10 Crazy Wrestling Scandals You've Never Heard Of

10. The Antonio Inoki Embezzlement Scandal

At Wrestle Kingdom 17, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced that a feature film depicting the life of company founder Antonio Inoki is in pre-production.

There isn't enough time. It is no exaggeration to state that only a multi-season Netflix series would do justice to the endless and endlessly fascinating source material. To tell the epic, insane story of Inoki's life, you might even have to tally up the combined runtime of every Triple H WrestleMania match. That's probably too long, actually, but the point still stands: even a three-hour film would only act as a shallow glimpse.

Inoki founded, oversaw and starred in the biggest puro promotion ever for decades. To grasp the scale of his legacy, he was both Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan at the same time.

In the early 1980s, NJPW was a monster of a success turning an incredible profit, but Inoki almost tanked the entire company; his side business, a biotechnology company operating under the name Anton Hisel, was floundering. In response, he embezzled and siphoned cash from New Japan's live gates to keep it afloat. The interloping Ishin Gundan stable were incensed, NJPW's hottest angle was abandoned, and Inoki stepped down as President (though still performed as a talent). Business plummeted for a few years with the best thing going dead, but Inoki soon found himself back in power as a result of what many deemed clandestine political machinations.

That Vince comparison goes further than you might think, too; Vice President Hisashi Shinma was fired, John Laurinaitis-style, for the benefit of the optics.