As big a fan as I was and still am,of The Greatest,this must have been the third daftest move of his career that he allowed himself to get involved in. The first and second daftest moves were called Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. Allowing a Japanese wrestler to kick chunks out of your calves for fifteen rounds was not the best preparation for his rubber match with Ken Norton just three months ahead. After Richard Dunn Muhammad should have taken another tune up with somebody like Duane Bobick. Thoughts ?
Agreed but to be fair to Ali he didn't anticipate Inoki lying on his back and kicking him in the legs all night long. Once Inoki tasted a stiff jab from Ali in the 1st or 2nd round he thought it best to avoid getting ko'ed in front his fellow countrymen so he took the safe route. Still it was a dumb move by Ali. He could've gotten seriously injured.
Why didn't Ali step back though and let the ref force the Jap. guy to stand up? Or were there no rules to that?
Can't remember if it was even on home tV live. I remember seeing parts of the "fight".....and the rules seemed to be really "loosey-goosy"
What is it about rules understanding with these matches ? Watch Trevor Berbick freak out in one of his own ... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fQ3Jl6ntW8[/ame]
The rulesets on such novelty matches are invented on a case by case basis. I read that Ali vs Inoki was originally going to be a fix, with Inoki agreeing to take a dive in an entertaining bout. Ali started feeling bad about cheating the public, so made it a 'real' fight. (as much as it could be within the ridiculous ruleset) The fact that it was so abysmal to watch is all the proof needed that the thing wasn't fixed. No fixed fight would have looked so awful. Ali's legs were badly damaged in the fight.
You can see here Ali's legs were swollen. Below is some footage from the farce http://video.search.yahoo.com/video...i=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701&tnr=21&vid=0001543240617
Ali had built the match up on the pro wrestling circuit, so everyone should of known the score. They should of sat down and planned out a 'worked' match. It would of been more entertaining for everyone watching, and saved Ali's legs.