Ali vs. Inoki Read online

  Over the next three decades, the two biggest stars in Japan were “Giant” Baba and Inoki. A negative stigma clung to pro wrestling in Japan in light of revelations regarding Rikidōzan, but the emergence of Baba and Inoki led to a second boom from ’67 to ’71. The pair teamed up for tagteam matches and produced sellouts wherever they went, regardless of the night.

  As the audience experienced it, Baba was the sun and Inoki was the moon. Without the light of the sun, the moon isn’t visible at night and Inoki could not stand playing second fiddle. Inoki was recognized as Baba’s partner when they worked for the JWA until 1972. The Japanese people love watching athletes with size, and Baba, a notably tall man, was immediately captivating to them. His stature worked away from Japan, too. While Inoki failed to develop notoriety away from home, Baba became a big star in the U.S. throughout the 1960s.

  Inoki grew frustrated with Baba, who did not have it in him to take risks in business when he secured booking control of the company after the owners of the JWA, businessmen with no real connection to wrestling, went broke gambling. Both of the company’s stars wanted to get away, and Inoki left first, insinuating he had been fired. Fans and other wrestlers felt Inoki’s impatience as he played the bad guy. With the helpful defections of some of the wrestlers Inoki had groomed alongside Karl Gotch, New Japan Pro Wrestling soon formed. Both Inoki and Baba, who quickly created the rival All Japan Pro Wrestling group, were able to headline on television in primetime in 1972.

  After dropping his first wrestling match in 1960, Inoki wanted to beat everyone. But such was Inoki’s reverence for Gotch, who was awarded the title “God of Wrestling” after settling in Japan, that he lost the first NJPW main event to a wrestler in his 40s. “There is one man who is worthy of the belt,” Gotch said in the ring. “It’s Inoki.” They rematched four times, alternating wins and losses, with Gotch taking the lifetime series. Inoki could have done what he did with everyone else—win the last two matches and stand out as superior—but for realism’s sake, he couldn’t top the catch wrestler.

  Gotch’s reputation as a Wigan-trained grappler became the backbone of New Japan Pro Wrestling. Matches may not have been real, but the wrestlers were. This is how NJPW and Inoki attempted to convey that pro wrestling, a remnant from the old days, remained a legitimate fighting style.

  “The idea was you put in any of our guys against football players, rugby players and the New Japan wrestler is kicking ass,” said wrestling scribe Dave Meltzer. “That was what New Japan Wrestling was built on, and Inoki was the king.”

  Starting in 1972, Gotch was paid $60,000 a year as the head trainer and booker for NJPW. He received the money until passing away at the age of eighty-two in 2007. Months before he died, Gong, the Japanese fight sport magazine, sent a reporter to Tampa, Fla., where Gotch had retired to, and asked the no-nonsense trainer to look at fight footage from Josh Barnett’s classic 2006 clash with Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira in the Pride Fighting Championships. At the time, it was considered one of the great heavyweight fights in mixed martial arts. Because Barnett trained with Gotch and represented the catch-as-catch-can lineage into the twentyfirst century, the concept was for professor and student to discuss—and critique—the Nogueira clash.

  Gotch didn’t care who you were or what you did. He didn’t think much of Brazilians and their jiu-jitsu, according to LeBell, who said Gotch described the practice of fighting from the guard—a neutral position where one fighter is on his or her back and the other sits between their thighs—as spreading legs like a whore. In catch, this position is called “hip-and-leg control,” and it was Gotch’s contention that anything jiu-jitsu pedaled as new or revolutionary was in truth old and well tested. As far as he was concerned, if he sat in a jiu-jitsu man’s “guard” he would simply fall back, take a leg, and give them a half-second to tap or suffer a broken ankle.

  In 1948, three years after being interned in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, Gotch, twenty-three, wrestled in both freestyle and Greco-Roman competition at the London Olympic Games.

  Remaining in England, the hard-nosed Belgian shooter born as Karel Istaz made his way to “The Snake Pit,” Billy Riley’s incubator in the Lancashire mining town of Wigan, near Manchester. He turned to professional wrestling and won several European titles before moving to the United States, where he took on the surname Gotch in honor of American catch-as-catch-can pioneer Frank Gotch.

