Short hair, diamond studs in each ear and a tattoo on his right arm?

The outer trappings of individual expression — all no-nos in rigid sumo society — are enough to confound the sport's purists who, not for the first time since they crossed paths with Chad Rowan 17 years ago, have had occasion to wonder what to make of this man mountain from Waimanalo.

Once, the 6-foot-8, 470-pounder known as Akebono shattered convention and inflamed passions, shaking as he did the feudal underpinnings of Japan's national sport as the first foreigner to achieve the rank of yokozuna.

Now, 12 years later, that he has left the sacred dohyo to compete on the popular K-1 mixed martial arts circuit has left to percolate a whole other debate.

On one hand, some had questioned whether a foreigner, even one who scattered opponents like bowling pins, could possess the qualities of hinkaku, loosely defined as the lofty combination of dignity, grace and character, deemed requisite of one who held the exalted rank of yokozuna.

Now, four years after one competitive career ended, there are those who would tell you it is unbecoming of a yokozuna to have stepped so boldly from one ring into another as Akebono does again Friday night on the K-1 World Cup Grand Prix in Hawai'i card at Aloha Stadium.

"How can Akebono rise to the pinnacle in honorable sumo and then fall from grace to a sport in which the goal is to hurt, injure and render an opponent unconscious?" one purist in Japan pointedly asked in a letter to the editor.

"We feel betrayed" the weekly magazine Shukan Post has quoted a ranking sumo association official as saying after Akebono took his 11 Emperor's Cups and departed.

Never mind that the 36-year-old Akebono said he formally asked for and received from his elders an honorable separation from the sport of emperors a year and a half ago. Or, that his options were limited in both time and finances: either ante up the $1.2 million — or more — price of a share of stock in the ruling Japan Sumo Kyokai or get out after Jan. 2006, when the five-year grace period granted to ex-yokozuna expires.

Traditionally, yokozuna have mostly stepped from the limelight quietly, either becoming coaches and elders in the background of the sport or opening chankonabe restaurants, capitalizing on their names. A few, Azumafuji, Wajima and Futahaguro, have gone into pro wrestling amid some official disappointment, the latter two on the heels of scandal.

But pro wrestling — popularized by former sumotori Rikidozan — was rarely the competitor to sumo viewership and attendance that K-1 has become. Along with J-league soccer, K-1 has captured a youthful market in Japan, where Friday's card will be shown.

Indeed, Akebono's K-1 debut on the New Year's 2003 card leaped into ratings territory hardly seen by sumo since his history-making victory over Takanohana in January of 1993. Since the departure of Akebono, Musashimaru and their adversaries — brothers Takanohana and Wakanohana — sumo has been in a down period.

"K-1 was something that came to me completely out of the blue, like sumo once did," Akebono said. "It has been good for me. And, my (three) kids have to eat."

If they grind like their father, the new job figures to come in handy.