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If ever there was an underdog Chicago could get behind, Rupert Cintron is it.

Cintron, a 51-year-old Chicago-area truck driver, made his debut as a pro sumo wrestler in a new league that swung through Chicago over the weekend.

“It’s just an opportunity at my age to be able to do something like this,” Cintron told the Sun-Times before his first pro match. “I’m 51 years old, and I’m about to get out there with these kids, and, you know, it’s just cool … It’s like life never ends if you don’t let the dream end. Just keep going.”

With little sumo experience to his name, Cintron is very much just a dude in the right place and time who was given a shot.

He hasn’t worked out — in a gym, at least — in seven years.

But he moves about 11,000 pounds of flour, beef and other raw materials on a daily basis from his truck into the basements of Chicago restaurants. Before that he worked as a mover.

“People tell me I have that dad strength. That old strength,” said Cintron, who also played 11 years of semi-pro football in the Chicago area.

His nickname: The Chicago Silverback.

“My wife and family always say ‘You’re like a big gorilla.’ Plus I’m getting old, got the gray hair going, got a little silver on the back,” he said.

Cintron, at 5 feet 10 inches and 260 pounds , is also very green when it comes to sumo. He only began wrestling two years ago and is still learning all the Japanese words that go hand in hand with the sport, which Americans tend to pick up as adults.

Professional Japanese sumo wrestlers typically start learning the sport at a young age and rise the ranks by living together in “stables” and dedicating much of their lives to training, which includes a regimen of high-calorie nutrition to pack on pounds.

Only a few Americans, most from Hawaii, have broken into the upper echelons of sumo in Japan.

Cintron (whose legal name is Ruperto but goes by Rupert) lives in Elgin with his wife and high-school sweetheart, Lela Cintron, and they have four kids. His father was a Chicago police officer.

A nascent American league

The Sumo Championship League that just launched is not affiliated with professional sumo in Japan. It is the brainchild of founder Stuart Snyder, the former president of the Cartoon Network and World Wrestling Entertainment. Snyder puts an American spin on the packaging of the live event with attention to music, lighting, presentation and crowd reaction.

“But the sumo is pure sumo,” said Snyder.

The event Saturday night at Credit Union 1 Arena (previously known as UIC Pavilion) was the second stop on the league’s inaugural tour across North America. Its next stops are in California, Arizona and Texas.

Sumo_261110-9. Jpg — The Sumo Championship League’s wrestlers circle up on the dohyo during the leagues second-ever event, at Credit Union 1 Arena at UIC, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. The American spin on the sport packages the live event with attention to music, lighting, presentation and crowd reaction.

The majority of the league’s wrestlers are American, but there are a few international competitors, too, including ones from Mongolia and Ukraine and one amateur wrestler from Japan.

A $10,000 prize goes to the top wrestler at each event, and wrestlers accrue points throughout the season, with some getting cut if they under perform, culminating in a final event in late 2027.

Cintron was the sole wrestler from the Chicago area to compete Saturday.

Sam Rodriguez III, a 40-year-old military veteran from Calumet City, would liked to have joined him, but he was injured in the league’s first event in October in Austin, Texas, which drew about 3,500 people. He broke a finger and tore tendons in his hand.

Sumo_261110-4. Jpg — Sumo wrestler Sam Rodriguez, who was unable to fight due to an injury, attended the Sumo Championship League’s second ever event at Credit Union 1 Arena. The military veteran from Calumet City said of the atmosphere at these events: “Once that initial charge happens in the ring, the crowd just goes wild.”

“Yea, I got injured, but the event was lit,” said Rodriguez. “Once that initial charge happens in the ring, the crowd just goes wild.”

Unlike sumo in Japan, where the top ranks are occupied by massive humans averaging more than 350 pounds, wrestlers in the new league have a variety of builds, with weights ranging from 200 pounds to the 450 pounds that the league’s top-ranked wrestler, Dominus Davis-Williams, brings into the ring.

It’s not uncommon for a much smaller wrestler to beat a larger opponent.

‘Build some calluses’

When he was announced, the crowd gave it up for their hometown competitor.

Cintron felt the love, but lost his three matches.

Sumo_261110-42. Jpg — Sumo wrestler Rupert Cintron from Elgin, raises his hands to the cheering crowd before his first bout of the evening against competitor George Ferris.

He slipped in the first one, was pushed out of the ring by a hand to the neck in the second and wrestled his opponent to the ground in the third, but Cintron hit the floor first.

The performance means he probably won’t be invited to the new wrestling leagues next events.

Every time he looked at his family in the crowd he saw his daughter, Raven Cintron, 22, holding a sign that read “Build some calluses.”

It was a nod to a line Cintron told his kids whenever they would do things like stub a toe or sip a too-hot soup: “You’re building calluses to make yourself stronger.”

Sumo_261110-43. Jpg

Sumo wrestlers George Ferris (left) and Rupert Cintron prepare for their bout, Cintron’s first of the evening.