WWE's Haku/King Tonga & the story of the Tongan Sumo Wrestlers

The story of Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta (King Tonga/Haku), the famous pro wrestler, is an interesting one and one that is intertwined into Japanese sumo wrestling.  Fate always has a way of working itself out and this story is no different.

In 1974, an Asahiyama Stable's fan club's daughter met a Tongan princess while they both were studying in Australia.  This relationship resulted in the Asahiyama Stable Master being invited to Tonga as a state guest of King Tupou IV who was a Japanophile and rather large person standing at 6' 5".  He encouraged people and groups from all over the 88,000-member nation to come and watch and learn sumo from real Japanese Sumo Wrestlers as part of their 10-day tour of the country.  One such group was the Tongan rugby team which Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta was a member.   Due to the great success of the tour, Asashiyama invited 4 Tongans to join his stable and professional sumo (really the King told them to join): Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta (Fukunoshima), Alani Falevai (Minaminoshima), Moleni Fe'aomoeata Tauki'uvea (Yashinoshima), and Latu Vaivaka (Hidenoshima).  A fifth Tongan, Vailahi Sione (Sachinoshima) joined several months later.  All achieved early success in their sumo careers and all were in, or on the brink of, the Makushita division with their eyes set on getting to Juryo which meant a salary, status, and attendants.  Then tragedy struck!

Asahiyama, who had done so much to bring the Tongans into the world of sumo, died suddenly on in October 1975!  It was simply a tragic death mourned by the Tongans.  It certainly was not the first time a stablemaster died while leading a stable and a clear order of succession almost always emerged.  As they say, the training must go on and sumo is bigger than one individual.  At first the widow of Asahiyma, Mrs. Kusada agreed to let former komusubi Wakafutase buy the Asahiyama kabu (stock) as well as the building and land where the stable was located and take all the stable's wrestlers with him as the new stablemaster.  This would allow the Tongans to continue training under an official sstablemaster and continue competing in tournaments.  However, Wakafutase didn't have the money and struck an arrangement for a monthly payment over 5 years to settle the debt with Mrs. Kusada.  Enter Maegashira Ryuo who offered to purchase the land and building right away if he could get the Asahiyama name upon his upcoming retirement.  Since he was an active wrestler under Asahiyama, he could either purchase the Asahiyama kabu/stock or a kabu/stock from someone else and "legally" take the Tongans with him upon retirement.  However, there was no other kabu/stock available leaving him only the Asahiyama option.  Going with Ryou was a much better deal and Ms. Kusada asked Wakafutase to give everything back to her since she wanted to now deal with Ryuo.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush was her thinking.  Wakafutase rightfully refused citing the legally binding contract to own the Aashiyama kabu.  However, the Tongans believed the Tongan King put their well-being in the hands of the late Asahiyama and his widow, Ms. Kusada, was the real owner and decided to follow her wishes which was to follow Ryuo.  In reality, Wakafutase was the true owner of the Asahiyama name and the Tongans either had to follow him as he set up his new stable or retire for Sumo rules dictate you belong to only one stable and if you decide to separate from that one stable you can't join a new stable and must retire.  One year after Asahiyama died, all the Tongans submitted their retirement papers much to the exasperation of the Japanese government for they now had an international "incident" on their hands.  The Tongans had been making headlines for the two years they were in Japan and the Japanese government had to get involved and sent an entourage down to Tonga to explain the situation to the Tongan King.  In the end, there was nothing the Japanese government and Sumo Association could do except explain the rules to the King and offer their sincerest apologies.

All the Tongans scattered doing various things after Sumo, but the most famous was Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta who went on to a much more grand and fabulous career in pro wrestling as Haku and King Tonga.  Much more than he could have hoped for in the world of Sumo.

