Untitled

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 October 10, 2022

Antonio Inoki, very likely the single most influential person in the pro wrestling business aside from Vince McMahon over the past 50 years, passed away on 10/1 due to heart failure at the age of 79.

Due to the time difference, the news broke in the U.S. on 9/30. Inoki was 79.

His death was not unexpected. There had been a few network television shows this year focusing on him and his health issues. He had been suffering from a rare disease, systemic transthyretin amyloidosis.

Systemic transthyretin amyloidosis occurs when your liver produces faulty transthyretin proteins. Clumps of these abnormal proteins, called fibrils, build up in the heart’s main pumping chamber. This leads to the left heart ventricle becoming stiff and weak. This makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to your body and can lead to heart failure.

He had been wheelchair bound for some time. His condition worsened of late and on a recent network television show appearance, he was so frail, looking like he may have weighed around 100 pounds and the one-time ageless star who in his late 50s still had the jet black hair and fit athletic body, looked like he would pass away very soon.

For probably three years, insiders in Japanese wrestling knew that his death was inevitable and he hung on longer than expected. In 2020, I can recall being in a discussion with a major New Japan official about what the company would do when Inoki was to pass away. Within New Japan, among the talented and those in the office, Inoki was a hated figure, blamed for nearly killing the company due to his being so out of touch with what the fans wanted, and forcing the toughest talent to do real fights against real fighters, notably Yuji Nagata’s loss to Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko. Because those types of matches in the 70s made Inoki a legend, he wanted to portray the idea that pro wrestling may not be real, but the top pro wrestlers are the greatest all-around fighters in the world. It was the Inoki myth from the 70s, except his wins were all bought and paid for. And continually, whether it be with Naoya Ogawa or later with Lyoto Machida, his goal was to create the next Inoki to lead New Japan to greatness. But once you had real fights, the idea of doing such matches in the pro wrestling world, it was not something the public cared for. Inoki booked New Japan stars in highly publicized fights, and when they got humiliated, because these were real fights and not what Inoki did, and it hurt the New Japan stars and product. Inoki somewhat abandoned ship, as while still owning a large percentage of New Japan, he was more visible at Pride Fighting Championship shows where he’d come out, give a speech and do his “Ichi. Ni. San. Da!” catch phrase and they’d play his music, and it would be the biggest crowd reaction at those shows. But not content with what, Inoki and backers tried to start a new promotion to compete with K-1 and Pride during the boom period, and that failed after one show on December 31, 2003, where Emelianenko was lured from Pride and beat Nagata in 62 seconds. The signing of Emelianenko led to mobsters that backed the Inoki Bom a Ye show and those backing the Pride show to have conflicts, which ended up public in the Japanese media. Inoki never ran another show and this revelation led to Pride losing television, folding, and the MMA boom period in Japan ending.

The basic thought process from New Japan at the time is that most hated him for nearly killing the company, but to the general public, Inoki and New Japan were synonymous. He was the founder and its greatest star. Ultimately the decision was when this day came, they would give him the respect of the iconic figure the public saw him as.

It was clear they had made amends since an Inoki video played earlier this year wishing them well for the 50th anniversary of the company.

His health had become well-known in Japan, where he was a cultural icon and would to this day still be the answer for most Japanese if they were asked the question “Who is the greatest pro wrestler of all-time?”

Inoki was the second biggest national star in Japanese pro wrestling history, behind Rikidozan, but Rikidozan has been dead for almost 59 years while Inoki was a household name from the 60s until recently. While still recognized by virtually everyone over the age of 35 or so, he was not as well known by the younger generation since pro wrestling isn’t as big culturally and his career ended more than 24 years ago. Inoki has won virtually every Japanese mainstream and wrestling poll for the last several decades when the question is asked “Who is the greatest pro wrestler of all-time?”

KANJI ANTONIO INOKI CAREER TITLE HISTORY

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Hulk Hogan in tournament final June 14, 1984 Tokyo; vacates title prior to annual IWGP tournament in 1985; def. Andre the Giant in tournament final June 11, 1985 Tokyo; vacates title prior to 1986 tournament; def. Dick Murdoch in tournament final June 19, 1986 Tokyo; vacates title prior to 1987 annual tournament; def. Masa Saito in previous champion vs. tournament champion match June 12, 1987 Tokyo; vacates title in May 1988 due to breaking his foot and having to miss title defenses

NATIONAL WRESTLING FEDERATION HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Johnny Powers December 10, 1973 Tokyo; lost to Tiger Jeet Singh March 13, 1975 Hiroshima; def. Singh June 26, 1975 Tokyo (On August 7, 1976 at the annual NWA convention, New Japan was allowed to join the NW A only if they were to stop billing this title as the NWF world heavyweight title, so from this point forward it was only called NWF heavyweight title); lost to Stan Hansen February 8, 1980 Tokyo; def. Hansen April 3, 1980 Tokyo; title held up after April 17, 1981 match with Hansen in Tokyo; def. Hansen April 23, 1981 Tokyo; title abandoned when New Japan dropped all singles titles to create IWGP heavyweight title

WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Bob Backlund November 30, 1979 Tokushima; lost to Backlund December 6, 1979 Tokyo (WWF President Hisashi Shinma declared title vacant due to outside interference from Tiger Jeet Singh in title match. Backlund returned to U.S. with title belt); WWF American historical records never list any of this as ever happening

UNIVERSAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Tiger Jeet Singh April 13, 1980 Mexico City; lost to Singh October 24, 1980 Okinawa

NWA INTERNATIONAL TAG TEAM: (now one-hair or the current All Japan Double tag team championship): w/Giant Baba def. Bill Watts & Tarzan Tyler October 31, 1967 Osaka; vacated titles January 8, 1968 when Inoki no-showed title match; w/ Baba def. Bill Miller & The Crusher February 3, 1968 Tokyo; lost to Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge January 9, 1969 Hiroshima; w/Baba def. Snyder & Hodge February 4, 1969 Sapporo; lost to The Crusher & Dick the Bruiser August 11, 1969 Sapporo; w/Baba def. Crusher & Bruiser August 13, 1969 Osaka; lost to Dory Funk Ir. & Terry Funk December 7, 1971 Sapporo

NWA UNITED NATIONAL HEAVYWEIGHT: (now one-third or the All Japan Triple Crown): def. John Tolos March 26, 1971 Los Angeles; stripped of title when fired from Japanese Wrestling Association

NWF/NWA NORTH AMERICAN TAG TEAM: w/Seiji Sakaguchi def. Kurt Von Hess & Karl Von Schotz August 16, 1974 Los Angeles; titles declared vacant after match against Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown (Hollywood Blonds) August l, 1975 Los Angeles; w/Sakaguchi def. Roberts & Brown October 2, 1975 Osaka; Inoki vacated title in early 1976 to concentrate on training for match with Willem Ruska

NWA ALL-ASIA TAG TEAM: w/Michiaki Yoshimura def. Fritz Von Erich & Ike Eakins May 26, 1967 Sapporo; Vacated lilies January 1968; w/Kintaro Oki def. Tom Jones & Buster Lloyd (Rufus Jones) February 3, 1969 in Sapporo; titles vacated when Oki left promotion; w/Yoshimura def. The Crusher & Art Michalik for vacant titles August 9, 1969 in Nagoya; titles vacated when Inoki was fired from IWA

UNITED STATES HEAVYWEIGHT: (Tokyo Pro Wrestling version): def. Johnny Valentine November 19, 1966 Osaka; Promotion folded in 1967

NWA TEXAS HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Joe Blanchard June 24, 1964 Houston; lost to Pepper Gomez

NWA WORLD TAG TEAM: (Texas version): w/Duke Keomuka def. Fritz Von Erich & Killer Karl Kox October 1965; lost to The Destroyer & The Golden Terror

NWA WORLD TAG TEAM: (Tennessee/Alabama version): w/Hiro Matsuda def. Eddie Graham & Sammy Steamboat January 24, 1966 Memphis; vacated titles when Inoki returned to Japan

NEW JAPAN REAL WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Karl Gotch October 4, 1972 Tokyo; title discontinued after Inoki won NWF world title

REAL WORLD MARTIAL ARTS CHAMPIONSHIP: def. Willem Ruska February 6, 1976, Tokyo; retained title until it was renamed WWF World Martial Arts championship in 1978

WWF WORLD MARTIAL ARTS CHAMPIONSHIP: Presented to Inoki by Vince McMahon Sr. on December 18, 1978 after defeating Texas Red (Red Bastien) in New York; lost to Shota Chochyashivili April 24, 1989 Tokyo; def. Chochyashivili May 25, 1989 Osaka; Title discontinued

JWA ANNUAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE: w/Kantaro Hoshino def. Nick Bockwinkel & John Quinn in tournament finals November 5, 1970 Tokyo; w/Seiji Sakaguchi def. Killer Kowalski & Buddy Austin in tournament finals November 1, 1971 Tokyo

JWA WORLD LEAGUE: def. Chris Markoff in tournament finals May 16, 1969 Tokyo

NEW JAPAN WORLD LEAGUE: def. Seiji Sakaguchi and Killer Karl Krupp in triangle match final May 8, 1974 Tokyo; def. Krupp in tournament final May 16, 1975 Tokyo

NEW JAPAN MSG ANNUAL WORLD LEAGUE: def. Andre the Giant in tournament finals May 30, 1978 Osaka; def. Stan Hansen in tournament finals June 7, 1979 Tokyo; def. Hansen in tournament finals June 5, 1980 Tokyo; def. Hansen in tournament finals June 4, 1981 Tokyo

NEW JAPAN MSG TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT: w/Bob Backlund def. Stan Hansen & Hulk Hogan in tournament finals December 10, 1980 Osaka; w/Hogan def. Killer Khan & Tiger Toguchi (Kim Duk) in finals December 10, 1981 Tokyo; w/Hogan def. Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis in finals December 8, 1983 Tokyo; w/ Tatsumi Fujinami def. Murdoch & Adonis in finals December 5, 1984 Tokyo

JAPAN CUP TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT: w/Yoshiaki Fujiwara def. Osamu Kido & Akira Maeda in tournament finals December 11, 1986 Tokyo

TOKYO SPORTS AWARDS

1974 – MVP

1976 – MVP

1977 – MVP

1978 – MVP

1980 – MVP

1981 – MVP

1975 TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR w/Seiji Sakaguchi

1981 TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR – w/Tatsumi Fujinami

1974 MATCH OF THE YEAR – March 19 vs. Shozo Kobayashi

1975 MATCH OF THE YEAR – December 11 vs. Billy Robinson

1979 MATCH OF THE YEAR – August 28 w/Giant Baba vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Tiger Jeet Singh

1984 MATCH OF THE YEAR – August 2 vs. Riki Choshu

WCW HALL OF FAME – 1995

WRESTLING OBSERVER HALL OF FAME – 1996

TRAGOS/THESZ HALL OF FAME – 2005

PRO WRESTLING HALL OF FAME – 2009

WWE HALL OF FAME – 2010

INTERNATIONAL PRO WRESTLING HALL OF FAME – 2021

He also routinely would finish in the top seven in mainstream polls of the greatest Japanese athlete of the 20th century.

Because things are so much different, with so much more fragmented media and pro wrestling not being as big, it is unlikely there will ever be the level of national hero stars that people like Inoki, Giant Baba, Rikidozan, El Santo and Hulk Hogan were at their peaks.

In death, he was largely remembered in Japan as the guy who captured the imagination of the country in the 1970s for what were billed as mixed martial arts matches where he did matches against karate masters, Olympic judo medalists, famous heavyweight boxers, most notably Muhammad Ali, and kickboxers. Almost all of these matches were worked other than the Ali fight and two bouts in Pakistan that are largely forgotten, the first of which was a work that turned real, as did one of Inoki’s more famous Sumo Hall main events.

Inoki won almost all of them, and was billed as World Martial Arts champion from 1976 to 1989, as well as holding multiple pro wrestling world championships around the world, and being the founder and biggest star of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

One could easily say Inoki had the most fascinating career of any pro wrestler in history because of the variety of opponents and unique stories about his matches. As an enduring true cultural icon, the only one who can match his longevity in the public eye would be Santo, because Rikidozan died young and Hogan, Baba and other wrestlers in other countries who were major cultural stars didn’t have Inoki’s longevity.

During his career, he had matches with two undisputed world heavyweight boxing champions and two other boxers who had highly-publicized heavyweight title fights. He faced Olympic medalists in freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, weightlifting, boxing and judo. He likely had more matches against Olympians than any pro wrestler in history, even once facing an Olympic basketball player. He also faced world champions in karate and kickboxing, several major NFL stars, and some of the pioneers in MMA. He may have faced more Hall of Famers than any pro wrestler who ever lived.

He drew the largest crowd ever to see a pro wrestling event in the world. He headlined the first two $1 million gates in history. He was in the match viewed by more people on television over a 24 hour period than any in pro wrestling history. He set the all-time pro wrestling gate record in 1976, and broke that record in 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995 and for his retirement show in 1998. The $7 million gate for his retirement show at the Tokyo Dome remained the all-time record until WrestleMania 25 in 2009. It is still the all-time record for Japan.

He headlined stadium shows in Japan, the U.S. (Hawaii), Brazil, Iraq, Thailand, Pakistan, Mexico. North Korea, The Philippines, as well as headlined and drew big crowds in major arenas in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. More people paid for tickets and watched Inoki’s matches on television than any pro wrestler ever in Japan. It is a virtual certainty that more people watched Inoki’s matches on television than any pro wrestler who ever lived. It’s also almost a sure thing that record will never be broken.

He is the only man to defeat both Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant by submission, and his win over Andre is believed to be the only submission loss of Andre’s career.

Not only that, but he served multiple terms in the Japanese Senate. Senator Inoki served in the House of Councilors from 1989 to 1995 and again from 2013 to 2019. In both terms, there were major scandals involved with him which caused him to lose an election for a third term, then after that news was forgotten nearly two decades later, he was voted back in, for a controversial term that included more scandals, which for that reason along with his health, ended his political career.

He was the face of the MMA boom in Japan, particularly during the hottest period of the Pride Fighting Championships. He was the sports hero on television that inspired grade school children who grew up to be the biggest Japanese stars in both pro wrestling and MMA.

He was in countless television commercials, and had a wide variety of merchandise long before such a thing happened with wrestlers in the U.S. The craziest merchandise, perhaps was the Inoki Fighting Spirit condoms. They were advertised as: “Condoms that have inherited `Inoki-ism!’ Fighting condoms decorated with the Inoki DAAAAAAH! pose! USE WITHOUT QUESTION! USE AND YOU WILL FIND OUT! INOKIX 1000 – 12-pack ¥1,050.”

