Believe it or not, Upper Deck made a sumo wrestling card set once. Back in 2001, they made a 6-card tribute set for Yokozuna Akebono to celebrate his retirement which he had announced earlier on in the year. The sumo world owed a lot of thanks to Akebono. He helped usher in an era of popularity rarely seen in sumo. He was the key rival to the extremely popular Hanada brothers (Yokozuna Takanohana and Yokozuna Wakanohana) and first foreign-born Yokozuna. Akebono's 6'8" and 500 lb frame made him the tallest and heaviest Yokozuna in history. This massive frame also became his undoing as his knees and body eventually couldn't take all the stress and Akebono decided to retire. BBM (Baseball Magazine) cards have been the king of sumo wrestling since their fist set over 20 years ago, but the fact that Akebono was an American undoubtedly led to Upper Deck securing the publishing rights to make this set. My understanding is that these were made to hand out at his retirement ceremony in the kokugikan on 29 September 2001. The 6 cards are as follows:
CK1 - Checklist
A1 - Yokozuna Dohyouiri
A2 - Akebono Getting Ready to Compete
A3 - Akebono vs A Young Amateur
A4 - Akebono Winning the All Japan Rikishi Championship
A5 - Akebono Kissing the Tournament Trophy
The quality of this set is amazing with gold-gilding and great action shots, but it does look like the Japanese part of Upper Deck made the set with some odd translations and grammar. Here is the Sumo World Magazine that show a photo of Akebono at his retirement announcement press event.