The Tongans were captured on two Japanese card sets during the time they were active in Sumo: the 1974 Nazo Nazo 3 Set & 1975 Osato Mini Card Set.  This was highly unusual since low ranked rikishi never got their own cards, but it does highlight how popular and newsworthy their story truly was.  It also led to two "Rookie" cards for Haku/King Tonga's Pro Wrestling career and two "Debut" cards for his sumo career.

2021 Hobby Goals

Happy New Year!  As I have mentioned several times in the past, I love reading about how collectors did with their past year's collecting goals and their goals for the upcoming New Year.  I like to do them to help me focus my purchases and hobby time to help give me focus.  2020 was good hobby year for me, but just like everyone else I had to overcome all the challenges living under a pandemic.  I have a feeling most of 2021 is going to look like 2020 and am hopeful we can get back to normalcy by the end of the summer.  Thanks to all my readers and here are my 10 collecting goals this year:

Goal #1: Blog 60 posts this year!

I barely hit my blogging goal last year with posting on average once a week, but this year I want to challenge myself to get 60 posts.  Blogging is more therapy than anything and I hope I can provide a brief bit of information, knowledge, and entertainment as well to the larger collecting community.  I won't be short of things to blog about and am hoping the rest of my life can cooperate.  

 

  

Goal #2: Publish the 5th Edition of the Sumo Menko and Card Checklist.

This is it!  This is the year to get the next edition of my book self-published.  The 4th Edition was completed way back in 2017 and there have been numerous updates and additions ready to be captured in the 5th Edition.  To help me get motivated, I created a draft of the cover already....let's hope this is the year.

Goal #3: Get to the halfway point with my 1973 Calbee set

The 1973 set is a monster in terms of cost to complete.  With cards ranging anywhere from $50-$200 or higher, this 36-card set is a monster to put together.  It takes time and definitely resources to whittle away to completion.  Crazy enough, this is the most expensive sumo set in existence....it even eclipses the sets made in the 1890s....yes 1890s not 1980s...as well as the ultra-rare pre-war sets.  Because of supply and demand, prices have been elevated for a while now, but I am feeling lucky this year to get to the 50% completion mark.  

  

Goal #4: Relabel my Binders/Sets and Pass Along Excess "Stuff"

The majority of my Japanese card collection is in binders, but needs a bit of TLC to properly relabel each of my sets and relabel my binders.  Since my collection has grown from when I first started, I am continually organizing the sets within the binders but wanted to wait until it had settled out a bit before I went back in there and put more permanent labels on everything.  I also need to get into my misc. cards and make sure everything is tidied up and pass along some of my excess in care packages.  Not to mention I need to get my desk stacks incorporated into my collection.  This is the year I'd like to get that done.  Speaking of organizing, look at this binder carousel!  I have my binders on shelves, but this carousel is no joke.

Goal #5: Expand my 1980s/1990s Japanese Telephone Card Collection

I have been totally enamored recently with holographic cards.  Doing some browsing on Yahoo Japan Auctions, there are some legitimate and awesome looking Japanese holographic telephone cards.  I plan on picking up some here and there to complement my sumo wrestling telephone card collection.  Speaking of which, my sumo wrestling telephone card collection was sadly put on the backburner for the past several years, but this is the year I am going to start expanding it.  I used the word "expand" since I don't know which direction I want to take both the hologram and sumo telephone cards yet, but defining them and growing them will be this year's goal.  The real question is, how do I take good quality photos of holographic cards since scanning does not do them any justice?  

Goal #6: Do Something with my Yukata Card/Bolt Collection

I spent a good amount of energy this past year collecting Japanese indigo yukata bolts with their attached cards....so much in fact that there are very few left out there that are coming up for auction.  It's weird...you used to be able to find them on every street corner, now they are almost non-existent.  Anyway, I need to take the 40 or so I have to the next level.  I'll probably try and establish some sort of catalogue system for them and publish them on my blog.

Goal #7: Continue Giving my Non-Sumo Collections Some Love

I'm collecting specific non-sumo sets and want to continue working towards completion of them.  Each one is in a different stage of completion so I have specific goals this year of inching ever closer to 100%.