At his public appearances, fans would line up in the hundreds, or more, to have Inoki slap them hard in the face. This became popular after they had seen Inoki slap fighters and pro wrestlers in the face with the idea that it was transferring Inoki’s famed fighting spirit to them.

He wrestled against almost all of the biggest names in pro wrestling all over the world and dating back several generations. Perhaps no wrestler in history worked with as many legends from as many generations and certainly nobody fought as many from different places and different disciplines. The short list is the legends of his era that he never faced. Of the major stars of the 60s, 70s and 80s, about the only ones he never faced were Verne Gagne, Edouard Carpentier, George Gordienko, Horst Hoffman, Jerry Lawler, Ricky Steamboat, Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Jake Roberts, Rick Rude, Terry Gordy, the Road Warriors and El Santo.

The list he did face include Andre, Hogan, Tiger Jeet Singh, Dick Murdoch, Masa Saito (Olympian), Stan Hansen, Riki Choshu (Olympian), Abdullah the Butcher, The Destroyer, Pat Patterson, Rusher Kimura, Kintaro Oki, Bruiser Brody, Killer Karl Kox, Canek, Bob Orton Jr., Pedro Morales, Killer Khan, Animal Hamaguchi, Bam Bam Bigelow, Black Gordman, Great Goliath, The Hollywood Blonds (Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown), Johnny Valentine, Greg Valentine, Dutch Savage, King Kong Bundy, Tatsumi Fujinami, Ivan Koloff, Big Van Vader, Bobo Brazil, Chavo Guerrero Sr., Dynamite Kid, Fred Blassie, The Spoiler, Bobby Duncum, Bret Hart, Nikolai Volkoff, Steve Williams, Jimmy Snuka, Black Tiger (Rollerball Rocco), Ken Patera (Olympian), Iron Sheik, John Studd, Eugen Wiesberger (Olympian), Haystacks Calhoun, Don Leo Jonathan, Killer Kowalski, Michiaki Yoshimura, Bob Roop (Olympian), Danny Hodge (Olympian), Sgt. Slaughter, Ed Leslie (Brutus Beefcake), Brian Blair, Buzz Sawyer, Harley Race, Seiji Sakaguchi, Dusty Rhodes, Paul Jones, The Crusher, Willem Ruska (Olympian), Giant Baba, Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie (Billy White Wolf), Don Muraco, Paul Orndorff, Wilbur Snyder, Scott Hall, King Curtis Iaukea, Mark Lewin, Bob Backlund, Wayne Bridges, Ciclon Negro, Stan Stasiak, Roddy Piper, Bull Ramos, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Yoshiaki Yatsu (Olympian), Akira Maeda, Moondog Mayne, Mad Dog Vachon (Olympian), Jody Hamilton, Ripper Collins, Jacques Rougeau Sr., Blackjack Mulligan, Eddie Graham, Tom Renesto, Larry Hennig, Red Bastien, Fritz Von Erich, Ernie Ladd, Dory Funk Jr., Terry Funk, Dory Dixon, Perro Aguayo, Afa, Sika, Bob Armstrong, Tito Santana, Buddy Rose, Cowboy Bill Watts, Gene Kiniski, John Tolos, John Quinn, Mongolian Stomper, Rocky Johnson, Boris Malenko, Jan Wilkens, Otto Wanz, Nick Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens, Kim Duk, Pampero Firpo, George Steele, Art Nelson, Jack Brisco, Bill Miller, Dick the Bruiser, Superstar Billy Graham, Alexis Smirnoff, Mil Mascaras, Jim Duggan Billy Jack Haynes, Peter Maivia, Hiroshi Hase (Olympian), Manny Fernandez, Wahoo McDaniel, Grizzly Smith, Dos Caras, Bearcat Wright, Marty Jones, Shozo Kobayashi, Karl Gotch (Olympian) Gorilla Monsoon, Bruno Sammartino, Hiro Matsuda, Nobuhiko Takada, Kim Duk, Ricky Romero, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Gene & Ole Anderson, Jackie Fargo, Steve Keirn, Toyonobori, Angelo Mosca, Ox Baker, Rufus Jones, Joe Scarpello (Olympian), Billy Wicks, Roland Bock (Olympian), Great Mephisto, Dean Ho, Al Costello, Sammy Steamboat, Hans Schmidt, Kevin Von Erich, Butcher Vachon, Bugsy McGraw, Davey Boy Smith, Sputnik Monroe, Masahiro Chono, John DaSilva (Olympian), Pat O’Connor, Ray Mendoza, Colosso Colosetti, Enrique Vera, Ronnie Garvin, Wolfgang Saturski, Jesse Ventura, Spyros Arion, Jonathan Boyd, Waldo Von Erich, Pepper Gomez, Dale Lewis (Olympian), Owen Hart, Jimmy Garvin, Missouri Mauler, Curt Hennig, Jim Neidhart, Shiro Koshinaka, Brad Rheingans (Olympian), Shinya Hashimoto, Tony Atlas, Jerry Brisco, Paul DeMarco, Sailor Art Thomas, Keiji Muto, Genichiro Tenryu, Lou Thesz, The McGuire Twins, Fishman, Raymond Rougeau, The Sheik, Wild Bull Curry, Nikolai Volkoff, Jushin Liger, Kerry Von Erich, Kazuo Yamazaki, Wilfred Dietrich (Olympian), Thunder Sugiyama (Olympian), Whitey Caldwell, Harold Sakata (Olympian), Dick Hutton (Olympian), Bob Geigel, Sandor Szabo, Mike Sharpe Sr., Sting, Rick Steiner, Ric Flair, Sid Vicious, William Regal, El Solitario, Anibal, Minoru Suzuki, Kazuyuki Fujita, Don Frye, Satoru Sayama, Kensuke Sasaki, Jos LeDuc, Mr. Wrestling II, Mike Graham, Mighty Igor, Skandor Akbar, Angelo Poffo, Klaus Wallas (Olympian), Chris Tolos, Amazing Zuma, Dara Singh, Oleg Taktarov, Leon Spinks (Olympian), Gerard Gordeau, Walter Johnson, Chuck Wepner, Billy Robinson, Bobby Shane, Renzo Gracie, Masaskatsu Funaki, Don Chuy, Gene LeBell, Ilio DiPaolo, Muhammad Ali (Olympian), Giant Silva (Olympian) and Dory Funk Sr.

He used pro wrestling and political power to negotiate to free Japanese hostages in Iraq.

As a politician, Inoki was considered ego-driven and wouldn’t listen to what he was told. Still, against the wishes of most in his government, he was a key in negotiating a hostage settlement with Saddam Hussein in 1990, freeing 36 Japanese hostages in Iraq in return for his promoting a pro wrestling event in Iraq. He was told over-and-over, particularly during his second term as a senator, to stay away from North Korea. Inoki and the North Korean government put together the World Wrestling Peace Festival in 1995 in Pyongyang, North Korea, and persuaded Eric Bischoff to bring a crew of WCW wrestlers along with stars from New Japan and All Japan women for two massive stadium shows that drew the largest crowds in pro wrestling history. The attendance was pretty much mandatory. The show was billed in Japan and North Korea as the World Wrestling Peace Festival. But it’s mostly known today in the U.S. as Collision in Korea, the name WCW used for the tape-delayed PPV event. A key legacy of that show is that Kensuke Sasaki, one of New Japan’s top stars, and Akira Hokuto, one of the best women wrestlers who ever lived, met, spent the night together in the hotel, and coming back, with the thin walls, many of the wrestlers noted their screams of passion. They ended up engaged after their first date, married, and for a long time were favorites on Japanese talk shows with Sasaki playing the good natured muscular guy whose wife would get the better of him verbally for afternoon laughs.

There were rich people and foreigners who had to pay high prices for tickets, but almost everyone got in free. They announced 165,000 and 190,000 respectively for show on April 28 and April 29, at May Day Stadium, although the real numbers were closer to 145,000 and 160,000–but those are still records for the largest pro wrestling crowds that have never been approached and may never be broken. Inoki headlined the second show beating Ric Flair, in a match that Hulk Hogan turned down, not wanting to go to North Korea. Through WCW and his connections with Ali, the most famous boxer of all-time was part of that contingent.

Inoki was hugely popular in North Korea due to him being billed as the protégé of Rikidozan, who is North Korea’s national hero. While the Rikidozan name, the hero of Japanese in the 1950s and the birth of television, has somewhat faded in that country, in North Korea he is taught in the history books with total mythology as a symbol for the country’s hatred of Japanese.

Rikidozan was born in North Korea and migrated to Japan. His Korean ancestry was kept a secret during his life because Japanese did hate Koreans, particularly North Koreans. While after his death there were reports, and those in the media and many people did know, the general public really didn’t find out he was North Korean until a movie was made about his life.

But even today in North Korea, he his taught about in schools as a national hero and almost a Jesus Christ level persona. The story taught is that he went to Japan, and was the greatest fighter in the world, and none of the Japanese stars could beat him. So the Japanese had him killed, to further hatred in the country of the evil Japanese.

Even though Inoki was Japanese, as the protégé of Rikidozan, he was accepted by the North Koreans. Inoki was at times warned, didn’t listen, and was even censured in the senate for going to North Korea.

But even more famous was his June 26, 1976, mixed match with Ali.

The match was a complete flop and the story behind it ended up in a 284-page book, “Ali vs. Inoki,” by MMA journalist Josh Gross.

While that is the only English language book on Inoki, there were countless books on him in Japanese, and undoubtedly more books have been written on Inoki than any pro wrestler who ever lived.

Bruno Sammartino for years had been pushing for a mixed match with Ali. Sammartino legitimately didn’t like him, plus the idea was such a match would do incredible business, at least in the Northeast. Sammartino himself was willing to risk a shoot, feeling a wrestler beats a boxer. But the risk were high, particularly for the WWWF if Sammartino lost, and Ali was very quick and while Sammartino was strong and well-conditioned, he was older and not a competition fighter. He could wrestle and could fight, but he was never a champion real wrestler. But Inoki’s backers came up with the money that Sammartino’s backers couldn’t. McMahon had tried to get all the major pro wrestling promoters to put up the money to get Ali to face Sammartino, but they wouldn’t oblige.

Bob Arum spoke of how the fight was put together saying, “Now Herbert (Muhammad, the manager of Ali) came to me and he said these Japanese people have come to him with all kinds of money to go over and fight this wrestler, Inoki, in Japan. Professional wrestlers are performers, I thought, the thing is a fraud.”

Dr. Ferdie Pachecho, Ali’s doctor remembered is at “Ali’s fight in Tokyo was basically a Bob Arum thought-up scam that was going to be ‘a-ha, ho-ho. We’re going to go over there. It’s going to be orchestrated. It’s going to be a lot of fun and it’s just a joke.’ Well, when we got over there, we found out no one was laughing.”

Ali vs. Inoki was absolutely meant to be a work. Because people within the Japanese pro wrestling world were used as interpreters, while they kept everything publicly secret, they knew exactly what was going on. Decades later, when TV-Asahi did a special on the most-watched television shows in the history of the network. Between the live out of prime time showing and a replay in prime time hours later, about 80 million Japanese fans watched the show on television on TV-Asahi TV the day it aired (54 million watched live and 28 million on tape in prime time, but it should be noted that some people were likely counted twice). The entire population of Japan at that time was 112.8 million people.

There was actually an old cassette tape that was uncovered, and aired, and played to Inoki, where a discussion between the parties took place making it clear it was to be a work. It was very embarrassing to play it on television with Inoki right there, since to the public in Japan, it was always billed like it would be this battle of mythical fighters under different rules to determine the best heavyweight fighter.

A finish was arranged where both sides would save face. Ali would brutalize Inoki with a flurry of rapid-fire punches. Inoki would blade and be covered in blood. Ali would continue landing punch after punch to the bloody head. Gene LeBell, the referee, wouldn’t stop it. Ali would act merciful, as if it didn’t want to hurt Inoki any more. He would argue with LeBell. Inoki would then get up, hit the enzuigiri, and Ali would go down for the count.

Ali’s side could claim he was being merciful. In Japan, Inoki would be the hero who was down and out, but wouldn’t stay down even after taking punches from the greatest boxer of all-time. He’d be the hero who survived the beating and pulled out the win using a martial arts move, proving in the end that Japanese martial arts could beat even the greatest boxer of all-time.

Ali was being paid $6 million, more than he had ever earned for a real fight, largely to turn Inoki into a worldwide celebrity and a bigger national hero, with the idea the pro wrestling business in Japan on his back after this win would reach its greatest heights. In addition, the belief is that a win over Ali would make Inoki into a worldwide giant drawing card everywhere there was pro wrestling, and he’d become the biggest star in pro wrestling history based on the win in what would be easily the most-watched pro wrestling card ever.

While in Japan, Ali felt that he wasn’t just losing this fake play fight, but by losing, he was disrespecting boxing, and refused to do so. In the days after this, there were all kinds of media reports from Japan that the fight was falling apart. But there was so much money on the line and so many commitments, that every attempt was made to save it.

The reality is that Inoki’s side needed it more than Ali’s side, so they agreed to the shoot and set up rules that greatly favored Ali, and which were kept secret from the public. To show the lack of knowledge of real fighting, the key things Ali’s side wanted banned were closed fist punches because Inoki wasn’t wearing gloves, no flying dropkicks, as if that would happen in a fight with someone as fast as Ali, no karate chops as back then they still feared the guys who would chop through boards and blocks and Ali was billed to them as a karate master, no punching on the ground, and kicking was only allowed if Inoki was kneeling, squatting or down on the canvas. Knees and elbow strikes were banned, as was head-butting and attacking the eyes, and any blows to the back, the neck or kidney. Inoki could throw palm strikes but not to the throat. They also banned throws or suplexes, the moves Inoki used to beat judo gold medalist Willem Ruska with earlier in the year in a worked fight. Inoki could not stand and box with him, and even if he did, he would have no chance with that.

After agreeing to the rules, Inoki claimed to have challenged Ali to a winner-take-all purse, and Ali shot back, “Including wives?” as Ali had seen Inoki’s wife at the time, famous Japanese actress Mitsuko Baisho. Inoki did get Ali down a few times and each time Ali scrambled to the ropes, which caused a break and a stand-up..

Most of the fight was Inoki laying on his back and kicking at Ali’s legs. He brutalized the legs, but in 1976, nobody knew anything about low kicks in fighting. It looked like Inoki was a coward laying on his back. There were moments Inoki stood with Ali in trying to get a takedown, but would then go back to his back and start throwing kicks to Ali’s thighs, which ended up badly bruised by the later rounds. Ali was hospitalized after the fight due to taking more than 100 kicks to his leg, which was bruised badly. He was really never the same fighter afterwards.

