Ali vs. Inoki

by Josh Gross

  “I hit him with shots a boxer would fall with,” Ali said in the dressing room afterwards. “Just wait ’til I get on those little four-ounce gloves against that Japanese wrestler. He’ll really be bleeding.”

  As newspaper columnists across the country questioned Ali’s affiliation with wrestling and reminisced about the days when a boxer fighting a grappler might have meant something, the world champion continued to drum up press for the Inoki match.

  Ali joined his trainer, Angelo Dundee, and Freddie Blassie, adorned with an eye-popping diamond ring on his right pinkie, on a red double-decker bus ride around Los Angeles the day after their The Tonight Show appearance. The U.S. press tour for the most important mixed match since the turn of the century concluded at Aileen Eaton’s Olympic Auditorium, which would host a live wrestling event promoted by Mike LeBell to coincide with the closed-circuit feed from New York and Japan.

  Up until the contest was officially signed at a ceremony during fight week in Tokyo, the rules of engagement for the match between Ali and Inoki were under scrutiny and produced a heated debate that seemingly imperiled the whole production. Newspaper reports pegged LeBell as an important figure in the Ali–Inoki rule-making process. According to wire reports, he joined Dundee and Vince McMahon Sr. in drafting the original set that was released a month before the bout.

  On May 28, newspaper reports indicated rules had been agreed upon to govern the mixed-style fight. During fifteen three-minute rounds, the wrestler could use tactics common to both karate and wrestling, including chops and elbow strikes. The fight would be scored on a five-point must system with two judges and the referee keeping tabs. The referee could only separate the fighters if they touched the ropes. If a contestant was counted out to ten, or his shoulders were pinned to the mat for a count of three, or a corner conceded or the doctor stepped in, the fight would be called.

  Ali and Inoki could wear regular boxing trunks or wrestling tights, with boxing shoes or bare feet. Four-ounce gloves, karate protective gloves, or any reasonable modification of those gloves were allowed. Or they could fight bare fisted. The boxer was able to use regular two-inch gauze and one-inch tape on his hands with the bandaging to be supervised by the Japanese Boxing Commission and a rep of the wrestler.

  Oil, grease, or other foreign substances on a fighter’s body, fists, hair, or gloves would be prohibited.

  Fouls included hitting, kicking, or kneeing below the belt; butting with the head or shoulders; jabbing or thumbing an opponent’s eyes with an open glove or hand; tape on the wrestler’s wrist or fist; and hitting or attacking after a break by the ref or after the bell.

  The boxer was expected to observe customary boxing rules while standing. Ali could continue to throw punches if he went to the canvas, and he had the right to switch at any time to Inoki’s style of martial arts.

  The wrestler needed to observe customary wrestling rules while standing, kneeling, or on the canvas, but he could punch if both men stood.

  Despite Mike LeBell’s influential role, there weren’t many people who would claim to be fans of the L.A. wrestling promoter. Part of the reason wrestling folks disliked Aileen Eaton’s elder son was they felt he had no respect. Eaton put him in a position of privilege and while he cared about making a buck he displayed no loyalty or reverence for the boys or the business. It may be strong to say he was generally despised, but in 2009 no one from wrestling went to his funeral when he died at the age of seventy-nine from respiratory failure. The only calls Gene received were from people who said Mike owed them money.

  Freddie Blassie hated Mike LeBell. In his autobiography, Blassie was blunt: “Even during the best of times, I was always waiting for him to put a hatchet in my back. I feel pretty confident saying that every wrestler in the territory felt the same way. Because of all the publicity we got in L.A., you’d wind up with the press clippings while he wound up with the money.”

  East Coast star Bruno Sammartino was sufficiently put off by LeBell in 1972, and never worked with him again.

  Perhaps most telling, into his eighties “Judo” Gene LeBell maintains an intense distaste for his deceased brother. Considered cold and callous by many, some employees at the Olympic took to calling him Mike “LeSmell.”

