Why Sumo: Gabe Unick - A Decade in the Dohyo, Leading Michigan Sumo

[Music] all right guys we're here with the number one seed of Nationals 2024 Gabe unic go ahead and introduce yourself well he just introduced me but hi I am Gabe unck out of the grand rabbit Sumo Club all right so big question here big question this is why Sumo it's all about why you do Sumo um you started before me and I just want to know why why you do Sumo let's see uh I first got into Sumo probably like 2013 is uh so I've been wrestling since I was you know in sixth grade all the way up into the college uh did Greco freestyle um and then my degree is in exercise science uh which is what I use now to bartend as one dos uh but uh one day I just kind of got down the rabbit hole of uh Sumo and uh being with having my grappling background and then also having you know my background in exercise physiology I was able to kind of appreciate the sport from both the aspect of these guys are highly skilled Grapplers and also these guys are insanely athletic for their size um and from there I just got further down I found out that there was ammo found out there was ammo in the United States got into contact with some people uh went out to the US Open in 2015 and I've just been doing it ever since so in 2015 that's wild that's wild so you've been doing Sumo for 10 years now just about almost yeah all right so 10 years of sumo and you're out in um Grand Rapids Grand Rapids right had a little stroke don't worry about it um so in Grand Rapids there's no Club out there at the time and you started a club and which shows your passion for the sport can you speak a little bit about that uh yeah I mean I um for the first couple years uh just trained solo um and then 2017 uh started the club up with uh Micah who's also up there in Grand Rapids um and then just kind of kept building over the years uh we also had sister clubs pop up in Chicago and uh uh the Detroit area after people came out to our tournaments caught the bug went back started their own clubs uh so it's just been awesome to see that growth over the past decade feel old now where do you see Sumo going right we we basically all of Texas is blown up right uh California is still struggling somehow um Florida blown up uh where do you see the actual sport in America going I think that Sumo is very close to a turning point where if we can just get in front of enough people to shift that general public perception just a little bit I think the sport could just explode in the United States um I think that we have a very sport obsessed culture in general uh just compared to almost any other country on Earth um and I think that Americans are very open to almost any sport especially if you're just talking about you know two massive athletic individuals fighting I think that's something that Americans would gravitate towards and then I also think that there's just a a massive crop of people who are the prototypical Sumo size and build and athleticism who might not have another Avenue in sports um so I mean I've I've I firmly believe that like if you took you know every college football player who's not going to the NFL uh every NCAA wrestler above like 150 who's not going onto the Olympics uh you know every College rugby player who's not going pro uh and I mean that list goes on but if you took all of them and you just Sumo was in a spot where these people knew about it may have done it previously in their lives as just like offseason training and knew it was an option like if we got to that level of notoriety I think the sport just explodes and I think that Americans flood the international scene and flood the proed if we can get it to there I think that's very much possible um like I run tournaments you run tournaments you started uh with the art what is it the um so we do um art PRI sorry uh we do art prize um which is a big International art competition in Grand Rapids uh and then we also do uh Riverfront which is part of a convention in Grand Rapids um and one of the reasons that I do tournaments very publicly um is for that exact reason because I think that if you put Sumo in front of people you can completely flip their perception in 90 seconds you know because everybody knows what Sumo is but until you see it you have no idea what Sumo actually is you know so people think like oh Two Fat Guys hugging but then they see somebody get thr the first time and all of a sudden it's just like a whole 180 on the perception that's that is literally the perception that that and it's always fighting that um hi oh yeah what are you doing sorry hi I'm Gabe unic with the Grand Rapid Sumo Club if you have ever done Sports in your life try Sumo if you want to come out and hit some people try Sumo if you want to come out and throw some people try Sumo it's a great sport it's fast-paced the athleticism is beyond your wildest dreams it'll make you better at almost every sport why not give it a shot [Music]