At home in Hawai'i, the man on that corner, Fiamalu Penitani, likes to say he probably would, "have been just one of the boys pounding the sand on the beach."

But in Japan where he gained fame and fortune as Musashimaru, the 67th grand champion in the centuries-old national sport of sumo, the 6-foot-3, 500-pounder stopped traffic and much more for 14 record-setting years.

Last night in the same Ryogoku Kokugikan ring where half of his 12 Emperor's Cups, emblematic of tournament championships, were won, dozens of his contemporaries and sponsors took turns cutting off the traditional top knot in a ritual that symbolically concluded Musashimaru's sumo career.

With the final snip of the scissors before a nationwide television audience, the 33-year-old Musashimaru marked the end of 40 years of Hawai'i sumotori in the sport of emperors.

More and more the stables have looked to Asia and Europe, notably Mongolia, to fill the maximum one spot per stable that the Japan Sumo Association now permits its members to have.

A line that began with Jesse Kuhaulua in 1964 and was perpetuated by more than 25 aspirants came to a remarkable end with Musashimaru's departure.

"It will be sad," said Kuhaulua, now a sumo stable owner and coach who is less than five years away from the sport's mandatory retirement age of 65 for elders. "It has been a long time."

Having observed, one by one, the tearful retirements of his makuuchi division predecessors, Konishiki, Yamato and Akebono, Musashimaru said, "my time has been coming and I'm gonna be like that ... tears. I've got to cry. The time has gone by so fast."

Indeed, to those who first glimpsed Musashimaru as a raw recruit mixing football learned at Wai'anae High with his initial awkward grasps of sumo technique, the rise has been swift and the end last November, when he competed in his final match, almost sudden by comparison.

HE WAS WORTH THE GAMBLE

The Japanese have a saying for those who aspire to the top rank in sumo: It is called "grabbing for the rope (tsunatori ni chosen)" a reference to the white rope worn by yokozuna on ceremonial occasions.

But in the east Nippori neighborhood of Tokyo, where Musashimaru has called home since 1989, it sometimes felt as if he was grabbing for the heavens and pulling down thunder. For when Musashimaru was going all-out in practice the sound of his victims bouncing off the hardwood walls that surround the training area could be heard from the street corner.

When Musashimaru pounded the smooth telephone pole-like fixture in the corner of the earthen ring with his large, meaty hands, the reverberations could be felt on the shoji-panel doors at the other end of the building.

It was where he refined the bulldozer charge and relentless drive that overwhelmed opponents in competition.

Initially, Musashimaru, who was born in Samoa and came to Hawai'i in elementary school, was seen as something of a gamble.

His stablemaster, the former yokozuna Wakanohana II, had experienced previous disappointments with foreign prospects and said he accepted Musashimaru on a three-month look-and-see trial basis. But shortly after arriving, Musashimaru's dedication to training and brute strength quickly won him a place in the stable and lofty expectations about the future.

Along with technique and the adjustments of language, food and culture, Musashimaru said the biggest adaptation he had to make was getting used to wearing the thin loin cloth-like mawashi.

"I felt shame," Musashimaru said of the revealing attire. "I didn't want all those people to see that much of me. I just wanted to (blend) in so no one would notice me."

With his raw power, there was scant chance of that. So powerful was he in even in his early scrimmage situations that many in the sumo community felt if he could adapt to the spartan lifestyle he might become the sport's first foreign-born yokozuna or grand champion.

Akebono, or Chad Rowan, another Hawai'i-bred sumotori with a year's head start, beat Musashimaru to that distinction But Musashimaru would edge Akebono by one tournament title, 12-11, for the most by a foreign-born sumotori.

CARVING HIS OWN IDENTITY

His thick eyebrows and barrel-chested resemblance to one of Japan's most revered historical figures, Saigo Takamori (1827-'77), helped Musashimaru win quick recognition and a place in the hearts of many fans even before his career got going.

Indeed, whether on visits to Kagoshima on the southern island of Kyushu or the nearby Ueno Park in Tokyo, fan club members delighted in taking pictures of Musashimaru, who they sometimes called "Saigo-san," and comparing him with life-size statues of the legendary samurai.

This sometimes irritated Musashimaru, who is of Samoan-Tongan ancestry and claimed to see not much resemblance at all.

But Musashimaru was quick to make his own mark rising through the almost feudal world of sumo at a bullet train-like pace.

He won 25 of his first 27 matches and, in a year and a half from his first tournament, had already achieved a place in the salaried juryo division, something fewer than 30 percent of all aspirants ever reach.

AN IRONMAN EFFORT

Friends from Hawai'i used to bring Musashimaru all manner of gifts from home, but among the most treasured, he said, were bags of poi, which stablemates at first regarded with bemused curiosity.

"My spinach," this sumo Popeye would say by way of explanation.

And it was tough to argue with the man who had a record 55 consecutive tournaments winning more matches than he lost.

From November of 1990 until January 2000, Musashimaru won a majority of his bouts in every tournament. Equally impressive in the rough and tumble sport of sumo where performers collide like mastodons, was a string of 838 consecutive bouts and 60 consecutive tournaments without missing a match.

In the end, even the hulking ironman was human.

Musashimaru's streak and, eventually his career, were undone by a series of injuries to what became a chronic left wrist. First sustained in January 2000, it weakened the jaws-like grip he was able to get on opponents and dulled his power.

WHAT'S A SUMOTORI TO DO NEXT?

You don't find many job ads in Japanese newspapers seeking ex-sumotori, so what is a former wrestler to do when he's 33 and just retired from the only real job he's ever held?

Musashimaru, like many recruits to sumo, arrived just after high school (some Japanese enter immediately after junior high graduation) without much other job training.

Akebono used to joke, "I guess I could go home and be the biggest cook at Jack-in-the-Box."

Cooking, being a common chore of lower-ranked wrestlers in the stables, has led to a lot of second careers. But, as with Akebono, Musashimaru rose so quickly into the upper echelons that he was usually waited upon and didn't draw much kitchen duty.

Their status as former yokozuna, however, allows them to join the Japan Sumo Association as elders and coaches and draw a salary for up to five years without having to buy stock in the association. Stock can cost well upwards of $1 million — when available — and is necessary if a former sumotori wants to own a stable as Takamiyama has.

Akebono stayed in the association for nearly three years before taking a lucrative offer to join the K-1 fighting circuit. Konishiki is active in the entertainment business and owns several restaurants.

Indications are Musashimaru will remain with the Musashigawa stable as a coach, helping instruct the stable's 30 sumotori.

Musashimaru received a reported 90 million yen (about $810,000 at today's exchange rates) retirement bonus for meritorious service from the Japan Sumo Association and figures to share in tens of thousands of dollars more from last night's retirement ceremonies.

HE'LL FEEL LOST WITHOUT TOPKNOT

At first it was a painful daily trial, the pulling and combing of his hair in order to fashion the 17th-century-style top knot that sumotori wear.

When the Musashigawa stable hairdresser would stretch and pull his hair to reach the nearly yard-long length for combing, "I'd get all sore," Musashimaru recalled, squinting his eyes at the remembered pain. "Sometimes, it felt like they were pulling everything out."

But the daily sessions of combing and applying the sweet-smelling grease have long since become second nature to Musashimaru, who says he will now miss the distinctive top knot that was snipped off and will be placed in a glass case as a memento of his career.