If one who were watch the fight today, while it is still a terrible fight, it is interesting tactically as far as Inoki being able to do damage while having so many restrictions on him. He looked to have won 12 of the 15 rounds based on the damage from low kicks. Ali only landed six punches, but it was hard to land punches when Inoki was on his back. LeBell docked Inoki two points for passivity for not getting off his back which was the difference in the scorecards of Inoki not getting a decision win.

Years later, Inoki would say this was his proudest moment and his most scared, having to face Ali in a real fight where he risked getting knocked out and surviving.

Kokichi Endo, the pro wrestling judge, scored is 74-72 for Ali. Boxing judge Ko Toyama scored it 72-68 for Inoki. LeBell scored it 71-71, later saying he was judging on damage and nobody did damage. But in reality, Inoki did far more damage than Ali.

The usually polite fans in Japan started getting restless around the 12th round, as they expected Inoki’s low kicks to lead to a big finish. When it didn’t happen, fans started throwing garbage at the ring at the finish. I saw the match locally in San Jose, and after the match ended, people started throwing chairs.

“I was doing my best to win,” Inoki told the New York Times a year later. “It wasn’t a fake fight, or it would have been more interesting.”

Ali claimed victory, saying that Inoki wouldn’t stand up and fight like a man.

The bout aired on closed-circuit television in the U.S., but was a flop, except in the Northeast where Sammartino’s coming back from a legitimate broken neck against Stan Hansen made it a success, with more than 32,000 fans at Shea Stadium attending, and watching the live card and the big screens of the match from Japan. Based on crowd reactions and media reports, those in the Northeast came to see Sammartino vs. Hansen more than Ali vs. Inoki.

Although the Budokan Hall sellout of 14,500 fans was the first $1million house for pro wrestling in history, and Shea Stadium’s event did more than $400,000, the all-time U.S. record up to that point in time, the event was a financial failure overall.

Ali was promised $6 million and only ended up getting $1.8 million according to a lawsuit he filed against the promotion. Inoki was reported to b getting $2 million, but he ended up only getting $200,000. Sammartino, who was in absolutely no condition to wrestle due to his broken neck suffered a couple of months earlier, only agreed to do the Hansen match because Vince McMahon Sr., told him that the company had invested so much into the event, that they could go belly-under without that match. He promised Sammartino five percent of the live gate, or about $20,000, which he got. He also promised him three percent of the closed circuit, which he never got a dime of. McMahon Sr., told him that Bob Arum refused to pay it because the show was not successful. Decades later, when Paul Levesque made a deal for Sammartino to go into the Hall of Fame, one of Sammartino’s demands was that he would get a figure of $250,000 that he said that Vince’s father had owed him from the fight.

Even Conor McGregor, who studied the fight, speculated on how the world would have changed if Inoki, who in the sixth round mounted Ali, had been able used an armbar to submit him. And he’s right. People at first wouldn’t have understood it, since armbars were not part of any culture’s fighting except Brazil and Japan at that time. Many would have claimed it was a fixed fight. And dojos teaching submission training would have sprung up all over the world long before the Gracies popularized Jiu Jitsu after UFC 1.

“If that moment in time was let go for five more seconds, ten more seconds, Inoki would have wrapped around his neck or his arm or a limb, and the whole face of the combat world would have changed right there and then.” said McGregor.

Even with the legal issues about being paid, Ali and Inoki did become friends. Inoki’s theme song, “Inoki Bom Ba Ye,” came from the chant “Ali Bom Ba Ye,” from what was chanted in Zaire, Kinshasa, before and during Ali’s fight with George Foreman. Decades later, after Inoki retired, for a few years the Inoki Bom Ba Ye show, a mix of both real fights and pro wrestling matches, became a New Year’s Eve tradition that drew huge audiences. This carries on to pro wrestling today, as Shinsuke Nakamura’s running knee finisher was known as the bom a ye, as a tribute to Inoki. For whatever reason, WWE wouldn’t let him use that name, so he called it the Kinshasa, he name of the city in Zaire where the chant was born for Ali.

Ali vs. Inoki in Japan is considered the prelude to the birth of the sport of MMA. There is little doubt the influence of this fight led to the direction of the first UWF, which led to UWFi, RINGS, Pancrase and later the birth of Pride, where Inoki jumped back in.

The fight was not viewed well in Japan at the time, but in time because of who was involved and the popularity of the sport of MMA, it’s now viewed completely differently. In the U.S., it’s not nearly as well known and Inoki, to people who lived in the 70s, was vaguely remembered by sports fans and even the public as the Japanese wrestler or martial artist or karate guy (memories usually fade in time and people remember Inoki in different ways) with the big jaw that Ali fought in a farce of a fight.

Inoki’s career as an active wrestler ended on April 4, 1998, with what was the biggest live gate up to that point in time, and a record that held up until the 2009 WrestleMania, a $7 million gate at the Tokyo Dome.

The show also grossed approximately $2.6 million in merchandise (including sales of 30,000 programs at $20) and combined with the television rights would put the one day figure well in excess of $10 million. The 70,000 attendance figure announced was worked but because they put more standing room in than any other show, it was the largest crowd for a pro wrestling event ever in Japan, probably closing in on 60,000.

Ali was on the stage at the ring entrance, lit a symbolic torch and handed it to Inoki, as he ran to the ring, symbolizing the Ali Olympic torch ceremony for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

The final match of his 38 year-career was against UFC star Don Frye. Inoki, at 55, was willing to lose to Frye, given Frye was a legitimate top fighter of the era. But in the lead-in to the show, the finish was changed with the idea that this was the Inoki final celebration and he should win. They were to go 15:00, but Inoki broke his ribs very early in the match and they went right to the finish right away.

Frye lost to the cobra twist. It was the same move that a generation of Japanese who grew up in the 60s, many of whom returned as pro wrestling fans just for this night and packed the Dome, had witnessed Inoki using to beat the baddest pro wrestlers of that era and so many other eras that all put together it seemed like an eternity. In doing so, he achieved a level of popularity that few athletes in the world on any level have ever achieved, and even fewer having never actually legitimately won at a high level of competitive sports.

Inoki later did a few “exhibition” matches on his Inoki Bom Ba Ye New Year’s Eve stadium shows with large television audiences, a draw with Renzo Gracie on December 31, 2000 before 42,753 fans at the Osaka Dome, an Inoki & Great Sasuke win over Giant Silva–who they tried to promote as the remake of Andre the Giant and who was much taller than Andre) & a masked man played by Ikuto Hidaka on December 31, 2001 before 33,000 fans at the Saitama Super Arena, and finally a loss to Tatsumi Fujinami on December 31, 2003 at Kobe Wings Stadium before 35,000 fans.

Ali was the biggest name invited to “The Inoki final” and the one that got the event in USA Today and on CNN. Among others introduced at the show, most of whom were involved in the ceremony after the main event which included a ten bell salute to Inoki’s career.

Inoki was born February 20, 1943 in Yokohama as Kanji Inoki, the tenth of 11 children born to Saijiro and Fumiko Inoki. Saijiro, a businessman and politician, died when Kanji was five. He started training karate in sixth grade. When he was 13, he won the Yokohama city junior high school shot put championship. The next year, his mother, grandfather and three brothers migrated to Brazil. His grandfather died on the trip. He became a schoolboy track star in Brazil, winning regional championships in 1958 in the shot put, discus throw and javelin throw. At the age of 16, in 1959, he won the Brazilian high school national championship in both the shot put and the discus. He was also working on a coffee plantation with his relatives.

After the word got out about a 16-year-old Japanese native who captured the Brazilian national high school championships in both the shot put and discus, his name came to the attention of Rikidozan, who was not only Japan’s first but to this day the country’s biggest pro wrestling superhero. Rikidozan came to Brazil when Inoki was 17 to scout him, and brought him back to Japan to train under Olympic wrestler and submission expert Karl Krauser (who later became known as Karl Gotch), amateur wrestler Isa Yoshiwara and judoka Kiyotak Otsbubo.

Rikidozan maintained his position because he was also the man running the company’s only major wrestling office, the NWA affiliated Japanese Wrestling Association. Inoki was trained, alongside a 6-foot-8 Japanese major league baseball pitcher named Shohei Baba, and a Korean native, Kintaro Oki, to carry the wrestling business going forward.

Rikidozan’s ideas was to have Baba & Inoki as the top stars in Japan after he retired, and have Oki be the signature star in opening up an outpost in South Korea.

Baba and Inoki both debuted on September 30, 1960, at the Taito Ward Gym in Tokyo. The Japanese legend, not exactly true, is that Baba, Inoki and Oki all debuted on the same show, a symmetry equivalent to if Hagler, Hearns and Duran were trained by Ray Robinson and debuted on the same night, or if Bill Russell scouted Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan to debut in the same game or if Babe Ruth scouted Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Stan Musial and they all started in the same game. But Oki actually debuted four months earlier, although all trained together before their debuts.

Baba and Inoki were the two biggest stars in Japanese wrestling after Rikidozan, and nobody will likely ever again have anywhere near the mainstream fame of those three. In numerous polls, all three were for decades always in top ten of the biggest sports stars in Japan of the 20th century. Oki, from the mid-60s and through the 70s, was South Korea’s sports hero, drawing huge crowds and ridiculous television ratings. Oki was actually the first of the three to win a major world title when he beat Mark Lewin in Seoul, South Korea, on June 9, 1967, to win WWA belt.

Oki, because he debuted earlier, beat Inoki on that September 30, 1960 show. Baba beat Yonetaro Tanaka. Baba and Inoki wrestled each other many times while both were on the undercard, with Baba winning 80 percent of their matches with the other 20 percent being draws. It was clear Baba, as a Japanese giant and answer to a baseball trivia question, was the one planned to succeed Rikidozan as Japan’s top wrestler. While Baba only had a cup of coffee as a pitcher with the famed Yomiuri Giants, he had some notoriety as the tallest player up to that point in the history of Japanese Major League baseball.

Rikidozan died three years later in a gangland style murder which left the wrestling industry in that country not only shattered by the shocking death of its biggest star, but a fan base shattered even more when the death revealed the strong mob lie-ins to the wrestling industry. Most of the major arenas would no longer even book pro wrestling due to its unsavory image.

Inoki came to the U.S. from 1964 to 1966. He used his real name of Kanji Inoki in Hawaii. In first match in the United States, he lost to the original Prince Iaukea (Curtis Iaukea) in Honolulu for Hawaiian heavyweight title and Ring Magazine gold belt. He was Tokyo Tom in the Central States and Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. He was Mr. Kazimoto in Oregon and used his real name in Texas and Tennessee.

While in Memphis, Inoki & Hiro Matsuda won the NWA world tag team titles from Eddie Graham & Sammy Steamboat on June 24, 1966 in a match that Lance Russell called the best wrestling match he ever called live.

Built around Baba, the JWA began its recovery. Inoki, known at the time by his real name of Kanji Inoki, the better athlete of the two, returned to Japan in 1966, as the top star of JWA’s first major rival promotion, Tokyo Pro Wrestling.

Inoki, along with Hisashi Shinma and Toyonobori, the perennial No. 2 Japanese star in JWA backing up first Rikidozan and later Baba, in late 1966 formed the first new group after the higher-ups moved Baba ahead of Toyonobori in the top position. On the debut show on October 12, 1966, at Sumo Hall in Tokyo before 10,500 fans, Inoki beat Johnny Valentine, billed as the U.S. champion, via count out. The new group also included Katsuhisa Shibata, the father of Katsuyori Shibata, 1964 Olympian Masa Saito, who had also quit the JWA, the future Rusher Kimura under his real name of Masao Kimura, and foreigners Dean Higuchi (Dean Ho), Sonny Myers and Inoki’s future major rival Johnny Powers.

Inoki beat Valentine to win the U.S. title on November 19, 1966, at the Osaka Baseball Stadium. Inoki & Matsuda defended the NWA world tag team titles they had won in Memphis, beating The Kentuckians, Luke Brown & Grizzly Smith, on the second show of Isao Yoshihara’s IWE promotion in Osaka.

On his first night back in JWA, on May 26, 1967, he teamed with Yoshimura to win the vacant All-Asian tag team titles in an elimination match from Fritz Von Erich & Ike Eakins. But the All-Asian belts, which he held for most of his JWA stay, were really just small potatoes in comparison to his legendary tag team with Baba.

After Tokyo Pro closed up, Inoki returned to the JWA in May, 1967, leading to a July 22, 1967, card at the Kawasaki Baseball Stadium before 15,000 fans as Baba & Inoki beat Art Michalik, the former NFL star, & Jesse Ortega, both prior rivals of Rikidozan.

On October 31, 1967, Baba & Inoki captured the International tag team titles from Bill Watts & Tarzan Tyler in Osaka, ushering in one of the golden eras of Japanese wrestling

The 1967-71 period was considered one of the all-time peaks of the Japanese wrestling business with almost nightly sellouts and network prime time network telecasts every Friday and Monday night, usually with Baba & Inoki working on top as a tag team beating the biggest names from North America such as Gene Kiniski & Valentine, Fritz & Waldo Von Erich, Crusher & Dick the Bruiser, The Funks, Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge, The Funk Brothers, Gene Kiniski & Brute Bernard and Bruno Sammartino & Ray Stevens as well as the November 28, 1969 Sumo Hall title defense against the double world champions, NWA heavyweight champion Dory Funk Jr. & junior heavyweight champion Hodge, in a 60:00 draw before 12,000 fans. Inoki’s first match against a reigning NWA world champion in Japan was November 29, 1968, when he was pinned by Gene Kiniski in Fukuoka, as prelude to he legendary Baba vs. Kiniski 65:00 draw a few days later at the old Korakuen Baseball Stadium in Tokyo before 25,000 fans in what is often called Baba’s best career match.

JWA had two network contracts, with NET (now TV-Asahi) using Inoki as its headliner and NTV using Baba as its headliner.

While they maintained a lock on the International tag team titles, it was Baba who was the main singles star, holding the International heavyweight title and beating the top foreigners in the big singles match every tour. Inoki’s reputation as a wrestler grew with one of the legendary matches in Japan mat history on December 2, 1969 in a sold out Osaka Furitsu Gym as he went to a 60:00 draw in challenging Dory Funk Jr. for the NWA world heavyweight title where neither man took a fall. A second title match against Funk on August 2, 1970 in Fukuoka also ended in a 60:00 draw but with each man taking a fall. But as always seems to happen in wrestling when business gets too good, things start unraveling.

Inoki, unhappy about being second banana to Baba, got himself his own singles championship belt as the JWA created the United National championship title. To give it credibility, was actually set up in the Los Angeles promotion in late 1970. The belt was pushed there for about five months until Inoki came to the famed Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on March 26, 1971 and won the title from John Tolos. He brought it back to Japan so he could defend his own singles title in main events against the top foreigners. At the same time, Inoki wanted to work a singles program against Baba, but the JWA promoters were traditionalists and the main events at that time were always Japanese vs. Foreigner and thus his idea was turned down. At the same time, Inoki & Baba got together to attempt to rally all the wrestlers to take over the promotion from President Junzo Hasegawa (who had taken over the company after the death of Rikidozan). This coup initially failed. At the same time, Inoki had his first of three marriages, to Baisho, in an almost lady Di wedding of the sports star and famed actress, which Inoki claimed the company had agreed to pay for. While this was going on, Inoki and Shinma were also secretly talking about starting up their own group.

