Antonio Inoki was active as a professional wrestler until his retirement in 1998, and also competed in martial arts matches such as boxing and judo.
Among them, the one that attracted a great deal of attention was the match against then-professional boxing heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali held at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on June 26, 1976.
The match between Japan's leading professional wrestlers and the current world champion attracted a great deal of attention as the "world's best martial arts match".
About this match, Inoki wrote in his autobiography published in 2000 that the day before the match, he had to ban "attacks to Ali's head," "kicking him while standing," and "attacks with his elbows and knees." It becomes clear that it was requested from Mr. Ali's side.
The match is 15 rounds of 3 minutes per round, and Mr. Inoki lies on the ring from the beginning and lies on his back against Mr. Ali, who has a light footwork that "dances like a butterfly and stings like a bee". I aimed for a kick to Mr. Ali's feet from the state.
Until the end of the match, Ali-san, who was standing and aiming for punches, continued to develop, with Inoki-san, who was lying down, aiming for kicks to his feet.
Until the final 15th round, the two players rarely exchanged fists or applied techniques while standing, and the stalemate continued. However, this match also served as an opportunity for Mr. Inoki's name to become widely known overseas.
Mr. Inoki looked back in his autobiography, saying, "By fighting against the world's superstar Muhammad Ali, I was able to peer into a world that I had never experienced before. It was a big event in terms of human development." I'm here.
The match deepened the friendship between the two and Mr. Inoki, who is known for his shouts of "Inoki, Bombayer", said that the song that appeared in the match was based on the music from Ali's biopic.
In addition, Ali appeared at both the professional wrestling event Mr. Inoki held in North Korea in April 1995 and Mr. Inoki's retirement match in April 1998.
Ali passed away in June 2016, but martial arts fans and others liken the fighting style of Inoki and Ali to a position in which one fighter is standing while the other is lying on his back. Forty-five years later, the memory of that time has been inherited, such as the expression of the state of facing each other in a state of "Inoki ant state".