The ancient art of sumo wrestling usually finds itself somewhere on the periphery of popular culture – a mysterious sport with unknowable rules to be occasionally stumbled across during long afternoons on YouTube or via satellite TV.
But in October last year, the world sat up and took notice when Japan’s prestigious ‘Grand Sumo Tournament’ arrived at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the sport’s first official trip abroad since 1991.
And one man who finds himself at the epicentre of sumo’s swell in global attention – both inside and outside of the ring – is Jersey’s very own Nathan Rault.
Nathan spoke to Express about rising through the ranks, growing the sport’s profile, and taking his clothes off around Dermot O’Leary…
How it all started
Although he is now based in Southampton, Nathan was well-known in Jersey for his prowess on the rugby field, but in June last year, he found an unexpected outlet in a new sport.
“I’ve always been interested in contact sports,” he explained.
“Once I moved away [from Jersey], I struggled a bit with Covid and all of that stuff, I lost a bit of weight – then I looked at starting rugby again.
“But I decided I was getting too old and too injured for that, so I started looking around for another sport I could actually do.
“I’d seen [sumo] on the TV – that’s when it first came up. I thought, that looks like a bit of fun.”
An innocuous Facebook post, he added, was all it took for him to head down to the Southampton sumo club last summer for a training workshop run by England Sumo president Sonny Bell.
“I really enjoyed it,” Nathan said. “Everyone was really encouraging about trying to keep me at it.
“I seemed to do really well in the training, and it’s gone on from there.
“I only started in June. Within a couple of months, I took the jump and decided to go in my first competition – I didn’t medal but I got the ‘Fighting Spirit’ award.”
A sport for everyone?
While Nathan says his rugby skills came in handy for adapting to the world of sumo wrestling, he described the sport as available to people from a myriad of different backgrounds.
“At the workshop were people from a Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu background interested in giving it a go like myself,” he said.
“I was the only rugby player who turned up that day – a couple of others have since got involved.
“There’s quite a lot of American football players from over here who are really good and interested in the same kind of thing – they are really good at the contact.”
“It’s not just big guys,” he clarified. “We’ve got people of all shapes and sizes, really, lightweight women that get involved all the way up until big burly blokes.”
Growing sumo’s profile
For Nathan, the sport carries a universal appeal.
“For all the people that do ‘legs, tums and bums’ classes, that’s basically how a warm-up goes every time we go to training,” he laughed. “It’s so good for your core and leg strength.”
He is also of the belief that sumo is ideally situated to thrive in our modern-day so-called attention economy.
“It’s so fast-paced, when you watch boxing, the main fight might not be on until two in the morning, whereas a whole sumo tournament takes an afternoon,” explained Nathan.
“Loads of people are now watching [sumo] videos across the whole world.”
“It’s not just big guys, we’ve got people from all shapes and sizes”
Nathan rault
But does Nathan see the sport growing in Jersey?
“I am the only Jersey sumo wrestler so far,” he chuckled. “But I’ve got quite a lot of friends in Jersey still and know loads of people.
“Every now and then, I post about trying to start a club [in the island] because I come across quite often to see my family.
“And some of the guys, like Sonny, he’d be really keen to come over and start a club here.”
And once the sport takes root, the sky is the limit for where sumo could go in Jersey, Nathan suggests.
“Jersey, or any of the Channel Islands, could hold the next British Isles Championships,” he said.
“It could be amazing, especially because lots of people in Jersey are interested in rugby.”
Sumo showbiz
As one of the rising stars of UK sumo wrestling, Nathan soon found himself promoting the sport in a series of increasingly unlikely contexts.
“I was on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, where I had to wake up Jonathan Ross in his bedroom – something I’d never dreamt of doing!
“I’ve been on a Sunday morning live show on the BBC, I’ve done a thing on ITV’s This Morning about amateur sumo wrestling,” he said.
He explained: “The professional Japanese guys came to London last year. It was the first time they’d come and done a tournament outside Japan for 34 years.
“That really pushed the [media] side of things forward with so many people wanting to get an interview and stuff, for Michael McIntyre it was the same thing.
“They wanted a big burly bloke to come and wrestle on the TV show and they asked British Sumo if they had a guy available to do it.”
He added: “I’ve met quite a lot of celebrities on that night, on Michael McIntyre’s show, Big Narstie, Tony Blackburn, Pat Cash – there were so many people there I forget half of them.”
Ahead of another media appearance, the Jerseyman found himself thrown into the slightly less glamorous side of show business.
“I was in the meeting room waiting to go down (and get changed), and they are just like, get changed here in front of all these celebrities, they wanted me to get naked,” said Nathan.
“I went over to Dermot O’Leary and Chantelle Houghton and I said, ‘look, I really hope you don’t get offended by male nudity’.
“They were just like ‘oh yeah don’t worry’ and they carried on talking. It was so surreal, they seemed to be used to that kind of thing.”
What’s next?
Nathan currently has his sights firmly fixed on the English Championships later this month, but will also be fighting in the European Championships in June.
“There are a few things I need to make sure I do, like stay within [the selectors’] radar – basically keep going to training,” he explained.
“I need to go to the dedicated team training sessions dotted across the country.”
But Nathan – who works as a plant mechanic – said he will likely need sponsorship to fulfil his ultimate dream of competing in Azerbaijan in October for the World Championships.
“Because it’s not recognised by England Sport yet, it’s all fully self-funded. Azerbaijan is quite a long way to travel to,” he noted.
Thankfully, he said that islanders have so far been very encouraging about helping his journey after reaching out to the local community on social media.
Those interested are encouraged to follow his ongoing story via his Instagram or Facebook pages.