  “Mike LeBell was a cold, cold customer. It’s hard to believe that Mike and Gene were brothers, because they couldn’t possibly be any different,” said Bill Caplan. “They looked completely different. Their demeanor was different, their personalities. I’m sure Mike never got into a fight, let alone be a martial arts guy and a stuntman like Gene. I’m certain that he never did what I did, pop Don Fraser in George Parnassus’ office. He seemed to be a guy without passion. He had dark black hair, combed straight back, and Gene’s this curly red-headed guy. It’s unbelievable they were brothers.

  “It was rumored that Mike made a lot of money by skimming out of the box office. I don’t know if it’s true or not. He bought a big mansion. Aileen lived in a big home but Mike’s was even bigger and more expensive.”

  Ali’s arrival at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Wednesday, June 16, was an event on its own.

  Hundreds of fans greeted The Greatest as he deplaned with Blassie, Rhee, Dundee, Kilroy, and others. Camera flashes popped like an intense lightning storm while the media horde scratched and clawed to get near the boxing champion.

  Almost immediately Ali and Blassie, the latter wellknown in Japan after his historic matches with Rikidōzan, broke out into their routine.

  Blassie: “We’re here! Inoki wishes we weren’t here. He’s lost.”

  Ali: “He’s in trouble.”

  Blassie: “Right!”

  Ali: “He don’t stand a chance.”

  Blassie: “We’ll kill him. Annihilate that pencil-neck geek. He’s got a neck like a stack of dimes. Like all the rest of you geeks out there. Look at them all. Show ’em that right hand, champ. That’s the one!”

  Ali raised his right hand: “When I hit him with that it’s all over. It will be all over.”

  Blassie: “He’s talking about you guys with the short cocks.”

  At this, Blassie busted up laughing and Ali looked sheepish.

  Ali: “I’m only after Inoki. I like all Japanese people but Inoki.”

  Ali walked through the swarm behind Blassie, placing his hands on the wrestler’s shoulders.

  Blassie: “The champ-een’s invading Japan. The champeen’s here. The greatest man that’s ever stepped in a ring! Muhammad Ali! Ali! Ali! Ali! Ali!”

  Ali: “What will we do to Inoki?”

  Blassie: “Kill him! Inoki’s lost. Take out insurance on Inoki. Inoki, pay his policy. Big funeral for Inoki! Extra! Extra! Read all about it: Inoki sinks. Pearl Harbor, he’s through!”

  When the bout came together there was plenty of promotional fodder to be found in jingoism. Ali and Blassie, who had retired from wrestling two years earlier and was in the managerial phase of his career, stepped off the plane and greeted fans and media.

  Ali’s match with Inoki, like Rikidōzan’s trilogy versus Freddie Blassie, took place at a time of significant tension between the U.S. and Japan. Before resigning from office in 1974, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, causing, in part, massive inflation of the Japanese yen. The U.S. had also recently relinquished post–World War II control of Okinawa to Japan.

  When Blassie invoked Pearl Harbor, Ali shushed him. But of course that didn’t work.

  Blassie: “All you pencil-neck geeks, there shall not be no Pearl Harbor! Muhammad Ali has returned just like MacArthur!”

  Ali: “Shall destroy him! Shall. Destroy. Him.”

  Pandemonium ensued as Ali stepped into a car curbside. Fans surrounded Ali’s car, chanted his name, and delayed his ride to the hotel.

  Three Japanese Muslims, according to the Associated Press, also met Ali at the airport with signs in English and Arabic: “Indonesian, southern Philippine, and Japanese Moslems welcome our great man and Moslem hero, Muhammad Ali.”


  Forty-five minutes after reaching the Keio Plaza Hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo, Ali and Blassie took questions from the press. Ali strode down a red carpet as Japanese musicians beat out a welcome on large drums. He explained, again, that he always wanted to fight a “rassler” and always believed he could destroy a “rassler.” A great boxer can defeat a karate man or anyone else, he said.

  Ali said he though respected all Japanese people save Inoki, certain training sessions would be private to keep prying, spying eyes away. Again allusions were made to Pearl Harbor, and Ali appeared less embarrassed about mentioning it in conjunction with Inoki’s alleged dirty tactics.