Perhaps as punishment since the promotion knew the situation with Inoki was shaky, Baba & Inoki suddenly dropped their International tag team titles to the Funk Brothers on December 7, 1971, a strange result given that Dory was still world champion. A few days later was the scheduled third Dory vs. Inoki world title match at the old Osaka Prefectural Gym, the same site as their legendary match two years earlier. At 5 p.m. that day, the word reached the dressing room that Inoki wasn’t going to be there. Inoki had already picked up a reputation for coming up with reasons to no-show matches that he was scheduled to lose and bad avoided doing jobs to drop titles with a frequency unmatched in pro wrestling until Shawn Michaels. What was exactly the real story, or if it was a combination of stories, Inoki was fired with allusions being made it was for crimes against the promotion, believed to have been the fallout of the coup and the company sending a strong message, but at the same time protecting Baba, its top star. This left Inoki with a massive wedding bill, leaving him heavily in debt. Six weeks later, Inoki and Shinma held a press conference to announce the formation of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

As it turned out, Baba also quit JWA the next year, forming All Japan Pro Wrestling, and with the help of Dory Funk Sr., got the NWA recognition from JWA which meant connections to almost a monopoly of the top foreign talent. Baba had worked out a deal with NTV, where after their contract with JWA ended, they would move to Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling, and they backed the promotion, which included guaranteed contracts for The Destroyer (Dick Beyer) and Anton Geesink, a giant Dutchman who won the 1964 Olympics in judo, to be full-time regulars. At the time they were two of the top five or six wrestlers in the world.

The WWWF had quietly rejoined the NWA in 1971, while Gagne’s AWA, the other major American federation at the time, already bad a business arrangement with a smaller Japanese promotion called the IWE, basically freezing New Japan out of most of the top name American talent. Inoki and Shinma formed New Japan in early 1972, short on both money and talent, but succeeded because they were long on promotional creativity.

They brought In Karl Gotch, a renegade pro wrestler who had a reputation as being the legitimately toughest man in the business. Gotch, who was a good enough amateur that be wrestled in the 1948 Olympic games in both freestyle and Greco-Roman as Charles Istaz of Belgium, and then learned submissions in Wigan, England, at the Snake Pit. His reputation was that he was perhaps the most feared man in the world in his prime. He worked Japan a lot in the early 60s for JWA, and was involved with training the younger wrestlers, including Inoki. Gotch always played second fiddle in fans’ eyes to Lou Thesz, similar to Inoki years later to Baba, as the foreign scientific master. Thesz was the original “God of pro wrestling,” a nickname Gotch was given in later years.

Gotch came in, billed as the Real World heavyweight champion with a belt originally owned by Thesz that supposedly was the actual title held by Frank Gotch (who took the Gotch name because of Frank Gotch).

On the first card of New Japan Pro Wrestling on March 6, 1972, at the Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo, the company went against the established grain by having Gotch pin Inoki, by this time known as Antonio Inoki, clean to retain his title. This set up a rematch on October 4, 1972 with Thesz as referee, where Inoki won the title via count out. The show at Sumo Hall was the first New Japan show to draw 10,000 fans. More importantly than the result, it drew such a large television rating that it resulted in World Pro Wrestling becoming a weekly network prime time Friday night television show on NET.

As it turned out, that title was quickly forgotten. In its place came the title Inoki dominated for most of the rest of the decade–the National Wrestling Federation world heavyweight championship. The NWF was the regional office running in the Cleveland/Buffalo area headed by Pedro Martinez, which was one of the rare offices at the time not affiliated with the NW A and thus had its own world heavyweight champion. New Japan and Inoki bought the championship to give Inoki a recognized foreign world heavyweight title belt that the fans wouldn’t see as something simply created for him to hold. On December 10 1973, Inoki beat champion Johnny Powers at Sumo Hall in 35:28 to become the champion, and Powers in return was brought back regularly as Inoki’s big rival.

It gave New Japan promotional ties to a second American territory. They had in 1973 established a business relationship with the Mike LeBell Los Angeles promotion. However that was short-lived, as the NWF promotion folded shortly after, but Inoki did defend it on a big show in Cleveland against Ernie Ladd before it closed up. They began a relationship with Vince McMahon Sr. by 1975 which resulted in Andre the Giant becoming a regular as a top heel. Eventually by the late 70s. New Japan regularly featured the top stars from the WWWF, and Shinma was the figurehead president of the WWWF, replacing the late Willie Gilzenburg and before Jack Tunney.

They made their own group of foreign stars from wrestlers from that area, including Powers, Killer Karl Krupp (who had gained some fame years earlier as a tag team partner of Fritz Von Erich for JWA), and the biggest of them all, Tiger Jeet Singh. And it gave Inoki the chance to become a superstar in the United States. The latter didn’t work then and never worked later, even in the wake of all the publicity after the Ali match. Shortly after buying the company, Inoki wasn’t able to draw as world champion in Cleveland and Buffalo and the NWF itself folded, leaving behind its title belt as the main title in New Japan.

As the 70s went on and Inoki and New Japan were established as a major force in the industry because of the Ali signing, New Japan was accepted into the NW A in 1976 with the proviso that the NWF title could no longer be referred to as a world heavyweight title.

However, the Funks and Baba had enough power in the NWA that even though New Japan was accepted as a member, and thus could book talent from NWA territories much easier politically, securing good relationships with Mike LeBell in Los Angeles, Eddie Graham in Florida and Vince McMahon Sr. in the WWWF, Baba had the exclusive on the NWA world heavyweight championship. Inoki wanted Bruno Sammartino, the WWWF champion, and McMahon wanted to send him, but Sammartino refused to go because of his close personal friendship with Baba.

Sammartino never liked Inoki, and in 1976, in press interviews before Ali vs. Inoki, Sammartino hated Inoki so much he would bury him, calling him a third-rate wrestler, saying that he handled Inoki easily when they wrestled and that in Japan, Inoki was not the top star at all, and it was Baba.

Over the next 26 years, New Japan bad its peaks and valleys, ranging from being the strongest promotion in the world during a number of different periods, to periods where it nearly folded. It had a war with All Japan that was at one time even more bitter than today’s WWF vs. WCW politics. But its lasting contributions on a worldwide basis have to be not necessarily the invention, but the establishment of how to do a number of promotional concepts:

1) The interpromotional dream match gimmick. In 1974, New Japan lured Shozo “Strong” Kobayashi, the International heavyweight champion top

star of the IWE promotion to New Japan without dropping his title. After the announcement of the dream match, which was also the first Japanese vs. Japanese championship main event since the early 50s, it became clear that Kobayashi had actually jumped and be was stripped of the title by IWE before the match itself actually took place on March 19th with Inoki winning in another legendary encounter. This match did a 26.0 rating and about 28 million viewers.

2) The shoot angle. On October 5, 1973, Inoki was standing in front of a department store in Tokyo when he was viciously assaulted by Tiger Jeet Singh, at the time an unknown in Japan. While this was an angle, it was so unusual that it was covered as if it were actually a shoot. It wasn’t until June 26, 1974 when the two actually had a match, which resulted in Inoki’s “breaking” Singh’s arm with an armbar, thereby establishing the move as the “real” submission move in Japan.

3) The mixed martial arts match angle. This actually bad a predecessor in Japanese mat history, a famous December 22, 1954 match where Rikidozan beat world judo champion Masahiko Kimura (who held an interesting distinction of being one of only two men ever to beat Helio Gracie, father of Rickson and Royce, in NHB competition in Brazil) in one of the most famous double-crosses in Japan mat history. It was supposed to have been a worked draw, but suddenly, perhaps in response to an errant low blow, Rikidozan began attacking a stunned Kimura furiously with the stiffest chops and kicks you’d ever see and basically beat the hell out of him before he had a chance to recover. There was also the Ali fight. As a tune-up for the Ali fight and to give Inoki and pro wrestling credibility against what people at the time saw as the most feared man and certainly the most famous athlete on the planet, on February 6, 1976, Inoki “knocked out” Willem Ruska, a two-time Olympic judo gold medalist who was at the time considered the top judo player in the world after three back suplexes in a worked match. Inoki beating the judo champion was supposed to give him athletic credibility in the United States media, but since the American media at the time figured Inoki must have been a sumo wrestler since he was Japanese, and had no understanding of judo or Ruska, while clips aired on news programs and wrestling shows around the country, the Ruska match really didn’t mean anything outside of Japan.

The subsequent Ali match was closed-circuited around the world, similar to a major heavyweight boxing championship match in those days going on the notion it would draw both the boxing and the wrestling audiences. Ali and Inoki had toured the United States doing press conferences in most major markets, with Ali, always accompanied by Fred Blassie, a legend himself in Japan, as Blassie was the top heel in the JWA in the early 60s when he feuded with Rikidozan and they had also traded the WWA world title in Los Angeles. Ali played up the heel role to wrestling fans, and nicknaming Inoki “The Pelican” because of his huge jaw (Inoki’s business nickname for years was simply “The Chin”). The match was one of the biggest sporting events of the time in Japan, where it drew a Super Bowl like rating–a 46.0 rating for the entire card billed as the Martial Arts Olympics which included matches broadcast from Budokan Hall, Shea Stadium in New York and the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles; and a 54.6 rating for the actual Ali vs. Inoki match. The numbers that are even more impressive than they sound on the surface because the match was broadcast in the early afternoon. Not only that but a replay of the match airing later that same evening in prime time drew a 26.3 rating.

A few months later at the annual NWA convention, Oregon promoter Don Owen suggested the Alliance buy Inoki a golden sword so he could commit hari-kari (suicide) after what he’d done to the business with his performance in the match. Privately and publicly numerous American wrestlers fumed at Inoki and dreamed what they would have been able to do had they been given such a golden opportunity. As the years went by, Shinma managed to begin to erase the bad memories and cover up the stench left by the rotten match by booking Inoki to win against martial arts superstars like Karate world champion Monster Man Eddy Everett, a rematch with Ruska, Olympic judo bronze medalist Allan Coage (later to become pro wrestler Badnews Allen), Wepner and numerous others. And as time went on, memories faded, and Japanese fans realized that the tactics Inoki used in the fight were actually viable fighting tactics, the Ali match became legendary as well.

3) The promotion vs. promotion angle. With the folding of the IWE in August of 1981, its wrestlers joined New Japan starting on November 5, 1981 with IWE’s world champion, Rusher Kimura, facing Inoki along with Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Animal Hamaguchi. This drew such good business that New Japan created another feud which became the forerunner of WCW vs. NWO, with Riki Choshu turning on Fujinami in 1982 and forming Ishingun, billed as a rival promotion working within New Japan against New Japan. New Japan’s legendary Ishingun vs. Seikigun feud resulted in another hot period of Japanese wrestling with 90 percent sellouts in 1983, until the promotion imploded from within. As with the JWA in 1971 when it was selling out every show and as a lesson to WCW today, the same thing happened with the undercard wrestlers unhappy about their pay and their position, particularly when Inoki was stricken with diabetes and had to take three months off, but the buildings continued to sell-out with Inoki not being there. In addition, Inoki had squandered much of the New Japan’s huge profits on bad business investments. The fallout resulted in Inoki losing control of the company, but also with Shinma taking an even bigger fall and being expelled from the company he was there with from the start. Riki Choshu and Akira Maeda became almost a new generation Baba and Inoki, with Choshu and his guys leaving for All Japan, pulling that company on fire, and Maeda quitting New Japan and setting the stage for worked shootfighting which begin in the old UWF in 1984 evolved into today’s actual shooting matches in RINGS and Pancrase. The historical ironies are many when studying the generations. It was Inoki in 1967 and 1971 feeling as if he was being held back from being the top guy and from trying new promotional concepts that the establishment wasn’t ready for and leaving. No different from Choshu, Satoru Sayama and Maeda a generation later, only this time it was Inoki who was the establishment. And today, it is Choshu who is the establishment, and Maeda, who made himself a national superstar on October 9, 1986 beating world kickboxing champion Don Nakaya Neilsen in a worked match on the same show where Inoki had a flop of a match against Leon Spinks, a past-his-prime former world heavyweight champion boxer. Sayarna, the man who came forward in 1983 and exposed the Inoki embezzlement scandal and that pro wrestling was worked to the media and after quilling pro wrestling became the founder and creator of the sport of Shooto, the first truly legitimate shooting organization in Japan, is now Inoki’s right hand man and training partner in the business of working matches to appear to be shoots. And there they all were, in the same building all tied up together in the same neat little package honoring the man they all rebelled against.

4) The correct way to establish a junior heavyweight division, which numerous companies have attempted but none have really succeeded in doing.

5) The marketing of a wrestler as a national superhero. Both Vince McMahon Jr. and Hulk Hogan spent formative years in wrestling watching how Inoki had succeeded with New Japan. Much of McMahon’s ideas as far as going national, merchandising with T-shirts and record albums and toys toward young children (which New Japan had done so well with Sayama as the star of its junior heavyweight division) and even ring entrance music (which, while popularized in the United States by Michael Hayes and Leroy Brown, had actually been a staple of Japanese wrestling much earlier) and Hulk Hogan the superhero were all concepts originated in New Japan. Eric Bischoff’s biggest angle, the NWO came from New Japan when he saw the New Japan vs. UWFi feud that was on fire in Japan in 1995 and 1996. Hogan’s ability to play on a bigger stage than just the pro wrestling stage came from watching Inoki, who was far bigger than just a pro wrestling star in Japan.

New Japan had a major peak in the early 80s, when it was the largest wrestling company in the world. Between 1981 and 1983, they played to 70 percent sellout crowds and the weekly television show on Friday night averaged 20 million viewers.

Inoki was the top star, but it was a loaded company. Fujinami and Choshu battled over the WWF International title. The foreign side was loaded with people like Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Abdullah the Butcher, Rusher Kimura, Dick Murdoch, Adrian Adonis and Masked Superstar. The junior heavyweight division built around the original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) with rivals like Dynamite Kid, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Black Tiger (Rollerball Rocco) and Bret Hart was at its peak of popularity.

Inoki had given up his NWF title and for two years built up the idea that tournaments were taking place all over the world, to lead to crowning the real world champion, which would be called the IWGP world champion. Every few months New Japan would release updates on fictitous tournaments. It was becoming almost a comedy to insiders because of them just making things up, until finally in May, 1983, they announced the tournament, with Inoki, Rusher Kimura and Akira Maeda representing Japan, Hogan, Andre and John Studd representing the U.S., Canek and Enrique Vera representing Mexico, Killer Khan representing Mongolia and Otto Wanz representing Europe.

