would go back to this venue for sure.

And that's everything! I hope you guys like this adventure! I'll talk about my Valentine's Day adventure next week and that is everything!

Bye!

-Shannon