Sumo Show Features 726-Pound `Tiny'

Emmanuel Yarbrough said his impression of sumo was "two fat guys bumping bellies."

Six years and 200 pounds or so later, the 6-foot-8, 726-pound Yarbrough has a reverence and understanding of the sport that could come only through participation.

Yarbrough, who has a 74-inch waist and answers to the nickname of "Tiny," will be among the featured performers tonight at the "Night of the Giants" super-heavyweight sumo event at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J.

"I've always been a big guy to begin with," said Yarbrough, who was an offensive tackle and wrestler at Morgan State University in Baltimore. "When I first got into sumo in 1992, I probably weighed about 535."

He went to Japan, where he learned "it wasn't just eating and drinking - it was eating and drinking with a purpose."

"People go by preconceived notions that sumos are just big, fat guys," he said. "When you see a lot of these guys up close, you'll see they are more developed than people give them credit for. They are athletes."

Still a big hit

Konishiki, the 640-pounder whose hulking presence and yield-no-ground stare helped him become one of Japan's most feared sumo wrestlers for more than a decade, now is a television celebrity in Japan.

Since leaving the ring, the 34-year-old Hawaiian-born giant has lost 66 pounds and taken on a cuddly and mellow persona as he plugs whiskey in TV ads and co-hosts a prime-time talk show.

He wrote it

Jim Donaldson, Providence Journal, on this week's election of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, a rassler-turned-politician, as governor of Minnesota: "How appropriate that the state bird of Minnesota is the loon."