It came down to the finals on June 2, 1983, with Inoki vs. Hogan before 13,000 fans paying $280,000 at the Kuramae Sumo Hall (a different building than the current smaller capacity Sumo Hall at Ryogoku) in Tokyo. The match also drew more than 36 million viewers, because the IWGP tournament had been pushed for years, Inoki was Inoki, and Hogan had become the hottest foreign star.

One of the most famous scenes in Japanese wrestling history was Hogan running across the ring and hitting Inoki with a clothesline, the axe bomber as Hogan’s Japanese finisher was known, and Inoki was knocked off the apron.

Inoki supposedly swallowed his tongue and went into convulsions. Everyone started panicking at ringside. Instead of being overjoyed, Hogan seemingly broke character and was concerned, not acting at all like someone who just won the tournament. Hogan was ruled the winner and champion in 21:17.

They portrayed it as if Inoki was seriously injured, and it was touch-and-go. It was a huge media story at the time. Months later, the media found out it was a work. Inoki was taking time off, with various different rumors as to why, so created a near-death situation to explain his absence.

Some would argue it backfired, as when the non-wrestling reporters found out Inoki and New Japan had conned them, most legitimate news organizations swore off coverage of pro wrestling. They still got the coverage in the sports dailies sold at newsstands and train stations, , but the major news stations and high-level newspapers wouldn’t touch the product.

Inoki was considered the key reason for such great business, even though Choshu, Fujinami and Tiger Mask were at popularity peaks. But when Inoki was gone for months, the sellouts continued, and the talent found out company profits were being diverted to Inoki’s money-losing business companies, a coup was attempted. Sayama was the point man, and when it failed, he announced his retirement.

Of course the idea was that Inoki would come back to beat Hogan, which was planned for a year later, in the finals of the second IWGP tournament. Hogan was to face the winner of the 1984 tournament, won by Inoki, on June 14, 1984 before another sellout of 13,000 fans and $285,000.

But by this time the wrestling world had changed. Hogan was WWF champion and Vince McMahon, even in a foreign land, wouldn’t let Hogan lose. At this point, it had been years since Hogan lost a match. The compromise finish was that Choshu would lariat Inoki and lariat Hogan outside the ring when they were fighting. Inoki would beat the 20 count in and Hogan wouldn’t. The nature of Inoki’s win due to Choshu’s interference wasn’t satisfying. But it was the best they could get. But the public didn’t think so. The finish was so poorly received that fans rioted at Sumo Hall for 30 minutes and New Japan was banned from using its flagship arena for more than one year.

Hogan was no longer available regularly because he was needed in the U.S., full-time for the wrestling war and his worth in the American market was more than he could earn in the Japanese market, although he did come back after this. But the next year, the WWF/New Japan relationship would break up. At the same time, Choshu and many others, including Dynamite Kid, would leave New Japan for All Japan. Combined with losing Sayama, the New Japan golden age was over. Although they still did strong live business the rest of the 80s but after 1984, the television ratings fell from that golden era.

Shinma, the booker, who masterminded Inoki becoming a national hero in winning the matches against fighters from other sports, and interpromotional angles and the junior heavyweight division, was the fall guy.

He started a new company, the UWF, taking Maeda with him as the top star. Years later Maeda revealed that Inoki told him to go there. Inoki had promised Shinma he would join him, but then stayed with New Japan instead.

Inoki had to leave the presidency due to the scandal and while Inoki remained the major stockholder, Seiji Sakaguchi was running the company, and eventually Fujinami replaced him. Choshu ended up he booker during another boom period in the 90s where they started running shows regularly at Dome stadiums, particularly the Tokyo Dome, doing the largest crowds and gates in pro wrestling history. They also created the G-1 tournament and instead of one star, like Inoki, they had many, Fujinami, Choshu, Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto, Masahiro Chono and later Kensuke Sasaki. Business was good until the rise of MMA hurt pro wrestling, followed by Inoki wanting to push people who had success in MMA fights over the pro wrestlers.

With Inoki in charge, New Japan was the first sports organization to use Russian athletes, using champions wrestlers and judokas starting in 1989.

Inoki signed world judo champion Naoya Ogawa who Inoki wanted to push as the new top star, including having him double cross and shoot on Hashimoto and Choshu, embarrassing both of them by not cooperating. Those in New Japan hated this, in particular when they booked Hashimoto to finally beat Ogawa in a match Hashimoto vowed to retire in. The match was go big that there were 25 million viewers on television after Ogawa had shot on Hashimoto and got the better of him in a famous angle. Then Inoki changed the finish with Ogawa winning again. This badly hurt Hashimoto’s standing, since he was pushed as the house shooter, the real tough guy in the promotion.

New Japan rebounded from nearly folding in the wake of the 1983-84 embezzlement scandal, caused by Inoki diverting the New Japan profits to subsidize a failing business venture in Brazil. The scandal in a country like Japan where honor is so important should have hurt Inoki’s star power, but ans gradually warming back up to the idea of Inoki as being a great fighter, but not necessarily a great business man. By the late 80s, Inoki’s body began breaking down even more by the demands of working a full-time wrestling schedule and it was long-time understudy, Tatsumi Fujinamj, who by this time may have been the best worker in the business with the exception of Ric Flair, who felt he had waited in the background long enough. Fujinami demanded the top spot and Inoki, strategically, let him have it and pulled out of wrestling, allowing Fujinami the chance to sink or swim on top on his own. Fujinami wasn’t a success as a draw although he had some great matches as world champion. But after doing some of the best work of his career, Fujinami suffered a serious back injury that sidelined him for more than one year and although he returned, he never was the same. This enabled Choshu to slide into power, and Inoki, recognizing his days as a full-time wrestler were over, put Choshu over twice in singles matches and slid into politics.

As the iron curtain was breaking down due to the beginnings of the collapse of the Soviet economy, Inoki was the first sports promoter, before the NHL or anyone else, to sign former Russian amateur wrestling greats into pro wrestling for the first ever Tokyo Dome show on April 24, 1989. On this show, before more than 43,000 fans. Inoki lost his World martial arts title after 13 years as champion, to Shota Chochyashivili. Chochyashvili was the 1972 Olympic gold medalist in judo in the 205 pound weight class and bronze medalist in the open division in 1976, so of the Russians involved, he had the highest spots credentials. The match was fought with the ropes removed, and Chochyashvili used a series of judo throws, called uranages, and Inoki was knocked out, in a worked match. That finish also introduced the uranage to the world of pro wrestling, where it became a key finisher of Hiroshi Hase, and countless Americans, including The Rock, copied the move. Thesz, a frequent critic of Inoki for making decisions based on ego rather than business, came up to Inoki right after the match and said, “Antonio, congratulations, you just became a businessman.” But Chochyashvili’s tenure in pro wrestling was short, lasting only three matches. Inoki beat him in a rematch to regain his title on May 25, 1989, at Osaka Jo Hall. Inoki & Chochyashvili on December 31, 1989, headlined the first major modern pro wrestling event ever in Russia, before 15,000 fans in Moscow, beating former Olympic wrestlers Brad Rheingans & Masa Saito. The most enduring part of the Russian relationship was amateur wrestler Victor Zangiev, the most impressive of the group in the ring, who became the inspiration for the Zangief character in the street fighter video game.

It broke the Ali-Inoki gate record for pro wrestling with $2,781,000. In establishing a business tie-in with the Soviet Union, Inoki the global statesman was born, an act strong enough that on July 24, 1989, Inoki barely squeaked into the Japanese Diet for his first term. Inoki became the first major pro wrestling star to be elected to a major office in Japan.

On October 24, 1989, while making a political speech, he was the victim of an assassination attempt and was stabbed. Since it was Inoki, nobody ever truly knew whether or not that was his most elaborate publicity angle, although at the time it was covered world wide as a major news story and there has never been any evidence that it was an angle. He became the first elected official from a democratic country to meet with Fidel Castro in Cuba, and later negotiated unsuccessfully to do a World Wrestling Peace Festival show in 1997 from that country. He negotiated a release of several Japanese hostages in Iraq by promising the country a major sports festival which included New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Within his senate, he was seen as a glory-hound who created situations to get himself over at the expense of the team, no different than in his days in pro wrestling. At one point he was a candidate for Mayor of Tokyo. Realistically be bad no chance to win the election but would have garnered a sizeable enough percentage of the vote to swing it. Once he inserted himself into the race, he had to come up with a way out of it without doing the job. Luckily, an opinion poll came out, sampling only males in their early 20s on who they would vote for in the Mayoral elections, and since that was the perfect demographic for him, as so many grew up with Inoki as their national sports hero every Saturday night beating foreigners from different sports, Inoki won in that small age group. Right after the results of the poll were released, Inoki pulled out of the race as a symbolic winner, claiming that while Mayor of Tokyo would be an important office, that he felt he could serve society much better in a position with more worldwide importance as his senate seat.

Inoki won election to a second term in 1992.

But his political career was seemingly destroyed by yet another scandal. Both Shinma, his long-time business manager, and Inoki’s personal secretary, came forward with allegations of all sorts of financial and governmental improprieties, serious enough that they not only nearly wound up in Inoki being impeached, but his image was sullied enough that TV-Asahi for several years thereafter refused to even broadcast Inoki’s big wrestling matches matches on television. He weathered that storm by denying all, but it did result in Inoki being trounced when it came to his 1995 re-election attempt. Eventually the scandal pub wore off and TV-Asahi began broadcasting his matches once again. Just before leaving office, he had completed negotiations with the North Korean government for two New Japan pro wrestling shows as part of another peace festival that wound up drawing a total of 315,000 fans to May Day Stadium in Pyongyang.

After being voted out of office, Inoki tried to re-establish himself as the father of all shooters, as true shooting, from UFC, Vale Tudo, Pancrase and other groups became popularized in the United States and Japan. The Japanese side of which can be traced back to Inoki’s worked mixed martial arts matches of the late 70s and early 80s, to Maeda popularizing UWF in the 80s, to Nobuhiko Takada’s UWFI selling out in the early. 90s, to Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki in Pancrase bringing pro wrestling even close to reality, to hardcore reality with UFC, Shooto and Vale Tudo. Inoki would get photo ops talking with Marco Ruas, training with Dan Severn, fighting with Oleg Taktarov, beating the likes of Gerard Gordeau, Ruska (in a 1994 match with both men in their 50s) and after 16 years, finally getting his win over an aged Willie Williams. And finally, in supposedly his final match in the ring, beating Ultimate Ultimate champion Frye, all setting up his next move, heading up his own Martial Arts Federation.

In reality, Inoki only had a few true shooting matches during his entire career, only one of which were supposed to be that way ahead of time. There was the Ali match, a December 12, 1976 match against Akram Pehalwan (Pehalwan is the Pakistani word for elite level wrestler, like Yokozuna would be for sumo in Japan–in death in local press, Inoki was also bestowed the title of Pehalwan) of Pakistan, the 1977 match with the Great Antonio and the 1979 match with Jhara Pehalwan of Pakistan.

The Pehalwan match in a large stadium in his home country was a work gone awry with the hometown hero going against the script, and shooting on Inoki and biting him. Pehalwan was a national hero in Pakistan, doing stadium shows similar to Inoki or Dara Singh in India. But at this point he was 46 years old, and when he tried to shoot on Inoki, Inoki had little trouble with him, dominated him on the ground in the second round, and broke his arm using a Kimura from the bottom to sweep and submit him, before 40,000 fans at National Stadium in Karachi. It was probably the scariest moment of Inoki’s life because a riot was about to break out and as legend has it, guns were being cocked and aimed in his direction. But in his traditional post-match wave to the fans in Pakistan, the fans saw it as a symbolic gesture that he was thanking Allah for the win, and thus the fans saw that his win was okay.

While this story was largely hidden in Japan, because Inoki lost, just as famous in Pakistan was the June 17, 1979, match with Inoki against Jhara Pehalwan (Muhammed Zubair Aslam) before 30,000 fans packing in Ghaddafi Stadium in Karachi, Pakistan. This match is also available on the Internet. What it was supposed to be going in is anyone’s guess since it would make no more sense in 1979 for Inoki to do a high profile shoot as it would be in 1986 for Hulk Hogan to do one. But it very clearly ended up as something a real fight. There were no punches to the face, but there were body blows, head-butts and mostly wrestling. Pehalwan was clearly stronger and wearing Inoki out, who couldn’t get much offense, was mostly on his back, and never threatened with a submission. But Pehalwan had wrestling skill but no finishing skill. They went five five minute rounds before time expired.

In Japan it was reported as a draw, notable because in theory that would lead to a rematch that never happened. In actuality, Pehalwan was ruled the winner via decision and in Japan, it was like Backlund vs. Inoki was in the U.S., a match pretty much hidden from history.

Jhara had trained from 16 to avenge his uncle’s loss. He was a powerhouse at 19, and simply too big and strong for Inoki to handle. He took Inoki down several times. Jhara, who passed away at the age of 31 in 1991, became a legend. Inoki became a legend in the culture. And it 2004, Inoki brought Jhara’s nephew to Japan to train him, which was a major story in Pakistan when it happened.

Inoki became a huge cultural figure in Pakistan off those two matches.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after Inoki’s death noted that Inoki was his personal idol in the 70s when he came to Pakistan.

“Sad to learn about the passing of legendary Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki,” he said on Twitter. “I have a vivid memory of meeting him at a stadium in Lahore ten years ago. He mesmerized a whole generation with his wrestling prowess. My condolences are with his family and Japanese people.”

The two met on December 5, 2012, when Inoki promoted the Inoki Bom Ba Ye show at Peshawar Arab Niaz Stadium in Islamabad, bring his Japanese shooters like Kazuyuki Fujita, Hideki Suzuki, Shinichi Suzukawa , Kendo Kashin and Taka Kunou in for a show, built around Inoki’s return to the country, drawing 25,000 fans.

Muhammaad Inam, Pakistan’s best wrestler, also noted that Inoki was his personal idol. Inam, who won World championships in beach wrestling in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and in freestyle wrestling took Commonwealth Games gold in 2010 and 2018, and this year took silver

“Its sad news. He was such a great man and wrestler and was my role model,” said Inam after Inoki’s death. “He was a great legend and had inspired Pakistan’s wrestling a lot. Jhara-Inoki fight is still remembered by the people. “I also have learnt a lot while watching his training videos. His frequent visits to Pakistan reflect that he loved Pakistan,”

In the summer of 1984, Inoki headlined five stadium shows in Pakistan, wrestling singles and tag teams against Billy Crusher (Masked Superstar Bill Eadie wrestling without a mask which was weird since one of the shows was televised in Japan where Masked Superstar was a major masked star), Badnews Allen and Roger Smith, drawing crowds of between 30,000 and 45,000 fans each night.