Amada Nintendo (NES)/Famicon Mini Cards

This 360-card set was issued in 6 different series and is so much fun to chase down.  These cards depict game art as well as actually screen shots from different NES games that were popular in the mid-1980s.  Right now I have only 170 of the cards leaving me a little over 47% complete.  My goal is to see if I can bump the total up by 10% to around 57% which means I need to add about 35 cards to my collection this year.

1983 Myojo Noodle Mechanical (Meca) Cards

Back in 1983, Myojo issued 9 different series of cards depicting different types of mechanical machines: Series 1 - World Steam Locomotives, Series 2 - World Racing Cars, Series 3 - World Classic Cars, Series 4 - World Ships, Series 5 - World Jets, Series 6 - World Motorcycles, Series 7 - World Space Machines/Meca, Series 8 - World Dream Cars, Series 9 - Star Wars Machines/Meca.  Each of these series has 30 cards for a total of 270 cards.  I only have 55 of the cards at the moment (20%), but am looking to boost that total up to 33%, or another 35 cards.  I have confidence that I can do that this year, no doubt!

2014-2020 Airport Trading Cards

I first heard about this set while I was flying through Chicago back in 2015.  I was instantly hooked and have made it my goal to try and collect them all.  No one knows how many there actually are in the master set.  I have it pegged at 156 cards, but I am likely a few short.  Back in October I talked about the "Dirty 5"....these are the 5 toughest cards to get out of the set and my goal this year is to get at least 1 of the Dirty 5!

1974 Japanese Yamakatsu Bruce Lee "The Way of the Dragon"

In 1974, Japan was going crazy over Bruce Lee and to capitalize on his popularity and promote his movies, Yamakatsu issued a three-series set covering 144 cards (48 per series).  Series 1 was focused on the movie "Enter the Dragon", Series 2 on "The Way of the Dragon" and Series 3 on "The Green Hornet".  Each Series gets progressively harder to complete and I was finally able to finish Series 1 back in September.  Right now I am down to needing only 4 more card for Series 2.  My goal for 2021 is to finish Series 2 "The Way of the Dragon" and then turn my focus to Series 3 "The Green Hornet" and add 5 more cards there.  Even something more cool about Series 2 is that it also captures the very first trading cards of Chuck Norris on them!

Radio Shack Zip Zap Cards

Some of the very first miniaturized radio control cars that came to market were the Zip Zap cars marketed by Radio Shack.  These were a huge hit and millions were sold.  All sorts of accessories, upgrades, body kits, and motors were available to customize each of the cars.  Included along with the cars and some of the accessories were trading cards.  Right now, I have been able to track down 82 cards in the master set, but I think there are more than that out there....I have 51 of the 82 (62%) cards, but would like to get that number close to 70% by the end of the year.  I need to go in and update the checklist too and try to get it reflected on the Trading Card Database.

Brandon Laird and Yuta Tabuse Cards

My three PC guys are Nolan Ryan, Brandon Laird, and Yuta Tabuse and my only goal this year is to continue adding to each of the PCs.  I don't have a specific number goal, but at least for Brandon Laird my goal is to start building up his Japanese-issued cards.

Goal #8: Get out at least 1 Care Package a month

I love sending random care packages....I actually enjoy shopping for things to put in them because of the challenge of trying to help fellow collectors out.  I am hoping I can get out at least 12 care packages this year!

Goal #9: Get to The National!

Assuming it is still on this year, my goal is to get out to The National.  Two scenarios: 1) I can hop on a redeye from LAX, land in the morning in Chicago and then hit up the show all day and fly home late that evening, or 2) spend a couple of nights in a hotel and then I can spend a few days at the show.  It all depends on my work schedule and how much time I can take off. 

