The Gyoji: Sumo's Referee, and What He Is Actually Doing
There is a man on the clay with the wrestlers. He wears a distinctive costume that would not look out of place in a period film, and he carries a fan-shaped implement called a gunbai. He is the one part of a sumo bout that nobody explains to you.
He is the 行司 (gyoji) — the referee. Almost every assumption a new viewer makes about him is wrong, and correcting three of them explains most of what you see.
He does not start the bout
This is the big one. In most sports the official starts play: a whistle, a bell, a hand dropping. The gyoji does not.
As the four minutes before a bout explains, within the time limit the bout begins when the two wrestlers agree to begin it, and at no other moment. Nobody outside the ring can start it for them.
What the gyoji does is call 待ったなし (matta nashi) — "no more waiting" — once the time limit is up. That does not start anything either. It tells the two men that the next crouch has to be the real one.
He always names a winner — immediately
The moment the bout ends, the gyoji points his 軍配 (gunbai) toward one side and announces a winner. There is no pause, no conferring, no replay first.
He does this even when the finish was too close to call. That is deliberate: the gyoji has to produce a decision straight away, so that there is a decision on the table to be examined.
He can be overruled
Five judges sit at ringside. If one of them disagrees with the call, he raises a 物言い (mono-ii) — an objection.
The five judges then step up onto the ring together with the gyoji and confer there, in front of everyone, with a video replay available to them. Three things can come out of it: the call stands, the call is reversed, or the bout is ordered to be fought again.
The video is available to them, but it does not decide anything. Two judges and a technique official sit in a video room and relay what the replay shows to the head judge on the clay; the ruling itself rests on what the five judges saw. The Association is explicit that the replay is a reference, not the verdict. Sumo has had it since 1969, which makes it one of the first sports anywhere to use video review at all.
When the call is reversed, there is a name for that too: 行司差し違え (gyoji sashichigae), "the referee pointed the wrong way". It goes on his record.
So the gyoji is not the final authority. He is the man who has to commit to an answer first, in public, knowing it will be checked.
The trap for new viewers
When the judges climb into the ring, it can look like the referee is in trouble. He is not being disciplined. This is the system working exactly as designed: a fast call, then a careful review of it.
The gunbai and the costume
The gunbai is not a prop. It is how the decision is expressed: he points it at the side he is awarding the bout to, and the direction it points is the call.
The robes are not costume either. A gyoji has a rank of his own, and the details of what he wears go with it — which is why the man refereeing the last bouts of the day does not look the same as the one refereeing early bouts in the morning. It is the same idea as the banzuke: status made visible, so you can read it without being told.
There are eight grades, and they mirror the wrestlers' own ladder: a referee for each of the six divisions, then a rank above the top division, then the two most senior referees of all. What changes with the grade is the colour of the tassel on the fan and of the cords on the robe. At the very top the tassel is purple, and only two men in the sport are entitled to it.
What he is shouting
Throughout the bout the gyoji keeps up an almost continuous call. To an English-speaking viewer it can sound like commentary, or like he is refereeing very loudly.
It is neither. Two phrases account for most of it, and they mean different things.
- Hakkeyoi — the one that gets shouted when the two men have gone still. It comes from a phrase meaning something like "put your spirit into it", and it is exactly what it sounds like: encouragement. Get on with it.
- Nokotta, nokotta — the one he repeats while they are moving. It means "you are both still in". Not a score, but not empty either: he is stating, continuously, that neither man has yet lost.
So the call does carry information — just only one bit of it, the same bit, over and over, until it stops.
The gyoji is not a neutral outsider brought in for the day. He belongs to the sumo world in the same way a wrestler does, and refereeing is a career with its own ranks and its own progression through them.
What to watch for
Next time a bout ends close, watch the fan first and the judges second.
The fan will move almost instantly — that is one man committing. Then look at the ringside. If nobody moves, the call is final. If a hand goes up, you are about to see six men stand on the clay and take that instant decision apart.
Where "matta nashi" fits, and why nobody but the wrestlers can start a bout.