His fondness for Pakistan and its Muslim religion led to his changing his real name to Muhammad Hussain Inoki. He had considered Muhammad Ali Inoki, but Hussain was in fact after Saddam Hussein, because of their negotiations to release Japanese hostages.

Inoki had always claimed he was most proud of the Ali and Pehalwan matches as opposed to some of his most famous classic worked matches against the likes of Fujinami, Dory Funk Jr., Robinson, Backlund and Jack Brisco, or wars with Stan Hansen, Tiger Jeet Singh and Andre the giant. .

On December 8, 1977, Inoki had a famous match against The Great Antonio, a strongman type who made a big hit as a drawing card in the early 60s against Rikidozan. Antonio, who was 52 and grossly overweight at about 450 pounds, decided to not sell for Inoki quickly landed some strikes, took him down and kicked and stomped the hell out of him in seconds before he was knocked out.

Is much talked about match with Roland Bock was on November 25, 1978, in Stuttgart Germany. Bock, a legitimate shooter who wrestled in the 1968 Olympics as a Greco-roman superheavyweight, didn’t sell for Inoki. It wasn’t a shoot or a fight, but Bock was totally uncooperative and too good of a wrestler and blocked everything Inoki tried and basically controlled him on the ground most of the way. The match was worked to look legit, in the sense Bock sold Inoki’s dropkick, so it wasn’t a shoot by any means, but Bock gave him very little. They went the time limit and Bock was ruled the winner by judges decision. Since Inoki virtually never lost, this made Bock into a cult favorite among the hardcore community as a real shooter, since the story also got around that Inoki could do little to stop him, and he blocked most of Inoki’s offense.

He was brought to New Japan and went undefeated. On December 8, 1981, Bock & Stan Hansen beat Inoki & Fujinami clean when Bock pinned Fujinami after his double-arm suplex, the move he beat Choshu and everyone else with. This set up a January 1, 1982, match with Inoki. He was said to have not been as dominant due to an auto accident but it was a fascinating match, especially through today’s eyes. It was very much a worked match with total cooperation and Bock selling Inoki’s very hard leg kicks great. Inoki also had Karl Gotch in his corner in case there was any funny business. Bock threw referee Pete Takahashi over the top rope for the DQ and started choking Inoki, but this was a worked choke. Gotch got in the ring and got in Bock’s face and the crowd popped really big for that, with the idea of the two shooters going face-to-face. Bock backed off. Bock was never brought to Japan again.

Inoki’s brief WWE championship reign was one of controversy, given it happened but was never recognized in the U.S., and is still not recognized in WWE history.

The first match took place on November 30, 1979, in Tokushima. Inoki and Backlund, because of their similar athletic styles, jelled great as opponents. Tiger Jeet Singh, Inoki’s big rival, came to ringside and was brawling with other Japanese wrestlers outside the ring. Backlund used his atomic drop finisher but Inoki kicked out. Inoki got behind him, delivered a back suplex and special referee Johnny “Red Shoes” Dugan counted three, just as Backlund kicked out. Inoki was ruled the winner and new champion.

Backlund continued to be advertised for title matches in all the major arenas like none of this ever happened. Baba had already purchased one-week NWA world title wins over Jack Brisco in 1974 and Harley Race earlier in 1979. In the continuing battle over Baba and Inoki, who never wrestled each other but constantly were in the public eye trying to prove who was better, Inoki felt he needed a major U.S. world title win to go with his NWF title.

Backlund was likely supposed to win the rematch, on December 6, 1979 at Sumo Hall before 9,500 fans. The two were having their usual classic title match, when Singh came out just as Backlund had dumped Inoki over the top rope doing a Gotch lift. Singh attacked Inoki right in front of ref Pete Takahashi, but a DQ wasn’t called. Backlund then picked Inoki up and crotched him on the top rope for the pin. However, it appeared Backlund and the WWF was being double-crossed. Shinma, as the WWF president, got in the ring and ruled the match a no contest due to the interference, and held up the championship.

There were telegrams back-and-forth and the idea appeared to be Inoki and Shinma were trying to create a situation that would lead to Inoki vs. Backlund for the held up title on December 17, 1979, in Madison Square Garden, which was a television taping for New Japan’s show on TV-Asahi and Inoki, Fujinami, Sakaguchi and Choshu were all booked on the show. McMahon had been advertising a Backlund vs. Bobby Duncum Texas death match for the title, stemming from a match a month earlier which was stopped when both men were ruled too badly cut to continue.

McMahon wouldn’t change his card, and Backlund vs. Duncum was advertised as the title match throughout this controversy.

However, because this aired in Japan, when the match took place, Backlund didn’t come to the ring with the belt. Both were in the ring, the belt was brought in the ring like it was held up, although that was never said to the fans, and the match was introduced as a WWF title match, but Backlund was not introduced as champion. Backlund won the match and for the fans in Japan he had won the held up title. Inoki instead retained his NWF title on the card beating the Great Hossein Arab, who later became famous as The Iron Sheik.

Between 1975 and 1984, Inoki would guest at Madison Square Garden, usually when TV-Asahi would film an MSG show during breaks between New Japan tours, with Inoki always winning, against foes like Frank Monte, Texas Red (Red Bastien), Larry Sharpe, Bobby Duncum, Charlie Fulton and David Schultz.

After his retirement, Inoki moved to the United States and set up his “new” UFO promotion with himself and Ali as the spiritual leaders presiding over a company with Ogawa and Sayama.

In 2005, with the company crippled financially and at a low point popularity-wise, Inoki sold his 51.5 percent controlling interest in New Japan to Yuke’s.

He later set up a new promotion called the Inoki Genome Federation. His son-in-law, Simon Kelly, who used the name Simon Inoki, was the key guy but Inoki was the front man. They ran only major arenas every so often, with Inoki doing his interview in the ring and his “Ichi, ni, san da!” chant as the highlight of most shows. The group used a lot of MMA fighters and amateur wrestlers as well as accomplished pro wrestlers. He also promoted an MMA group called Jungle Fight in Brazil, given the name based on the famous Inoki vs. Masa Saito two hour jungle fight pro wrestling match.

There was controversy in that. In 2003, Inoki had promised 1984 gold medalist Mark Schultz that he would get a worked victory with Schultz thinking it was a pro wrestling match and he’d get his win and start making money with New Japan. Instead, in the middle of what Schultz thought was a worked match, opponent Leopoldo Montengro clamped on a triangle choke and Schultz had to tap out. He was furious, was told it would be rectified, but it never was and Schultz never did a pro wrestling match.

On a September 29, 2010 IGF show, Mark Coleman, the former UFC champion and U.S. Olympian, suddenly found him pro wrestling match a shoot with Shinichi Suzukawa. Coleman was not in his best shape, and was exhausted and actually lost via double-cross.

The double-cross reputation was such that when the IGF made a deal with Kimbo Slice, Slice wanted it put in his contract a giant money penalty if somebody tried to double-cross him. The story was so crazy over what was a double-cross that his people contacted me and Inoki’s side and asked for me to be the guy who would decide in the event of a double-cross if that happened, even though Slice was promised a win. Due to the reputation and lack of trust, Slice never wrestled for the group and in Japan it was announced he had to pull out of the fight due to a injury.

After memories faded of the scandals that saw him voted out of office in 1995, he ran for the Japanese Diet in 2013 under the Japan Restoration Party. In November of 2013, he was suspended from the senate for 30 days due to making an unauthorized trip to North Korea that he was explicitly told not to do and totally ignored that. When North Korea abducted Japanese citizens, the Japanese government closed all relations. Inoki didn’t care, and claimed that the issues couldn’t be resolved with North Korea without communication and using the fact he was the protégé of the country’s national hero, Rikidozan, he felt he could use that to mediate issues. He got in trouble in 2017 for going to North Korea again after North Korea had launched ballistic missiles over Hokkaido. After another scandal, Inoki, with his health in bad shape, retired as a senator in June 2019.

In 1969, Inoki & Baba headlined JWA shows in Thailand at the National Stadium before 24,000 fans, two shows in Singapore before sellouts of 8,000 with thousands turned away, and two shows in Hong Kong.

On October 14, 1973, Inoki & Sakaguchi had a legendary match at Sumo Hall before a sellout 13,000 fans beating Thesz & Gotch in a best of three fall match.

Inoki lost to Oki clean, one of his rare losses, to set up an NWF title match on October 10, 1974, at Sumo Hall before 13,000 fans, which Inoki won.

Inoki and Andre the Giant went do a double count out before 20,000 fans at Corinthan Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil in an NWF title match on December 15, 1974.

Singh became Inoki’s biggest rival, beating Inoki for the NWF title on March 13, 1975, and retaining it before Inoki got it back on June 26, 1975.

Inoki’s only challenge of his career for the NWA International title was on March 27, 1975, in Seoul, South Korea against Oki, doing to a double count out before a sellout of 7,000 fans.

On October 9, 1975, Inoki retained his NWF title pinning Thesz, with Argentina Rocca as referee. This match was heavily criticized in the mainstream media with the idea that Inoki would face Thesz, a legend, but that he was now 59 years old. The match drew 10,500 fans, but did tremendous numbers on television.

Many say Inoki’s greatest match was a 60:00 best of three fall match with Billy Robinson on October 7, 1975, before a sellout 13,000 at Sumo Hall. This was to build a rematch, but Baba offered Robinson an unheard of deal at the time for $8,000 per week to jump to All Japan. Robinson had been the first IWE world champion and became a huge star in that promotion before moving to New Japan. Robinson had never lost a match in Japan by pin or submission. As part of the deal with Robinson, he had to lose a two of three fall match to Baba in his first major match, with the idea it was proving that Baba was better than the top stars of IWE or New Japan, who could never beat Robinson. In his career in Japan, while he did lose via count out a few times including to Jumbo Tsuruta, Baba was the only person Robinson ever lost cleanly to.

The first World Martial arts title match was on February 6, 1976, when Inoki beat Willem Ruska, who was the first person ever to win two judo medals (heavyweight and overall) in one Olympics in 1972. Inoki retained that title on October 7, 1976, at Sumo Hall, beating Andre via knockout. In 1976, he went to South Korea for two matches with Pak Song Nam, with a double count out and a count out win.

He beat Singh on February 10, 1977, at Budokan Hall to keep the NWF title in a fence death match.

He kept the martial arts title with wins on August 2, 1977 over world super heavyweight karate champion Monster Man Eddy Everett at Budokan Hall. Inoki won via knockout at 1:38 of the fifth round using a move developed first by Thesz that in the 80s would become a major finisher in Japan as the power bomb, and was brought to the U.S. by Terry Gordy.

He retained the title again over famed boxer Chuck Wepner (who the original movie “Rocky” was based on) with a sixth round submission before a sellout crowd. He beat Umanosuke Ueda in a nail death mach. He beat Andre via count out to win the MSG singles tournament on May 30, 1978, in Osaka. On June 1, 1978, Inoki and Backlund had a WWF vs. NWF title vs. title match. Inoki won the only fall in a two of three fall match that went 60:00. Because he didn’t win two falls, it was ruled that the WWF title didn’t change hands, even though the WWF virtually never had anything for one fall matches. He beat Eddy Everett a second time on June 7, 1978 for the martial arts title. A rematch with Backlund over the WWF and NWF title on July 27, 1978, at Budokan ended in a 60:00 draw when each had won a fall. A December 14, 1978, match in Osaka saw Inoki beat Backlund via count out in a WWF title match, which was very controversial because in Japan, count outs and DQs were considered like pins, like would be the case in boxing or real wrestling, but Backlund retained because WWE rules meant the title didn’t change hands via count out.

In late 1978, he went to Europe and had matches in Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands and Switzerland against some of the greatest fighting sport athletes in Europe. It was huge in Japan, because there was media coverage of Inoki facing accomplished real sorts stars. He faced Ruska several times on the tour. He had had the famous match with Bock, but also two other forgotten bouts with Bock, a DQ win by Inoki and a time limit draw. He had one win over Karl Mildenberger in what was billed for his World Martial Arts championship. Mildenberger, the former European boxing champion, was best known for his 1966 heavyweight title fight losing to Ali via 12th round stoppage. He had two wins over Wilfred Dietrich, one of the greatest wrestlers of his era, having medaled in the 1956, 1960, where he won gold, 1964 and 1968 Olympics as well as being in the famous poster where he gave 420-pound Chris Taylor an overhead belly-to-belly suplex in the 1972 Olympics. He also beat Eugen Wiesberger Jr., who competed in the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics in wrestling. He also went to a ten round draw with Otto Wanz in an NWF title vs. CWA title match on November 24, 1978, in Dortmund, Germany.

On April 3, 1979, Inoki defeated Mr. America winning bodybuilder and at the time a famous American strongman and stunt man Mike Dayton to retain World Martial Arts championship when the ref stopped the match at 1:29 of the sixth round.

Inoki had four major bouts in Mexico during his career.

The first was on April 22, 1979 at El Toreo in Naucalpan before an overflow sellout of 22,500 fans. Inoki, the NWF champion, was defending against Canek, the UWA world heavyweight champion, but Canek’s title was not at stake. Because of the Ali fight, Inoki had great notoriety in Mexico, where boxing was super popular at the time. Fans were expecting Canek to win since he always bat the foreign stars, and win another world title and this would make him the top wrestler in the world since Inoki was billed in Mexico as the greatest all-around fighter in the world.

Canek was disqualified in the first fall. What was notable is that while Canek was a heel against Mexicans, he was always a babyface against foreigners. But by the second fall, the crowd turned on Canek and for Inoki. Inoki won the second fall with an enzuigiri and a brainbuster, shocking the fans and the general public in Mexico by winning two straight falls. Because of this match, Inoki was established in Mexico as being the greatest heavyweight wrestler in the world and it was always a huge deal when he returned.

On April 13, 1980, Inoki came back and beat Tiger Jeet Singh via DQ to win the UWA world heavyweight title that Singh had won from Canek on February 17. Inoki had just won back the NWF tile from Stan Hansen ten days earlier in Sumo Hall. This drew a sellout of 20,000 fans. Singh won the first fall with a suplex and Inoki won the second fall with the octopus. Singh was disqualified in the third fall for attacking Inoki with a table.

Singh regained the title, winning via DQ over Inoki on October 24, 1980, in Naha, Okinawa.

Inoki came back on May 1, 1981, for an NWF vs. WWF title match with Backlund, with Thesz as referee. This was their third match since the controversy in Japan over the title at the end of 1979. On April 16, 1980, Backlund beat Inoki via DQ at the Miami Beach Convention Center before a sellout of 5,883 fans. Neither were big draws in Florida and the two main matches that night were Harley Race over Manny Fernandez to keep the NWA title, and Dusty Rhodes over Ernie Ladd to keep the Southern title. This was a show taped for TV-Asahi.