Goal #10: Maintain/Improve Google/Yahoo/Bing Search Engine results for Sumo Card(s) & Menko

As a repeat from the past four years, my goal has been for this blog to be the #1-at-the-very-top-of-your-browser result when you go search up Sumo Card(s) and Menko.  In 2019, I was the #1 on Yahoo, almost the #1 on Bing, and the #1 to #6 on Google.  Now I am in the top 3 all around!  Here is where I currently stand, let's hope I can maintain that this year!

Sumo Card: Bing #1, Google #2, Yahoo #1

Sumo Cards: Bing #1, Google #2, Yahoo #1

Sumo Menko: #1, Google #1, Yahoo #1

Sumo Wrestling Card: Bing #3, Google #3, Yahoo #3

Sumo Wrestling Cards: Bing #2, Google #2, Yahoo #2

I hope everyone has great luck, fortune, and health in 2021!  Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

You don't collect Chuck Norris...he collects you! 1974 Japanese Yamakatsu "The Way of the Dragon" Cards

When Chuck Norris goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Bruce Lee (I've used this one before, but it never gets old).  Here is a short recap of one of my previous posts on this Yamakatsu set...believe it or not, these two legends met on the screen in 1972 in the movie The Way of the Dragon eventually leading to (spoiler alert) Chuck Norris', aka Colt, death.  Probably the one and only time a Chuck Norris fact that doesn't play out in his favor.  During the insane Bruce Lee hype that swept through Japan in the early 1970s, Yamakatsu captured these two martial artists on a set of mini trading cards leading to rookie cards of the now famous Chuck Norris.  The Way of the Dragon set has 48 cards (Card #s 49-96) with some repeating images, but most of them capturing Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee in different stages of their final duel.  Card #s 1-48 are from the Enter The Dragon set, and card #s 97-144 are from The Green Hornet set.

At the beginning of the year, I was down to only needing 9 more cards from this The Way of the Dragon set...today I added 4 more, and along with one other card I picked up earlier this year, I need only 4 more cards now to complete this set.  A little over a year ago, I completed the Enter The Dragon set (Card #s 1-48), and now have been focused on this The Way of the Dragon set.  It will be one of my collecting goals for 2021 to finish.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bruce Lee is defeated! 1974 Japanese Yamakatsu "Enter The Dragon" set is complete!

Finally, after at least close to 5 years....maybe longer...I have completed the 1974 Japanese Yamakatsu "Enter the Dragon" set and that is no joke.  For the past couple of years, I have been struggling to find the last two cards at the right price, but they popped up in a few auctions and I pulled the trigger.  Such a relief to have this Series 1 set complete.  For those that aren't familiar with this 144-card set, it is broken up into three series based on the Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon movies and Green Hornet TV series as follows:

Cards #1-48 - Series 1: Enter the Dragon
Cards #49-96 - Series 2: The Way of the Dragon (with Chuck Norris)
Cards #97-144 - Series 3: The Green Hornet TV Series

All three Series get progressively harder to find and complete  Series 1 is the easiest and Series 3 is the hardest, and most expensive.

Here are all 48 cards in their glory!

Now off to tackle the last nine cards in Series 2!

Undiscovered 1974 Michael Jackson/Jackson 5 Rookie Card

A few months ago I happed to be in a French antique market and ran across these TinTin comic books from the 1970s.  What intrigued me the most, besides being in French, is the trading/collecting cards that were printed on the back cover.  Every magazine had four 4 1/8" x 5 5/8" cards printed on the back cover meant to be cut out.  There is a variety of subjects from tv and movies stars, singers, sports cars, and motorcycles.  The one that stuck out the most is the 1974 Musicard of the Jackson 5 along with young Michael at the age of 16 years old.  My scour of the webiverse couldn't uncover anything earlier than this and there is another rookie card of Michael from 1974 made by George Bassett and Company out of England from a series called "Pop Stars".  However, there have been 34 of those cards graded and there probably are only a handful of these in existence...one of which is shown here.  So it looks like we have a new Michael Jackson Rookie Card!

