That's right, the July 2025 Grand Sumo tournament in Japan has begun!
Unfortunately I can't commit to posting about it every day. But here's where/how you can follow the tournament!
Live:
- try searching on twitch, this tourney there are at least 3 different streamers providing video feeds with commentary, and it's fun to have a community to chat with in real time. The top matches start around 3am US Eastern Time though.
Video Clips:
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NHK streams a replay of the top-tier bouts (with English commentary) on their web site several times during the following day. You can see their schedule here: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/ look for "Grand Sumo highlights." After the first day, those streams are posted here: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ and here: https://www.youtube.com/@NHKWORLDJAPAN/videos
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NHK immediately posts clips with Japanese commentary listed in Japanese - look here: https://www.nhk.jp/p/ts/Z8WRRJ9K96/blog/bl/p781bLebx4/list/ Automated translations work well enough here to find the right day, otherwise look for something like: 7月14日 which in this case refers to the 7th month and the 14th day (July 14th). If there are no videos there, it might be bc the bout hasn't happened yet and it's just a preview. Automated translation doesn't work that well on sumotori names, but this is a great opportunity to learn them by sight!
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JSA immediately posts the highest-ranked 10+ matches listed in Japanese with no commentary, here: https://www.youtube.com/@sumo-video/videos
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youtuber DonDon posts the "best 10" matches listed in English with replays including on-screen English analysis; those are listed here: https://www.youtube.com/@dondonsumo2/videos These are usually posted within a couple hours. After the first day, the video is removed from the listing but it will probably still be up (if you bookmarked it for example.)
Text Info:
- all results and standings and next-day schedule, by sumodb
- results from the JSA
- daily writeups in English by The Mainichi
- for commentary, see the tachiai fan site
Intro to Sumo
- introductory video
- more English-language intro videos at NHK's Sumopedia
- the wikipedia article has a lot of great information including on sumo terms.