On August 22, 1980, in Tokyo, Inoki again beat Backlund in a WWF title match via count out.

This was a huge show, as Canek also defended the UWA title against Fujinami, and it drew another sellout of 20,000 fans.

Backlund won the first fall with a piledriver. Inoki won the second fall with an enzuigiri. Both were counted out in the third fall after about 35:00.

His last major show was February 14, 1982, with another sellout of 20,000 fans and 1,318,260 pesos for Inoki & Fujinami vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Perro Aguayo. This match was described as not a classic wrestling performance like Inoki’s prior bouts, but more of a typical El Toreo brawl. Fujinami pinned Aguayo in the first fall. The second fall was a DQ when Inoki hit the ref. The third fall was also a DQ when Fujinami also hit the ref.

Inoki also defended the NWF title in North America against Singh on August 10, 1979, in Los Angeles at the Olympic Auditorium in a double count out, and beating Stan Hansen via DQ on August 17, 1979 in Calgary got Stampede Wrestling.

In one of the biggest shows in Japanese history, on August 26, 1979, at a sold out Budokan Hall with 16,500 fans paying $1.1 million, Baba & Inoki won the Tokyo Sports All-Star Dream card main event over Abdullah & Singh. After the match they set up an angle for a Baba vs. Inoki match, however the two promotions had a falling out over business after the show and what could have been the biggest match of the era never took place.

On October 5, in Seoul, South Korea, Inoki beat Ruska to retain the world martial arts title before a sellout 7,500 fans.

With the exception of the Ali match and the first Ruska match, the most well remembered and talked about Inoki martial arts title defense was February 27, 1980, at Sumo Hall before a sellout of 11,000 fans paying $350,000 and a huge television audience.

The match became legendary in Japan, and was actually huge in the Japanese comic book world before it ever happened. A rematch 17 years later was a key match in a sold out Tokyo Dome and highly rated television show. The match itself was not a real fight, but was in fact, voted the greatest fight in Japan of the 20th century. And the story behind the match was even more interesting than the match itself.

Williams became famous in Japan as the top foreigner of Mas Oyama’s Kyokushin Kaikan School of Karate. There was a very popular comic book in Japan based on Mas Oyama’s karate in the 70s called “Karate Baka Ichidai,” written by Ikki Kajiwara, a name famous to wrestling fans because he also created the pro wrestling Tiger Mask character in comic books, that led to a television series, which eventually led to Satoru Sayama popularizing that role as a pro wrestler to giant mainstream success.

While the idea of “Karate Baka Ichidai” was that the stories were real, it was more fantasy and great exaggerations. However the comic books were so popular they led to three movies. Williams appeared in one of the movies as himself, the deadly American karate star in a scene where he beat up a bear in a jungle and in Japan had the nickname “The Bear Killer.”

At the same time, in the late 70s, a new comic book series came out in Japan called “Shikakui Jungle” (Squared Jungle). The comic book series was built to where it would end up with the real fight of the century between Inoki and Willie Williams. The comic book became so popular that there was a demand for this fight in real life.

“The match had to take place,” noted Japanese pro wrestling historian Fumi Saito. “It was not necessarily Inoki calling the shot.”

In 1979, there was a 160 man tournament with no weight classes in Japan under karate rules to find out who was the best karate fighter. Williams made it to the final four, losing in the semifinals.

But even though he didn’t win, Williams was still billed as the karate world champion.

Essentially, there were far too many people involved in putting this match together, as you had the karate side and the pro wrestling side, and the match was felt to be so big when it comes to interest, that both sides felt they had to go through with it. But neither side would agree to lose.

There was hope to go to a secret location and work out a match, like Inoki had done with the non-pro wrestlers he had worked with. But fear of double-cross of injury led to that not happening. If anything, it was the karate people who wanted to “prove” a karate guy could beat up Inoki, who was by far the more famous of the two, than the other way around. However, TV Asahi was the key money people, and Inoki was their guy, so he was not going to be put in a position to be shot on or lose. Kajiwara and his people, Inoki, Shinma, movie people and karate people were involved in a number of secret meetings trying to work out how to work out compromises and do the match.

Even so, on the night of the bout, Williams had a large group of badass Kyokushin karate guys as his bodyguards, and they were not involved in the negotiations, and they were very aggressive, believed to be looking for a fight. Inoki brought Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu and Haruka Eigen, three of the toughest guys from his stable, to be in his corner. His two believed to be New Japan’s toughest guys, retired trainer and legendary shooter Karl Gotch and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Gotch’s top student and the New Japan policeman at the time, were not available.

The match was not a shoot, but it was as tense as any non-shoot would be. Both were on their guard. Williams, who was 6-foot-6 ½ and 230 pounds, had a big reach edge and was also quicker. Not much happened but Williams was able to land punches. He hit jabs with enough force to look real but not in an attempt to knock Inoki out. Inoki got a few takedowns but Williams would always make the ropes quickly. They fell out of the ring a few times where the karate guys and the New Japan guys would rush over.

Both sides agreed to a double count out finish at 1:24 of the fourth round. Inoki at least got his takedowns and Williams had to scramble to the ropes, so it didn’t look so one-sided and Inoki saved face. But Williams didn’t lose and looked better against Inoki than anyone.

In the 80s in particular, the match was legendary, replayed all the time. I can’t remember how many different times on sports shows that I saw that double count out finish when there would be stories on Inoki. Its reputation grew and because of the interest and how much it felt like a real fight, and because Inoki was involved, in 2003 it was named the greatest fight of the 20th century in Japan.

Akira Maeda was a big fan of the “Karate Baka Ichidai” and “Shikakui Jungle” comic books growing up, and he was 20 years old when the Inoki vs. Williams match took place. Of all Inoki’s martial arts and pro wrestling matches of his heyday, of course, the Ali match was the biggest, and the first Ruska match would be second and Williams would be third. But since the Williams match was considered easily the best of the three, it was considered as the peak of the genre.

Inoki did finally get his win back. When Inoki announced his retirement tour, one of the themes was callback to his legendary matches from the past.

On January 4, 1997, Inoki vs. Williams was booked for the Tokyo Dome in New Japan’s biggest event of the year. There were no political issues here over how the match would take place and who would win. Williams had already a run as a pro wrestler with RINGS years earlier, and put over Maeda and Volk Han in big drawing matches. It was fourth from the top on a show headlined by Hashimoto vs. Choshu for the IWGP heavyweight title, which sold out with 52,500 fans and Inoki won with the octopus submission in 4:23 of an awful match.

Still, the show, which aired on a next day replay on a Sunday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., did an 11.3 rating and 12 million viewers. While it was Choshu vs. Hashimoto that drew the peak of nearly 18 million viewers, Inoki vs. Williams was the second highest rated match, which shows just how much people remembered the match from 17 years earlier.

Inoki had a major feud with Rusher Kimura in 1981, who invaded New Japan after the IWE folded, blaming Inoki and New Japan for his company going out of business. The rivalry was incredibly heated, with Kimura winning the October 8 match via DQ but Inoki winning via ref stoppage in the November 5 rematch in a lumberjack death match.

They also had a November 4, 1982 and February 7, 1983 Sumo Hall follow-ups, where Inoki wrestled Kimura, Animal Hamaguchi and Isamu Teranishi in order. On the first show, which drew a near sellout of 12,000, Inoki beat Teranishi and Hamaguchi before losing via count out to Kimura. In the rematch, a sellout of 13,000, Inoki beat Kimura and Teranishi, but then got DQ’d against Hamaguchi. Inoki also beat Kimura in a singles match on April 3 before 12,000 fans, and another match on August 28 in Tokyo at the Denen Coliseum before a sellout 13,500 fans.

On December 1 in Nagoya, Inoki beat Hogan via submission using the Octopus.

There were major jumps at this time, with New Japan signing All Japan legend, Abdullah, and All Japan retaliating by signing Hansen and Singh. The new Inoki vs. Abdullah rivalry was big that year.

On April 23, 1983, Inoki beat Saito in a loser leaves town match before a sellout 13,000 fans at Sumo Hall, with thousands turned away.

In their only career singles match, Inoki pinned Akira Maeda on May 27, 1983, as part of the first IWGP heavyweight tournament

Buffalo Allen Coage, an American judo legend who took a bronze medal at heavyweight in the 1976 Olympics, was one of many great athletes that Inoki and New Japan recruited into pro wrestling in 1977. He was later renamed Badnews Allen and Badnews Brown. Coage, with his legitimate judo pedigree, was brought into New Japan at first to put over Sakaguchi (a former national champion in judo) and Ruska in worked judo matches. Later he became a major rival of Inoki and faced him not only in Sumo Hall, but before 15,000 fans at a stadium show in The Philippines on February 12, 1984, as well as at stadium shows in Pakistan.

On December 8, 1984, Inoki beat Andre via count out at Quezon City, Philippines before 23,000 fans.

1985 was another major year for Inoki, notable for the end of his program with Hogan and the beginning of a new rivalry with Bruiser Brody.

Brody was, along with Hansen, the top star for All Japan, but saw his status falling when The Road Warriors were introduced to the promotion and they got over so well at first. Brody opened talks with New Japan, which responded by offering him $17,000 per week, the largest guarantee up to that point in the history of pro wrestling. While Brody was a great shot in the arm at the box office and turned into one of Inoki’s legendary rivals, the egos and stubbornness led to it unraveling.

Inoki and Brody wrestled on April 18, 1985, at the new Sumo Hall at Ryogoku, an instant sellout of 11,066 and $285,000, going to a double count out. They sold out Osaka Jo Hall with 13,840 on August 1, with Inoki winning via DQ. After another double count out that didn’t draw as well as fans figured out there wouldn’t be a finish. But even with that issue, Brody gave Inoki some of his best and most heated matches of the era, and made Inoki look like the star he had been in his prime.

In the IWGP tournament, Inoki beat Andre via count out on June 11, 1985 before 11,474 at Tokyo Metro Gym, and then in his last-ever match with Hogan, beat the then-WWE champion via count out in the IWGP title match on June 13, 1985 in Nagoya before a sellout 12,330.

In September, an Inoki tour of Taiwan saw six shows with big crowds including Inoki wins over Kerry Brown, Masked Superstar and Hacksaw Higgins.

The December tag team tournament was built for the championship match with Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. Inoki & Sakaguchi. Before the finals, a match with Brody and Sakaguchi got out of control and turned into a fight, with Brody getting the better of it. Fearing a reprisal, Brody & Snuka got off the train on the way to Sendai for the finals and flew home. Since wrestlers got paid on conclusion of the tour, Brody was forfeiting $51,000 for three weeks, not to mention burning a high-paying bridge after he had seemingly already burned the bridge walking out on All Japan.

Faced with a disaster of the team with the most points in the tournament not showing up, Inoki made a major decision. Inoki & Sakaguchi faced third place finishers Fujinami & Kengo Kimura, and Inoki, in trying to build a headline that would make everyone forget about Brody & Snuka, did a clean job in the middle for Fujinami, the first time Inoki had a clean loss to a Japanese wrestler dating back decades.

Inoki and Brody made amends in Hawaii, and Brody got a newer and even higher paying deal to return, for a 60:00 draw on September 16, 1986 at Osaka Castle hall before 13,050 fans selling out and paying $460,000. The idea was that each would split a fall in a 2/3 fall match and do a 60:00 draw. The problem was that neither trusted the other. Each man feared that if they dropped the fall, the other would double-cross them, not lose the second fall, and get a gigantic career win. Because they couldn’t agree on who would lose the first fall, they had no falls. But because they went 60:00, fans were satisfied with the match even without a pin. But even with the most lucrative guaranteed deal in wrestling, Brody and New Japan fell apart once again just a few months later, which included paranoia from the Brody side about being booked in a singles match with Maeda.

After the first UWF folded in 1985, the stars like Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Nobuhiko Takada were brought back to New Japan. They were great for live business as their matches being so realistic, with the hard kicks and slaps and submissions, drew sellout crowds and great heat. But the style didn’t work as well for television ratings.

In 1986, the Inoki vs. Andre feud came to its conclusion. Andre was hurting badly at this point, and the New Japan style wasn’t to have bad matches. Andre was so respected by Inoki and New Japan that they made a deal with All Japan, which had comedy matches in the mid-card for older legends like Baba and Rusher Kimura, which weren’t meant to be serious or hard hitting but allowed fans to still see Baba live. Andre fit in perfectly as Baba’s partner in the six-man tags.

What people remember as Andre’s final New Japan match, because of the finish, was June 17, 1986, in Nagoya before 10,580 fans as Inoki beat Andre via submission in 9:30 using an armbar in that year’s IWGP tournament. The win led to Inoki winning the title again in the finals over Dick Murdoch, who was given a count out win over Maeda to avoid the hoped-for Inoki vs. Maeda final. It was believed to Andre’s only submission loss of his career, coming months before the famous Hogan loss at WrestleMania III.

However, Andre did a few tags, and three nights later, many of the stars of the IWGP tournament were put in a one-night Sagawa Express tournament. Sagawa Express would be Japan’s version of Federal Express, a giant company that delivers packages and they sponsored a one-night tournament on June 20, 1986, in Kyoto. It was weird bracketing. Inoki first beat Sakaguchi, then Murdoch via DQ, and Superstar in the semifinals. Andre got a first-round bye, and then when Kengo Kimura and Maeda did a double count out, to avoid Andre vs. Maeda, Andre got a bye into the semifinals where he beat Umanosuke Ueda, who had beaten Jimmy Snuka via DQ to get there. In their last meeting and Andre’s last match in New Japan, Inoki put Andre over via count out in a symbolic gesture for Andre losing to Inoki multiple times in his career at a time when he lost to almost nobody else (only The Sheik, using fire, and Canek beat Andre from the early 70s when he became Andre the Giant, until the Hogan match at WrestleMania III). Andre got to go out on top, with Inoki knowing that everyone would forget this match, which they did, because of the finish of the match three days earlier.

After the first UWF folded and its stars were brought back to New Japan, Inoki vs. Maeda was the match people wanted to see, but the big feud made was Inoki vs. Fujiawara, since Fujiwara was agreeable to losing cleanly while Maeda made it clear he would not lose to Inoki.

On October 9, 1986, at Sumo Hall before 11,520 fans and $837,000, Inoki beat Leon Spinks, a former Olympic gold medalist and former world heavyweight boxing champion, having beat Ali, in a martial arts championship match. The match was terrible. Spinks lost to a back suplex and pin, then just got right up like nothing had happened. The semi saw Maeda beat kickboxing champion Don Nakaya Neilsen in one of the best maches of its type in history. Fans saw Maeda as the star of the promotion and years earlier Maeda had been the chosen one, not Fujinami, to take the top spot when it was time to move Inoki out. Many fans felt this was the time. But the TV ratings were so much stronger for Inoki vs. Spinks, doing 30 million viewers, that the change didn’t happen right away. However, Inoki vs. Maeda was the biggest match they could put together. They booked the match, it sold out immediately and was the most-looked forward to match since the Brody series, but it changed to a five vs. five match because they couldn’t get either side to agree to a finish.

