10 Most Unforgettable Exhibition Matches In Wrestling History
5. Muhammad Ali Vs. Antonio Inoki
Offered a reported six million dollars to take on Japanese wrestler and martial artist Antonio Inoki, Muhammed Ali accepted and the fight was set - June 26th 1976 at the Budokan in Tokyo.
Unfortunately, there were more than a few crossed wires leading up to the fight. Over forty years, opinion and recall seems to vary from person to person as to the nature of the dispute. Ali’s people always intended the bout to be worked, and a scenario was devised that would allow for Inoki’s victory while Ali saved face: a referee bump, a distraction and a worked kick to the head.
Unfortunately, no one properly ran this past Ali, who adamantly refused to put Inoki over in any way.
The way Inoki’s people saw it, Ali had always been under the impression that the fight was to be worked - a pro wrestling spectacle - and had become unnerved once he realised that Inoki wasn’t just a professional wrestler, but was also a shooter - a legit fighter - of some renown.
Faced with a real fight, Ali’s people began to hedge and set further rules in place. Inoki couldn’t tackle, throw or take Ali down. He couldn’t kick Ali unless one knee was down. Ali’s team sought to take all the serious offence out of Inoki’s game - and they were insistent that these new rules not be made public. No one was to know why Inoki suddenly seemed so hamstrung.
When the fight finally occurred (screened on closed circuit television all the way across the world at the aforementioned Showdown At Shea in Queens), it was a disaster, a farce.
Inoki lunged for Ali immediately the bell rang, and then spent almost the entire of the first three-minute round on his back, occasionally flicking a kick at Ali’s legs. The second round went the same way, and the third. Ali tried to taunt Inoki into standing and fighting, but Inoki was relentless in his strategy… of lying on his back and kicking the boxer’s legs.
That’s the way the fight continued, the action only heating up a couple of times, when Inoki had Ali backed in a corner, and when a sudden takedown and elbow to the face occurred. By the fifteenth round, Inoki had just barely scraped ahead on points, all of which had been docked for fouling.
Ali was declared the victor, with injuries to the legs that would later become infected, and which would impair his health and mobility for the rest of his career.
The crowd, unaware of any of the restrictions that Inoki was working under, hated the match, chanting that they wanted their money back. Although the fight was considered to be the most embarrassing moment of Ali’s career, he and Inoki actually became friends afterwards, in a classic case of people becoming closer after sharing a traumatic incident.