How Much Did the Inoki Fight Damage Ali ?

i'm pretty convinced it was a real fight, just with a stupid ruleset.

originally it was going to be faked, then ali said no, so they said ok real fight, ali said ok, then when he got to japan he refused to go through with it unless they used rules that took away all inoki's moves.

it doesn't make any sense that inoki, who was a huge star and a promoter over there, thought that what happened was entertainment and good for future business.

 

Why wasn't Ionoki counted out? He was down for a ten count.

 

Problem is, no one told Inoki that. The fight was made when Ali came shooting off his mouth about how no "oriental man" could face him. So he was pretty much taught a lesson when he chickend out against Inoki, and received some very bad injuries anyway.

We all love Ali, but he was just plain wrong in this, and learned his lesson, which is why they were later able to become friends. It is very odd that we accept uncritically as a hero a man who walked into another's country, and employed racism. Nor was this the only time something like this happened, beacause he called Floyd Patterson a white man's ******, Joe Frazier a gorilla, etc. We really should accept that Ali's legacy is more complicated than we like to remember, and occasionally he was humbled.

 

wrestler beats boxer in most cases, as this one.

 

You can get a stroke flying in a plane after suffering a concussion. How many fighters suffer a concussion, and leave for home the next day on a plane? All of them who get on a plane the next day?

You're talking about a worst-case scenario. His plane also could've crashed, too. Why not throw that in as well as one of the ways he could've died?

Ali got kicked in the legs. The match was a total embarrassment for everyone involved. The "he could've gotten a stroke" cr@p was just that. Cr@p.

And he looked old training for Jimmy Young and Richard Dunn and Jean Pierre Coopman that year, too, before he met Inoki.:roll:

The third Frazier fight did more damage to Ali than anything that happened in the ring with Inoki. And Ali flew home (as did Frazier) with concussions after that one. But you don't hear people getting all hysterical about it. "THEY COULD'VE BOTH HAD STROKES AND DIED ON THE PLANE!!!!!"

 

Wrestlers usually are guys with fear to take a punch in the face,(real wrestlers,pressing catch is a stupid fake show)

 

Inoki hurt him sure. But I'm tired of these man-child MMA fans pretended like boxing fans try to throw this under the rug. I don't give a **** about it. Ali had never been kicked before. Get over it.

 

I'm not wrong. Ferdie Pacheco was just stating the worst case scenario. If you have blood clots anywhere, they can make their way to your brain.

Pacheco thought the Ali-Inoki fight was stupid. So, when Ali got kicked in the legs and got hematomas on them, Pacheco ranted about how pointless it all was ... and talked about how bad IT COULD'VE been ... but Ali was publicly sparring within days. He was fighting his top contender in three months.

Ali also got body slammed by Gorilla Monsoon in a TV appearance before the fight with Inoki. That could've turned out badly, too. It didn't, but it could've. He could've fallen wrong and broke his back.

But writing a book and saying Ali "could've" broken his back and he's lucky it didn't turn out worse ... doesn't mean the body slam affected the rest of his career.

Ali's legs weren't any worse against Norton than they were in any other fight that year. In the Coopman, Young and Dunn fights, he barely moves at all.

Hell, rewatch the 15th round of the third Ali-Norton fight. Ali DANCES for nearly the entire round. After an hour of fighting ... and STANDING between rounds on top of that.

The proof is in the video. Watch the 15th round of Ali-Norton 3 and make the argument Ali's legs were ruined by Inoki or that he nearly died three months earlier. It's nonsense.

The Inoki fight was embarrssing for both men. But Ali made his second biggest payday of that year against Inoki. He did it for the money. He came through with some sore legs and a bruised ego. And he moved on.

No big deal.

 

I'm MMA trained and let me just say that barring massive complications like the aforementioned blood clots, taking a few leg kicks does not massively cut down on mobility for more than a few days. That said condition is a very real thing. If you've never been hit in a muscle group before than it is going to respond very poorly to being hit.

 

I've got a memory of Ring mag announcing they would have given Ali the FOTY award for '76, but gave it to Foreman instead because of the Inoki embarrassment. Can't find any reference to that though. Anyone remember anything re that?

 

No I can't recall that. Even though Muhammad has always been my favourite fighter,George deserved the award that year in my view.

 

My understanding was Brody and Stan Hansen like to bully people, and Harley Race put them in their place, I think Nick Bockwinkel did an interview on it.

 

When Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel became promoters ... Brody had problems with them. I read they were angry because they'd hire Brody but he wouldn't agree to lose to just anyone, because it would hurt his paydays in Japan. His fellow wrestlers liked him.

I actually still have an autograph I received when I was like eight years old. Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens and Bobby Heenan all signed it when Bockwinkel and Stevens were the AWA Tag Team champs, and Heenan was their manager.

I didn't follow it after the 80s. But it was great fun when I was a kid.

If you nave Netflix, the Iron Sheik documentary is pretty good. I enjoy hearing about those old wrestlers when wrestling was run by different regional promoters. Pretty wild stories.