Sumo Wrestling Tournament Winner - Congrats to Yokozuna Hakuho, 42nd Win!

The March tournament was full of story lines with Tochinoshin getting demoted back down to Sekiwake, Takakeisho getting promoted to Ozeki, and Hakuho winning his record extending 42nd top division tournament.  He is in beast mode with 10 more tournament wins over the closest previous Yokozuna Taiho who only had a seemingly "paltry" 32 tournament championships.  My prediction is the 34-year old Hakuho will keep competing until the Japan 2020 Olympics are over with so that he can be the face of sumo on the world's sports stage.  After that, I imagine he will have nothing left to prove in the world of sumo and will hang up his mawashi.  Here are the two latest Hakuho cards from the BBM's 2019 Sumo Card Set.

2019 US Sumo Open - Long Beach

One of the exciting things about moving back to the US this year is I will be able to now attend the annual US Sumo Open which will be in my "backyard" down in Long Beach.  On Saturday, 23 March was the 19th Annual Sumo Open with wrestlers competing from all over the world.  This is the largest sumo tournament outside of Japan and the heavy favorite this year was Byamba, but age is finally catching up to him and he did not place in the top three medal finishes!  These types of tournaments open up the sport to amateurs, youth, and women in a successful attempt to expose the world to the sport.  Congrats to Oielsandr Veresiuk (Ukraine), Jose Galindo (USA), and Hiroki Sumi (Japan) for taking home the Men's Heavyweight Gold, Silver, and Bronze respectively.  Congrats as well to Svitlana Kolenyk (Ukraine), Julia Dorny (Germany), and Marine Holmeide (Norway) for taking home the Women's Middleweight Gold, Silver, and Bronze respectively.

2018 Japanese BBM Akatsuki Five Basketball Cards

This past weekend, FIBA drew the brackets for the 2019 Basketball World Cup and Japan landed a tough bracket E with the United States, Czech Republic, and Turkey.  For some reason that I haven't been able to determine, the World Cup was delayed from 2018 to 2019, but it is still being held in China.  Last year, BBM issued the Rising Sun set to highlight the men's and women's National Team called the "Akatsuki Five".  This is a 28-card base set with one special insert card per box.  All boxes have the same 28 base cards broken out among 14 women and 14 men, but have a random special insert card included which is either an autograph or memorabilia card.  Overall, a simple and decent set.  Here are the scans as well as a video I did for my YouTube channel.