The Ali–Inoki Fight at 50

I heard Ali was a black belt

 

His wife at the time Veronica took Karate
Ali did not

 

thanks. I had heard more than once that Ali had taken up Karate and earned a black belt. For sure, I know that camacho was a black belt in I dont know what art

 

Ali bought his deer lake gym or property cant remember now from a Karate guy named George Dillman. He was one of those Karate guys that specialized in that pressure point BS. Im sure they posed for pics at one time. I believe Ali posed in pics with him wearing a GI with Black belt on. I wouldn't have expected anything less from Ali

 

Aoki's patrer is his specialty, he didn't get up from the floor.

 

The fight was a fraud, Inoki was not allowed to take Ali down. If take downs had been allowed Ali would've been stretched pretty quick.

 

Article is behind a Paypal here in Germany.

 

The Ali-Inoki fight was supposed to be the typical scripted Boxer-Wrestler match.

Wrestling was divided into territories at the time (NWA, AWA, etc.). All the territories promoted the closed-circuit main event and held their own live cards before the satellite broadcast began. Ali toured all the territories in the months and weeks before the match. He got thrown out of the ring by Gorilla Monsoon. He did a cheesy fake boxing match with a wrestler Buddy Wolfe, before Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser jumped in.

The World Wide Wrestling Federation held an Andre the Giant-Chuck Wepner prelim. Ali-Inoki was supposed to look something along those lines, with both guys upright taking turns doing their own things.

In the Ali-Inoki fight, Ali was supposed to be winning and then get distracted, and then Inoki would "Pearl Harbor" him (being Japanese) from behind and then pin him. Something like that. But Ali decided at the last minute he didn't want to show up for rehearsals or do any prefight staging.

A day or two prior, Ali said he was too tired or too busy to rehearse (he did fake exhibitions all the time with athletes, politicians, kids, old ladies, whomever) and he'd just show up and box him, which caused Inoki to panic. (Inoki apparently couldn't take a punch. He later did a scripted boxer-wrestler match with Wepner and at one point Chuck accidently hit him on the jaw and had to hold Inoki up because he was out of it).

Since the tickets were sold, they threw together some quick rules. Inoki was afraid to stand up. Ali didn't want to roll around on the ground. So Inoki threw kicks while on the floor. Ali spent the night trying to avoid those kicks and yelling at Inoki to stand up. Nobody involved was happy with the result, but it was a financial success.

When Ali fought Foreman, the African fans shouted Ali Bombaye (which meant Ali Kill Him in their language). After the match with Ali, Inoki had his fans yell Inoki Bombaye before his matches (which made no sense having Japanese people yell something in the Zaire language).

Some people have tried to call it the first MMA fight. One guy wrote a book about it and made up his own rules and tried to score it. All of it was taken much too seriously.

Ali had four title defenses that year, plus he was promoting this event, plus he was touring US Army bases, and he appeared on just about every US television show that year as a guest. This was just another item to tick off the schedule.

It was just an exhibition where Ali refused to rehearse. So, they muddled through so everyone could still get paid.

 

Same here.

 

Ali had no business doing that match.

 

Take a train to France or Italy and try it there.