  “Inoki is the favorite in Japan,” Ali said. “He’s well-liked wherever he goes. He’s been allowed to get away with these things. Worldwide I know I have more fans than Inoki. Worldwide. I am making him famous. There are places he’s not known. There’s people who don’t know Inoki until he meets me.”

  “They always say that a wrestler can beat a boxer,” Blassie said. “Well it might have been a case until Muhammad Ali. We’ve got a lot of surprises in store for Inoki and none of them are pleasant. Without a doubt this is going to be the greatest fight that Ali’s ever had. This is the first time I’ve seen him so mad, and so angry.”

  Then Ali predicted a finish in round eight.

  “I don’t like Inoki because he talks too much,” Ali said. “No respect. He has no respect for me whatsoever. I’m gonna give him a beating. I’m going to whip him like a daddy whips his son. Because from the look of his jaw I cannot miss.”

  On Friday, June 18, a lunch at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan put Ali and Inoki face to face for the first time since their press conference in March at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. An unofficial weigh-in placed both fighters at 100 kg (220.4 lbs).

  Again, Ali was put in the position to comment on the legitimacy of the whole show.

  “How can I be wrapped up in a phony event?” he said. “I can’t take part in no sham. I’m a world symbol.”

  For his part, Inoki said he was taking the match seriously—then he presented Ali with a crutch.

  Ali took every chance he had to prod Inoki, verbally and physically. He grabbed the Japanese wrestler about the shoulders and neck, sizing up the man who might twist him in knots.

  “You’re gonna have the whole world watching him this time,” Ali said, ramping up the pressure on Inoki. “Not just a rasslin’ match, but every country on Earth!”

  Inoki remained stoic and from time to time offered a wry smile even as Ali admitted to trying to make him angry.

  “I’m nervous,” Ali said. “I admit it. Ain’t he nervous?”

  “I consider it a great honor to talk and speak with the great Ali,” Inoki responded.

  “He’s smarter than I thought he was,” said the champ.

  “But at the same time the contents are rather ridiculous,” Inoki said through an interpreter. “When your fist connects with my chin, take care that your fist is not damaged.”

  That line got a laugh from the crowd, which seemed to enjoy the show. Ali even gave Inoki a nod. Ali flexed his biceps and said Inoki’s weren’t bigger than his. The wrestler pointed out that tendon strength counted more than muscles as far as he was concerned.

  “If he beats me he’ll go down as the greatest boxer [and] rassler of all times,” Ali said. “Let’s read the rules off. Someone’s got the rules. We gotta make the rules?”

  The specter of the rules continued to hang over the event. Despite publicly announced criteria, behind the scenes the Ali camp was extremely nervous about what Inoki might do, especially since it seemed he wanted to do anything he could.

  The following day, Saturday, June 19, Ali held an impromptu press conference to undercut persistent rumors in the press of a pending fix. A work, really, but the sports-writers didn’t seem to know the difference.

  Ali called the upcoming fight “100 percent legit.”

  “This match is serious,” he promised. “It’s not like your average rassling match. The worst thing I could do would be to involve myself in a public scandal, or fraud, taking $6 million and deceiving the people of the world. That’s the worst thing I could do as a religious man. A fixed or rehearsed fight—never. I’m not gonna go out in nothin’ like that.”

  Ali said no one in Japan was after him to rig the fight. Rather, he was warned by people associated with the American broadcast that a real fight with Inoki might result in his death. Ali said he was told that Inoki “could possibly take his fingers and pull my eyes out of my sockets. Or he could take his hands and reach them inside my pants and pull my testicles out.

  “These people were trying to deceive me, making me think the fight was fixed,” he said. “And then Inoki, not knowing it, he could harm me with me thinking he would go easy and then me get harmed thinking it was fixed.

  “To show that this thing is 100 percent legit, is 100 percent serious, I’m here to announce that I will use my bare fists and no gloves. The most I will use, if anything, to protect my hands from being hurt or broken is hand wraps and bag gloves, which we use punchin’ the bag, which is real small and just like bare fists. They’re about one ounce.”

  To protect himself, Ali said his hand would be wrapped “real hard—like rocks,” and in case Inoki does something illegal he can pull them off and use his fingers.