There were some other cool ones of Roger Moore and Bruce Lee.  I see some obscure autocards that probably have some rookie cards of Peugeots and Renaults.  Here are all the ones I was able to find and catalogue.

Cinecard:
1974 - Raquel Welch
1974 - Marcello Mastroianni
1974 - Jacqueline Bisset
1974 - Roger Moore
1974 - Romy Schneider
1974 - Robert Dhery
1974 - Pierre Mondy
1975 - Karen Black
1975 - Isabelle Adjani
1975 - Bruce Lee
1975 - Jean Rochefort

Autocard:
1973 - Citroen GS Birotor
1974 - Lancia Beta 1800
1974 - Renault Rodeo
1974 - Minissima
1974 - Jaguar XJ 12
1974 - DAF 44
1974 - Lancia Fulvia Coupe 3
1974 - Ford Taunus 1600 GT
1975 - Ford Escort
1975 - Peugot 304S
1975 - Citroen CX 2200
1975 - BMW 528
1975 - Audi 100 GL
1975 - Ferrari Dino 308 GT 4

Motocard:
1974 - Kawasaki 500 H 1
1974 - Moto Morini 3 1/2
1974 - Ossa 250 E 73
1974 - Ossa 250 AS
1975 - MZ TS 125
1975 - Fantic Motor 125 Chopper
1975 - Malanca E 2 C
1975 - Hercules K 125 T
1975 - Moto Guzzi 850V California

Musicard:
1973 - Robert Charlebois
1974 - Nicole Rieu
1975 - Il Etait Une Fois
1975 - Salvatore Adamo
1975 - Nicole Rieu
1975 - Paul Slade
1975 - Laurent Rossi

Popcard:
1974 - Gary Glitter
1974 - Gilbert O'Sullivan
1974 - Cat Stevens
1974 - Jackson 5
1974 - Mike Oldfield
1975 - Alan Stivell

Pilotocard:
1974 - Jean-Pierre Jarier

Update - 1974 Japanese Yamakatsu Bruce Lee & Chuck Norris Mini Cards

This was a good month for me in working toward my 2018 Collecting Goals in terms of my 1974 Bruce Lee Yamakatsu sets.  I was able to knock out a large portion of The Way of the Dragon set checklist with 22 nice looking mini cards.  I was also able to add a few cards to the Green Hornet set as well.  Bring on the furry-chested Chuck Norris (aka Colt) and some great 1960s vintage Bruce Lee as "Kato" in the Green Hornet.  Is there anyone else collecting these?

Chuck Norris Rookie Cards - 1974 Japanese Yamakatsu/The Way of the Dragon

When Chuck Norris goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Bruce Lee.  Believe it or not, these two legends met on the screen in 1972 in the movie The Way of the Dragon eventually leading to (spoiler alert) Chuck Norris', aka Colt, death.  Probably the one and only time a Chuck Norris fact that doesn't play out in his favor.  During the insane Bruce Lee hype that swept through Japan in the early 1970s, Yamakatsu captured these two martial artists on a set of trading cards leading to rookie cards of the now famous Chuck Norris.  The Way of the Dragon set has 48 cards with some repeating images, but most of them capturing Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee in different stages of their final duel.  Adding additional cards to my personal collection of this 1974 Yamakatsu set is one of the goals that I set for myself this year.  It'll be difficult to complete this year, but I'd like to get a lot closer than where I am at.  In the meantime, these three rookie cards of Chuck Norris will have to be some of the highlights of my 1970s Japanese card collection.

Thanks Billy for inspiring this post with his awesome Bruce Lee NASCAR card.

What's your favorite Chuck Norris fact?

Mine is:

After Chuck Norris got done vacationing in The Virgin Islands, they were just known as The Islands.

2018 Collecting Goals

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone survived the New Year festivities unscathed.  It has been nice reading other blogs to see how everyone fared over the past 365 days....here is to another great year of collecting.

