The Yobidashi: The Voice That Calls the Bout
Before every bout, a man steps onto the clay, opens a fan and sings two names. He is not an announcer, and calling the names is only part of what he does — he also sweeps the ring, carries the prize banners and starts the clock without anyone noticing.
呼出 (yobidashi) means, literally, "call out". It is a profession within sumo, like the referee and the hairdressers of the topknot article — not a job given to whoever is free.
The four things he does
He calls the names. Holding a white fan, in a drawn-out singing voice, he calls the two wrestlers up. That is the part you cannot miss.
He looks after the ring. Between bouts the clay is swept and tidied. That is his work too.
He hands over the towel. As covered in before the bout, the towel handed to each wrestler is also the signal that the time limit has been reached — so a piece of housekeeping is doubling as the clock.
He carries the banners. When a bout has kensho on it, the sponsors' banners are carried round the ring by the yobidashi. The Association's own page on kensho describes it in exactly those terms.
He has ranks, and they are the wrestlers' ranks
This is the part that surprises people, and it is published openly: the yobidashi are ranked, and the ladder mirrors the divisions of the sport.
Below the two named grades at the top, the ranks are simply the divisions: sanyaku, makuuchi, juryo, makushita and down to jonokuchi.
So the man calling the bouts in the morning and the man calling the last bout of the day are not the same man, and the difference between them is a career.
The published list gives each yobidashi a name, a grade and a stable — the same three facts the banzuke gives for a wrestler. He is not employed by the venue for the fortnight. He belongs to a sumo stable, exactly as the wrestlers do.
The name he is called by
Look at the published list and you will notice something. The yobidashi are listed under a professional name, with their real name given separately underneath.
That is the same arrangement as a wrestler's shikona. Everyone who steps onto the clay in a professional capacity does so under a name the profession gave them.
The trap for new viewers
It is easy to read the sweeping and the towel-passing as menial work done between the real events. It is not a separate job from the calling. Preparing the ring, timing the bout and announcing it are all one role, held by one ranked profession — and the man doing it in front of you may have been doing it for decades.
Telling him apart from the referee
Both are on the clay and neither is a wrestler, so new viewers mix them up.
The gyoji wears elaborate robes and carries a 軍配 (gunbai), the paddle-shaped implement he points at the winner. He stays for the bout and decides it.
The yobidashi is dressed far more plainly and carries a folding fan. He calls the names and leaves.
There is a second difference worth knowing, and it runs the opposite way to what you would expect. The referee's robes change with his rank; the yobidashi's do not. Every one of them, from the most senior to a boy in his first year, wears the same kimono, the same tapered trousers and the same 足袋 (tabi). You cannot read his standing off his clothes at all — only off which bouts he is given.
The fan is blank
It is worth saying, because almost everyone assumes otherwise. The 白扇 (hakusen) — the plain white fan he opens to call the names — has nothing written on it. He is not reading.
He holds it open in front of his face and sends his gaze over the top edge, and the reason is courtesy: so that he does not breathe on the ring he has just prepared, or on the two men he is calling up. The fan is the same kind used in Japanese classical dance, made a little larger.
What to watch for
Watch the ring in the gaps rather than the bouts.
Somebody is always working in there — sweeping a line back into shape, carrying a banner, placing a towel. That is one profession, doing its job, and once you can see it you stop seeing the gaps as empty.
The other man on the clay, and why his decision is not the final one.
Sources: Japan Sumo Association — 呼出一覧 (grades and stables) and 懸賞について (the yobidashi carrying the banners). Retrieved 8 September 2026.