  The next day, Father’s Day, Ali sparred with Jimmy Ellis and Rodney Bobick, whom he staggered in front of 1,000 fans during an afternoon at Tokyo’s wonderful Korakuen Hall. Ali added rope jumping and shadow boxing tantamount to a ten-round workout.

  Speaking to the crowd, Ali said he hoped “Westernization doesn’t destroy Japanese morals . . . I don’t want to see Japanese people lose their identity . . . Every country I go to I will tell people how wonderful Japan is.”

  Inoki’s turn came next but Ali had to play the showman. Thirty minutes after finishing his open workout, Ali returned to the small, historic venue ready to pounce. He made a bit of noise before leaving Inoki in peace.

  Fight week began with Inoki slapping submissions on three wrestlers in front of his countrymen. He also warmed up using Karl Gotch’s Indian body-weight routine, skipped rope, and did neck bridges as a 250-pound New Japan Pro Wrestling teammate sat on him. Afterwards Inoki said Japan hadn’t seen anything yet. He purposely held back because Ali was lurking, and a smart fighter doesn’t reveal his tricks. Inoki said for the past month he’d been working with a Japanese heavyweight boxer and “what I did today is not what I will be doing in the fight. This was just our usual training procedure.”

  A Monday-morning meeting with members of both camps put a renewed focus back on the rules. The promoters went over, once again, what was permissible in the fight and what was not.

  “You wouldn’t believe what went on in that meeting,” Angelo Dundee told Phil Pepe of the New York Daily News. “They talked about Inoki being allowed to punch with a closed fist and whether or not he could kick with his toes, which we decided he couldn’t. They gave demonstrations of what Inoki can do and they even wanted him to be allowed to use a karate chop to the Adam’s apple. I couldn’t believe what was going on at that meeting. The whole thing was making me sick to my stomach, and damn scared.”

  Ali skipped a workout on Tuesday and took most of the day off inside his plush hotel suite, venturing out only to visit a camera factory. Inoki continued closed training sessions, insisting there was nothing the public could see until the fight.

  Dundee touted Ali as being in “fantastic condition, perhaps the best physical condition in all his career. He can beat George Foreman or Ken Norton easily now. What he needs is to keep it up.”

  Prior to a $175-a-plate dinner for four hundred at the official contract signing on Wednesday evening, both camps continued to hammer out the rules. There were rumors that Ali was considering pulling out, and no one seemed to have a handle on just what the fight would look like.

  Following a five-mile mo
rning jog in the Tokyo rain, Ali kept to himself most of the day watching hours and hours of tape on Inoki. His only breaks were to shower, to eat, and to take a phone call from Chuck Wepner, who was days away from wrestling Andre the Giant at Shea Stadium. Ali wished Wepner well but asked who his beneficiaries were just in case Andre fell on him.

  “I’m testing fate!” Ali told Shelly Pepper from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, who was in the room when Wepner called. “I’m fighting to uphold a part of boxing and all those great names. I’m fighting for men like Sugar Ray, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson, and so many others. No rassler will beat me.”

  Meanwhile, Gene Kilroy, Ferdie Pacheco, Angelo Dundee, and Wali Muhammad represented Ali in the final rules negotiations. Inoki’s manager, Hisashi Shinma, and his old tag-team partner, Giant Baba, tried to keep the Americans honest as debate raged on as to how the contest would be run.

  “I had something to do with shaping the rules, and making sure they didn’t screw Ali in the rules meeting,” Pacheco said. “I knew about Japanese. I was in the war and dealing with Japanese officers. They’re tough. We’re in the meeting and we’re going through the rules. What rules? It’s a wrestler and a boxer. What rules can they have? That Ali doesn’t knock him out? If he stands Ali knocks him out.”

  There were heated moments, though Shinma remained steadfast and classy throughout the process.

  “He picked into his pocket and took out his fountain pen, his wallet, had credit cards and everything, and threw it on the table,” Pacheco said. “His lump sum of wealth. He said ‘There, now you got everything. Keep that until the fight’s over.’ We said we don’t want all your money. He said: ‘Just to show we’re straight.’ We said we’re not dealing with your wealth. We’re dealing so you can’t kill our guy, or twist his arm and break it.”