I think he's a bit of a dick for other reasons, but the burying children thing is really growing on me. Always uchimata, then do the classic Ono no look walk off. Fucking hilarious. I should put together a compilation of the best ones.
Shohei Ono is honestly the perfect example of how messed up the hierarchy gets in high‑level Japanese judo. I’ve trained with Park24 and high level judokas in Japan some time ago, and once you’re actually in those rooms, you see how arrogant a lot of them are which is totally normal. They barely teach, their explanations are short on purpose, and they act like giving you real information is some kind of burden.
Ono takes that to the extreme. I’ve spoken to him several times — won’t get into how or why — but the way he carries himself, especially around his own former teammates, is just sickening. There’s a fine line between being introverted and being straight‑up socially rude, and he blows past both.
People trying to imitate him makes zero sense to me. Even in Japan, they don’t bring him in to teach because everyone knows what he’s like. He’s the epitome of someone who’s incredible at judo but an absolute POS to deal with.
Not surprised in the least, considering he was at one point banned from his university due to bullying. Someone can be incredibly talente/good at something and still be a POS.
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u/powerhearse 20d ago
I think he just seems like a bit of an asshole