Despite doing well as a newcomer he soon quit the sport due to the difficulty of the sumo lifestyle and the toll the hard ring surface was taking on his body. Tenta commented, "Nothing I have ever done – not football, not college wrestling – compares with the kind of physical abuse you inflict on your body in sumo." In addition, the sumo world frowned on the large tattoo of a tiger on his left biceps and, though he covered it during matches, would have required him to remove it via skin graft before moving up to the higher-level competitions. In Japan, tattoos are associated with gangsters, and public display is widely prohibited. Tenta's decision to quit was criticized by his stablemaster, while the head of the Japan Sumo Association Kasugano (the former "yokozuna" Tochinishiki), said Tenta had become arrogant after his run of consecutive victories. "He thought it would be easy. But there is no job in this world that is harder. It is better for him to leave."