The Sportsman of GC is back with another Sports thread..this time we will check out the interesting Sports in JAPAN!
We will be naming a bunch of them and I can explain a few rules and stats about each of them...we will even look for the Sports that might be small in other places but huge in Japan!
One of the literally one of the biggest sports in Japan is:
SUMO!!!
The point of a Sumo match is to force your opponent out of the circle or cause any part of his body other then the bottom of his feet to hit the ground. Sumo Wrestling's roots trace back to the Edo period in Japan as a form of sporting entertainment.
Pro Wrestling is also big in Japan!
One of the bigger organizations in Japan is NJPW or New Japan Pro Wrestling. Pro wrestling is widely known all over the world as in the states the big promotion is WWE or World Wrestling Entertainment. Many of the stars of the WWE started in or have been in NJPW..Names like AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows (The good brothers) Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura.
Other big Sports include:
-Baseball (Major and little league)
-Soccer
-Figure Skating
-Rugby Union
-Golf
-Auto Racing
-Judo
-Karate
The Baseball League in Japan is called Nippon Professional Baseball or it's also called Puro yakyu. It's made of of two parts: The Central League/Established teams and the Pacific League which consists of newer players and teams. The season is 8 months long and they play 144 games (162 in the U.S.) then a playoff system and the finals in October called the Japan Series.
The Japan Little League teams through the years have been very good and more times then less they are fighting for the championship or at least close to it.
FIGURE SKATING:
(Copied from Wikipedia due to not much info on this)
In the 2009–10 season all four reigning World Champion singles skaters were from Japan. Figure skating events in Japan are well attended and TV broadcasts attract a large audience. The major surge in its popularity has come mainly within the past decade with the success of its native skaters, but there have been avid fans in the country for international skaters for much longer. Skater Dorothy Hamill is known to have received pearls from the Japanese royal family in the 1970s. Figure Skaters in Japan also enjoy some level of celebrity—some like Mao Asada and Yuzuru Hanyu (the first Japanese male figure skater to win an Olympic gold medal) becoming household names and gaining large sponsorships. The NHK Trophy, a major figure skating Grand-Prix event, is hosted in Japan every year.
RUGBY UNION:
Rugby union is a moderately popular sport in Japan. The Japanese national rugby union team, controlled by the Japan Rugby Football Union, has been to every Rugby World Cup since 1987. The country will host the Rugby World Cup in 2019. Japan's first win in the Rugby World Cup was against Zimbabwe in 1991, which was also one of the national team's first wins. They also caused a significant upset in the 2015 World Cup, beating two-time champions South Africa. The Japanese rugby team has been playing in international tournaments since the 1930s.
In 2016, the Sunwolves joined Super Rugby as that competition's first Japanese team and first from the Northern Hemisphere. Super Rugby began in 1996 as Super 12, involving franchised teams from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and had involved only those countries until 2016. The competition became Super 14 in 2006 when it added two teams, and adopted its current name of Super Rugby when it expanded to 15 teams in 2011. The 2016 season saw the addition of three new teams, including the first-ever entry from Argentina. The Sunwolves play home matches mostly at Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium in Tokyo, with select "home" matches also played in Singapore.
There is also a Women's Rugby Union as well. It's not just the men who are tough..
Japan made their debut at the 1991 Women's Rugby World Cup. Since then, Japan has appeared at two other World Cups, the 1994 and the 2002 Women's Rugby World Cup.
In 2015 they won the Asia Rugby Women's Championship.[1]
They have played 38 games and are 19-19 overall.
Subject: SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS IN JAPAN!!! 
23rd August 2017, 10:05 am
