Game of thongs! My bizarre night with the sumo superfans by ROBERT HARDMAN

Imagine paying more than £1,000 for one of the best seats in the house at a sporting event and realizing you don’t actually have one.

After an hour of sitting on the floor, a nearly naked, 29 stone man suddenly descends on you.

How are you feeling? If you’re Tom Jordan, you’ll be thrilled.

‘This was worth it all!’ he tells me at the end of a remarkable evening at London’s Royal Albert Hall. ‘It means good luck.’

Mr. Jordan, a 61-year-old energy worker from Houston, Texas, is here with his wife, Bethany, because they are both big fans of Sumo wrestling. When they learned that London was holding a full tournament covering Japan’s ancient national sport and religion, they didn’t think twice before booking their flights.

Because top-level Sumo has only ever been performed outside Japan once before in the sport’s 1,500-year history, and that was here in London more than 30 years ago.

At first glance this could be renamed the Game of Thongs; lots of startling, bare-chested rituals followed by frenetic bursts of action – one long fight is a minute-long fight.

The rules are simple: Push your opponent out of the 14ft ring or make them touch the ground with anything other than their feet. He has millions of fans around the world and they are all connected to him through the internet.

When it was announced that the sport would be moving abroad for this five-day Grand Sumo Tournament, it immediately sold out. The wrestlers look equally excited; They appear in their robes and slippers at landmarks throughout London.

Wrestlers Tobizaru and Shonannoumi face off as they prepare to compete in a Makuuchi Division match on day one of the event

Following a 40-minute opening ceremony each night, there are ten fights on either side of the gap. Each couple climbs onto the ‘dohyo’, a raised platform, and begins mind games behind two white lines. There’s a lot of squatting, staring, belly slapping, clapping, leg stretching and foot tapping.

During breaks, wrestlers throw handfuls of salt around the ring (for purification). Finally the magnificently robed referee or ‘gyoji’ gives the signal and the warriors charge forward like a two-man rugby scrum.

Despite their huge bellies, jiggly hips and ample man boobs (many are also smokers), they are agile athletes. Some manage to trip or flip their opponent over, while others bulldoze them over the boundary line of clay-filled hay bales.

Some have a strong personal fan base. Huge cheers erupt when 21-stone lightweight Tobizaru, known as the ‘Flying Monkey’, lifts his opponent out of the ring by the back of his thong with a technique not unlike the schoolboy ‘wedgie’.

There are no ropes or guardrails in the sumo ring. Audience members in the first few rows sit cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, as is customary (thankfully there is regular seating further back). In fact, ringside cushions are so valuable that only Japanese people can sit on them in Japan.

There is great excitement when a 29-stone man-mountain called Shonannoumi knocks his opponent off the platform, only to gain so much momentum that he himself somersaults after him. At this point he tops happy Tom Jordan (who paid £1,047 for the privilege).

The whole affair is painstakingly original. As far as those who remain true to tradition are concerned, the Football Association’s much-derided ‘blazers’ have nothing to do with the ‘kimonos’ of Sumo’s governing body. They insisted that everything in the Albert Hall matched the Sumo hall in Japan, including the Shinto shrine roof hanging from the ceiling.

Straw, clay for the bales and even the hairdressers who made the wrestlers’ buns were flown in from Tokyo. Likewise, the wrestlers’ hotel should replicate life in their home ‘stables’.

Sumo wrestlers Tokihayate and Mitakeumi are seen fighting during their match on October 15

However, the audience consists mainly of British people. I’m with ardent fans Robert McGregor (57) and his brother Thomas (51) from Dundee. Two nights in a row they managed to get some of the cheapest seats for £71 (black market tickets were reaching £3,500 last night).

“I watched this when I was a kid and there was Sumo on Channel 4,” says hospital worker Thomas. ‘I said to myself: ‘I will see this one day’.’

The brothers explain to me the various stages of this strictly hierarchical sport. Fighters, or ‘rikishi’, work their way up to this top tier, the 40-man ‘makuuchi’ division.

They are ranked like tennis seeds, but occasionally a wrestler is so extraordinarily talented that he receives the exalted status of ‘Yokozuna’. There are only 75 in Sumo history but there are currently two; including the heaviest specimen in this event, a 30-stone specimen named 25-year-old Onosato.

Although they may be A-list sports celebrities in their home country, these gentle, unassuming men are happy to stop to chat and take selfies with those who come along.

Theirs is a highly disciplined, almost monastic life; Wrestlers have to reach a certain level in order to get paid, let alone get married, or even get a room of their own.

All this means something is missing in London this week. Turns out Sumo wasn’t traveling with an army of WAGs.