Like most other collectors, here I am after a wonderful year of collecting trying to figure out what I should focus on this coming year.  It is nice to have these goals in order to provide a bit of framework and metrics to what should be a fun and exciting year in my card-collecting world.  I had 6 last year and decided to go for an easy-to-remember 10 this year.  Without further delay, here are my 10 goals for 2018 (in no particular order):

1. Discover and Catalog at least 5 "new" vintage sumo sets (pre-1997).
- This one should not be a problem as new stuff seems to creep up all the time.  It is challenging to think I must be so close to the "end of the rainbow" only to fall two steps back when a ton of new sets pop up.  They are out there for sure and I am determined to find them.

2. Add 2 more 1973 Calbee Sumo Cards to my collection.
- The 1973 Calbee Set is a modern enigma in the sumo collecting world.  The cards are not that rare, yet they command prices 100x what the silver and golden era sumo menko go for.  Consequently, I end up only dabbling in this set as a full set is going to run me several thousand dollars.  I put in low bids and occasionally pick one up here and there.  I always feel like I need to complete this set sooner than later before it becomes a $5000 set.

3.  Conduct some interviews of fellow collectors.
- I am by no means a journalist, but I enjoy hearing about the backstories of card collecting in general.  I'd love to be able to conduct some interesting interviews of fellow collectors, with a focus on Japanese cards, and share the interview with the rest of the card collecting world.

4.  Add at least 1 more Murai card to my collection.
- As I mentioned in my 2017 Goals Update, someone warned me how hard this set is going to be.  I'll slowly work at this set over time and pick up a few cards here and there.  I'd love to pick up some from this military set:

5. Continue to expand my German Card Collection.
- This one should be fairly easy to accomplish as I've managed to connect with several of the more prominent dealers here in German.  There are way too many sets out there to try and even make a dent, so I am going to have to focus on either a certain manufacturer or subject matter.  Probably cards that have a Japanese or Space theme will be my starting point.

6.  Add two more card catalogs to my library.
- In keeping with the above theme (really the photos), I'd like to add more card catalogs to my library.  I have a fascination with catalogs and card guides so I am hoping I find some interesting ones.

7. Add to my Brandon Laird and Yuta Tabuse Collection.
- I've been collecting both of these athletes for a year or so and so I am hoping I can expand on my player collections of both of these guys.  Occasionally, good deals pop up on cards of both of these guys.  I'm hoping to be able to add to them throughout the year and come away with some sweet deals.  COMC, YJ, and eBay should help me here.

8. Expand the B-League Sets.
- I need some easy goals so this one is perfect.  It shouldn't be too hard to knock out this year as there will likely be at least two to three sets released.  I enjoyed last year's product and I'm looking forward to more.

9. Update the BB-Series of Sumo Menko and Bromides.
- One of my most ambitious goals this year is to "fix" and update the BB-series of sumo cards and bromides in my book.  There were so many produced during the 1930s-1950s that is was daunting to get to the spot where I am now.  I have been loading up on a ton of these bromides so I should be able to catalog more sets, fix a few that I have, and update checklists on some others.  This is going to take dozens of hours that I'll need to squeeze in along with the other 9 card goals I have.

10. Finish the 1974 Yamakatsu's Mini Card Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon (Series 1) Set and add to The Way of the Dragon (Series 2) and Green Hornet (Series 3) Sets
- I'm two short on the Series 1 set, about 30 short on the Series 2 set and about 40 short on Series 3.  Each consecutive set gets harder to find with the Green Hornet sets commanding the highest prices.  I can't believe I missed a whole box of them a few years back for a few hundred dollars.  These mini cards show up on occasion, but there is a big market for them out there and they are often difficult to pick up for a price I am willing to pay at the moment.

There you have it.  Hopefully some manageable and achievable goals and I'll keep everyone updated on them as the year progresses.