Inoki had a major program in 1987 with Saito. After major singles matches, they finished it on October 4, 1987 in the famed Jungle Death match. The match lasted 125:14, the longest match in Japanese wrestling history in front of nothing but a few dozen reporters and television production people, ending when Inoki choked Saito out.

Inoki created his latest foreign superstar at the end of 1987, wiht Leon White debuting as Big Van Vader. Vader was supposed to be the monster being brought in by famous television personality Takeshi Kitano to take out the New Japan stars. The main event on the show on December 27, 1987, was Inoki vs. Choshu, which Inoki won via DQ. At that point Vader, Kitano and Saito came out, with Vader with his unique headgreat with steam copming out of it. Vader pinned Inoki in just 2:49 of their impromptu match. The positive is that Vader was made in one night, and he became New Japan’s top foreign draw for several years. The negative is that there was a riot so bad after the match, with people seeing Inoki lose, that New Japan was banned from running Sumo Hall, its big show arena for one year. They returned February 22, 1989, where Inoki put Choshu over clean.

On August 8, 1988, Inoki went to an incredibly emotional 60:00 draw with IWGP champion Fujinami with Thesz as referee. This was Inoki’s final challenge to the IWGP championship, and generally considered Inoki’s finest moment of the 1980s.

On February 10, 1990, New Japan sold out the Tokyo Dome for the first time with 53,000 fans paying $3.2 million, breaking the all-time pro wrestling record once again. While the big draw was three All Japan vs. New Japan matches and the debut of sumo superstar Koji Kitao, the main event saw Inoki & Sakaguchi beat Chono & Hashimoto in a battle of generations with Thesz as referee. Largely due to Kitao and Inoki, the show also drew 25 million viewers on television.

On January 4, 1992, they broke the gate record again with 50,000 fans paying $3.7 million, in the first of 31 straight years that New Japan ran that date at the Tokyo Dome. Senator Inoki beat future Senator Hiroshi Hase, an Olympic wrestler and one of the top workers of the 90s.

On May 3, 1993, Inoki set what is still, by far, the Fukuoka Dome wrestling attendance record, for an Inoki & Fujinami over Choshu & Tenryu tag team match.

On January 4, 1994, in their only career singles match, Inoki was pinned by Genichiro Tenryu in 15:56 in the main event before 48,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome. This was pro wrestling’s first-ever $4 million gate.

On May 4, 1994, in their only career singles match, Inoki pinned Great Muta in 20:12 before 43,500 fans at the Fukuoka Dome.

The January 4, 1995, show set yet another gate record of $4.8 million with a sellout 52,500 fans. One of the key draws was a four-man tournament sponsored by the BVD underwear called the BVD martial arts championship. Inoki won, beating former UFC tournament finalist and kickboxer Gerard Gordeau, followed by choking out Sting in the finals in 10:19 in what would be their only career singles match. Both matches were pretty bad. Hashimoto vs. Sasaki for the IWGP title was the main event.

On January 4, 1996, in the final super match of his career and easily his best performance of the 90s, the 52-year-old Inoki pinned Vader in 14:16 before a sellout 54,000 fans paying $5.5 million at the Tokyo Dome, underneath Takada beating Muto for the IWGP title.

On June 1, 1996, he promoted headlined the World Wrestling Peace Festival at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, which drew 5,964 fans but only 2,513 paid as he teamed with UFC star Dan Severn to beat UFC star Oleg Taktarov & Fujiwara. It was Inoki’s last match ever in the United States. The show featured a combination of talent from CMLL, AAA, New Japan, All Japan Women and WCW,

On April 12, 1997, at the Tokyo Dome, saw Inoki beat Sayama in their only career singles match before 50,500 fans.

Inoki jumped off the New Japan train as MMA got big in Japan. He worked with Pride and K-1, including selling New Japan stars to those companies to do shoot fights, which they often lost. Shinsuke Nakamura became a star as a rookie in losing to Daniel Gracie because he put up an exciting fight. Tadao Yasuda was made IWGP champion getting an upset wins over kickboxing star Masaaki Satake and Jerome LeBanner in real fights, although many questioned the LeBanner fight after it was over. Kazuyuki Fujita and Bob Sapp also had runs as IWGP champion because they were MMA stars.

Inoki Bom Ba Ye became a New Year’s Eve tradition. New Year’s Eve in Japan is the biggest television day of the year, dominated by a concert on NHK which does Super Bowl like ratings. The first event was a pro wrestling event that used real fighters in 2001, with Inoki vs. Renzo Gracie as an exhibition, plus Muto & Takada vs. Frye & Ken Shamrock, packing the Osaka Dome and doing the highest television rating any show had done opposite the concert. He worked with Pride, and people like Gary Goodridge, Bas Rutten, Mark Kerr, Mark Coleman and Kazushi Sakuraba, all major MMA names, did pro wrestling matches. The novelty was huge and it drew 42,753 fans and 12 million television viewers, the largest in modern times against the concert and every network in those days programmed major New Year’s Eve events. So in 2000, the repeating of the 1970s Inoki concept paid off in the first show.

It became one of Fuji-TV’s big annual events. The 2021 show did a sellout 27,000 fans and 16 million viewers from the Saitama Super Arena for an all shoot MMA show that worked perfectly in making New Japan midcard wrestler Yasuda a huge star for a brief period of time when he beat K-1 legend LeBanner with a forearm choke. The television show was built around Yasuda coming back from gambling debts and losing his family, getting back with his daughter in a human interest story, which then ended with Yasuda scoring a gigantic upset. Yasuda was a big sumo, but sumos never did well in MMA fights. LeBanner was a great kickboxer and strong, but did have no ground game. Yasuda never won another fight after this one.

A 2002 show was built around the top two finishers in that year’s Pro Wrestling MVP award, Bob Sapp and Yoshihiro Takayama, fighting in an MMA rules shoot match that Sapp own in 2:16 with an armbar. Cro Cop beat New Japan wrestler Kazuyuki Fujita for a second time New Japan rookie Shinsuke Nakamura, who had placed third in the collegiate national freestyle tournament the year before, jump started his career by looking good, scoring several takedown on Daniel Garcia before being submitted with an armbar. The show drew 16 million viewers, another great showing, with 26 million watching the main event.

It was so successful that three different networks wanted fighting shows in 2003. Pride and K-1, who had worked together, split apart with their own shows. Inoki split from both, and ended up the big loser in doing so, as his show at Kobe Wings Stadium before 25,000 fans saw built around Yuji Nagata, New Japan’s best wrestler at the time, losing in 62 seconds to Fedor Emelianenko, generally regarded as the best heavyweight fighter in the world at the time. Fujita did save face for New Japan beating former IBF world cruiserweight boxing champion Imamu Mayfield in what was promoted a the Inoki vs Ali Memorial wrestler vs. boxer match. The rules were that Fujita could take Mayfield down, which he did early and often, but only had 20 seconds before they would be stood up. Mayfield always survived the 20 seconds in the fist round. After a few more takedowns in the second round, Fujita got a choke standing, almost like a dragon sleeper, for the submission.

K-1 was the big winner, with 21 million viewers, peaking at 54 million for the legendary Bob Sapp vs. Akebono kickboxing match. Pride did a 17.2 rating and 18 million in prime time. Inoki’s show did just over five million viewers. Inoki’s choice to go at it alone killed his own golden goose as the New Year’s Eve tradition continued for years, but it wasn’t until nine years later, on a far smaller scale, that Inoki Bom Ba Ye was part of it.

After he sold New Japan in 2005, he started the Inoki Genome Federation, which ran from 2007 to 2019. Inoki would use his name value to raise money for sponsors and promote shows featuring pro wrestling stars and MMA stars.

His first major show at Sumo Hall on June 29, 2007, featured Brock Lesnar being brought back to Japan with the IWGP belt that he had never lost. Lesnar was stripped of the IWGP title after quitting the promotion over a money issue and refusing to come in and drop the belt to Hiroshi Tanahashi. Lesnar dropped the belt in the main event for a big payoff to Kurt Angle. Angle later lost to Yuji Nagata, the IWGP champion, to unify the branches.

The first show saw MMA fighter/wrestlers Naoya Ogawa, Tadao Yasuda, Mark Coleman, Josh Barnett, Kevin Randleman, Yuki Ishikawa, Rocky Romero and Kiyoshi Tamura appear before 5,000 fans at Sumo Hall.

In 2014, Inoki promoted two more shows in North Korea and worked directly with dictator King Jong Il.

Inoki sold the company in 2018 and it closed the next year. He mixed worlds, bringing in people the great legends of his era like Abdullah, The Destroyer, Hansen, Dory Funk Jr., Robinson and Singh as guests and used a mix of Japanese and U.S. MMA stars and pro wrestlers with tough-guy reputations and with legends from the past like Minowa-man, Kevin Kross (Karrion Kross), Shinya Aoki, Bobby Lashley, Harry Smith, K-1 legends Jerome LeBanner, Peter Aerts and Mirko Cro Cop, as well Sylvester Terkay, Tank Abbott, Rob Van Dam, Travis Tomko, Satoru Sayama, Ultimo Dragon, Go Shiozaki, Kensuke Sasaki, Kendo Kashin, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masahiro Chono, Mascaras, Ray Sefo, Rolles Gracie, Scott Norton, judo gold medalist Satoshi Ishii, former UFC heavyweight champions Tim Sylvia and Josh Barnett, Bob Sapp, Brett Rogers, Fujiwara and Fujinami in pro wrestling matches. The matches didn’t get over and were often bad, but Inoki was adamant about bringing back what worked for him in the 70s with world champions like LeBanner, Ishii and Cro Cop being the modern versions of the guys Inoki would have faced in his heyday. He also put real fights on his shows along with worked fights, and had a world championship belt that would be defended at times in worked matches and at other times in shoot matches.

They usually drew about 5,000 fans to their big shows at Sumo Hall. They did draw a sellout on August 27, 2011, for a show with LeBanner beating Fujita to keep the IGF title, Aerts beating Shinichi Suzukawa, plus nostalgia pro wrestling was Chono over Yuichiro Nagashima and decades after their primes, the first-ever singles match with Mascaras vs Fujinami, which ended in a draw. Mascaras and Fujinami was one of Japan’s most sought after dream matches more than 30 years earlier. But keep in mind a lot of this was illusion for the public as they heavily papered their shows.

The IGF also brought back the Inoki Bom Ba Ye tradition on New Year’s Eve. He did a show in 2012 that did a terrible rating with Fujita vs. Ogawa, Cro Cop vs. Suzukawa and Ishii vs. Sylvia in pro wrestling matches. They did better the next year, a 3.1 rating using Sapp, the star of the heyday of that New Year’s Eve genre as well as LeBanner and Ogawa against each other in a tag and Ishii over Fujita. In 2014, they had Cro Cop over Ishii fr the title plus Ogawa, Josh Barnett, Fujita, Sapp and Shinya Aoki. They got one last show in 2015, which included 155-pound MMA legend Aoki beating near 7-foot and 310 pound Montanha Silva, who once beat Butterbean in a kickboxing match, plus Ogawa beating the son of his legendary rival Shinya Hashimoto, in Daichi Hashimoto.

As shown, Inoki has a resume like no other, both good and bad. He was a great athlete. He was not a great shooter, although he was a great athlete and in great condition, and only had a few real shoots in his life. But he had real skill and he’ll always be remembered as one. Ego got in the way of many of his biggest potential feuds having longevity, and at other times it kept matches that would have been remembered as his most legendary, particularly with Baba and Maeda, from ever happening.

Yet he was able to produce matches with people nobody could ever conceive could happen and likely nobody in history ever faced as many different legends from multiple generations.

His losses to Oki and Gotch built returns that helped build New Japan, and his losing the NWF title to Hansen and putting over Vader and Singh created three of the most legendary foreigners in Japanese wrestling history. But his losses were very few, and because of that, most of them were legendary. Perhaps he could have done more, but the one to Chochyashvili via knockout, perhaps the most stunning, ended up largely being a waste.

He never evolved in his view of wrestling. He ran New Japan into the ground and running his own IGF based on what worked for him in the 70s fighting stars from other sports, when the pro wrestling fandom evolved from wanting to see wrestlers as the world’s toughest real fighters to those who just wanted to see exciting matches with those great at pro wrestling. He lost interest in his best wrestlers when they couldn’t win MMA fights, forgetting that he couldn’t have either and he was the most iconic wrestling star of his generation. He forget that part of his appeal was his ability to connect with a crowd like so few in history that you could count them on one hand, and not his shooting prowess. Nobody ever got their name chanted so loud so often when they would walk through the curtain. He combined the superstar aura of Hogan with the fan passion of Bruno, the cultural significance of Santo and, on his best days, the athletic wrestling ability and realism of Brisco and Robinson and Dory Funk Jr. He also had the mentality of wanting to stay on top for too long, like Verne Gagne, although he did eventually lose to Fujinami, Choshu and Vader and the reality is even at the end, he was like Bruno in that the casual fans really didn’t want to see him lose, even if the hardcore fans thought he should have put the younger generation over a decade earlier.

Tetsuya Naito, one of Japan’s three biggest wrestling stars today, was in London when word got out about Inoki’s death, and told a conversation he had with his Uber driver.

“‘Where did you come from? Where you from?’ the driver asked. I answered, ‘Japan.’ He said, ‘You know Antonio Inoki is dead?’ I was honestly surprised that his name had reached such a distant land in England. The driver asked again, ‘By the way, what did you come from Japan to do? He was surprised when I told him that I was a professional wrestler for New Japan, the company founded by Mr. Inoki. In short, he knew about Antonio Inoki, but he did not know about the wrestlers in New Japan today. I was frustrated by that, but at the same time I was reminded that he was a great man.”

He used his wrestling fame to carry him to being a giant pop culture figure and later into political office, which he was clearly not suited but kept him in the headlines. A few months ago, there was a network special on his life which was noted to us as the rare occasion where a dying man was able to witness what people would be saying when he passed away. But he tried to mend cultural walls of countries that hated each other, trying to be diplomatic in trying to work out very serious differences. He didn’t succeed at that, but never gave up trying, no matter how often he was told not to. But in doing so, he was and will be remembered very differently in different places in the world. But mostly he’ll be remembered as one of the biggest pro wrestling stars in history–in a select group that you could count on one hand– who was far more than one of the biggest pro wrestling stars in history.