The 27-year-old Mongolian said he and his fellow wrestlers are having to tighten their belts in light of the recent rise in global fuel prices.
"I want pay raises for wrestlers," Asashoryu said. "Fuel prices are going up, the cost of living is going up and yet our salaries have remained the same."
Asashoryu made the comments at a meeting of wrestlers ahead of the July 13-27 Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament, the Nikkan Sports daily reported on Wednesday.
The last time the Japan Sumo Association gave its wrestlers a pay raise was in 2001, the Nikkan reported.
Asashoryu, who is chairman of a wrestlers' group that makes proposals to the association, suggested that wrestlers get a 10 percent pay raise or get paid for transportation to and from tournaments.
The Nikkan sports reported that Asashoryu gets paid about US$565,000 ($NZ744,960) a year from the association, but as grand champion his salary is much higher than that of rank-and-file wrestlers.
Asashoryu has a history of shaking things up in Japan's ancient sport.
He is brusque with reporters and his antics in and out of the raised ring have often rankled sumo's tradition-bound establishment.
Last July, he was slapped with a two-tournament ban and a pay cut for playing a charity football match in Ulan Bator after skipping an exhibition sumo tournament in Japan, claiming he was injured.
His latest comments are unlikely to sit well with the sport's higher-ups.
"I haven't heard anything about this," JSA chairman Kitanoumi was quoted as saying. "Anyway, these are things that are decided among the executive board."