  In Los Angeles, Lou Thesz introduced Gene LeBell to Gotch, who was in town looking for sparring partners. Thesz and Gotch didn’t have a meeting of the minds, but “Lou knew who was good and who wasn’t,” LeBell said. “Lou grappled like a boxer. Karl was a grappler. He grabbed with either hand and had a death grip. He used to snatch parts of bodies and use them as a handle, because everything is a handle.”

  “He loved wrestling and he didn’t like clowns,” continued LeBell. “If somebody fooled around in the ring, turned his back to the crowd to get heat, he’d soufflé them—and hard. He didn’t pay attention to wins or losses. A lot of people would not work with him.”

  For the most part Gotch blew off pro wrestlers he didn’t respect. And he didn’t respect many. He probably hurt more people than he gave the time of day to. Buddy Rogers, the first wrestler to hold the WWWF and NWA heavyweight titles, was confronted by Gotch and another wrestler, Bill Miller, in Columbus, Ohio. In the skirmish, Rogers broke his left hand. Refunds had to be issued for the August 31, 1962, event, and charges were filed. The incident made Gotch’s bad reputation worse. There was chatter about Gotch hurting Thesz’s ribs, and about Gotch injuring 1972 Olympic wrestler Riki Choshu with a submission.

  “They happened enough where everyone knew the stories,” said Meltzer.

  Gotch’s stateside wrestling career, or lack thereof, is a good example of how pro wrestling shifted from shoot to show. He was never much of a draw and couldn’t get the crowd to react to him, which confused and frustrated a wrestler who was likely the most dangerous guy in the locker room. Gotch may not have racked up big wins or scored famous matches, but he became a mythical figure and was hired by Inoki to teach New Japan wrestlers how to shoot.

  Developing a reputation for strength based on the Indian grappling art Pehlwani, Gotch later instilled his work ethic in the men around him. Inoki, for example would often do pushups and squats during airport layovers.

  As Gong’s reporter and photographer sat with Gotch watching Barnett fight Nogueira, the surly old man was clearly unimpressed. “That looks like shit,” Gotch said as the video played. Expecting a far different experience, the Japanese pair grew increasingly nervous. When Barnett’s exciting split decision win ended, Gotch looked at Barnett. “Does that piss you off?” Gotch said. Barnett, a six-foot-three smart submission artist, replied that it did not. He said all he wanted was an insight into Gotch’s mind so he could improve. If there was a possibility to be better, why wouldn’t he embrace that? Gotch nodded, and until his death regularly called Barnett to chat.

  Barnett also had the occasion to train with Billy Robinson, regarded by most observers of “The Snake Pit” as the top shooter in the gym during the 1960s. Robinson wrestled some in the U.S. and enjoyed better success with crowds and promoters than Gotch, but he never went over big. Robinson ended up in Japan in the late ’60s, and for years never lost by pin or submission. He brought a sense of showmanship with the technical sensibilities of scientific wrestling, straddling the line between work and shoot people at that time strived for in pro wrestling.

  “Karl was very bright. Him and Billy were incredibly bright when it came to fighting,” said Barnett. “Very hardnosed. Very demanding people. The thing about guys like Karl and Billy, you always hear stories about them yelling at you, but the biggest thing I think was the yelling wasn’t so much about you doing wrong, the yelling is about you not doing it with your all and you making things more difficult for yourself than they need to be. You’re overthinking things. Getting too caught up in the thought of something rather than existin
g and doing.”

  Inoki met Robinson for a famous match at the end of 1975.

  Sold in the Japanese press as a contest between the top two technicians in wrestling, they tussled during a classic work that was treated like sport. A sixty-minute draw indicated Inoki was much improved over the green wrestler Gene LeBell saw in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s called “Little Tokyo.”

  After the tie, “Giant” Baba offered Robinson a hefty fee ($8,000 to $10,000 a week) to wrestle for him in 1976. Seeking to one-up Inoki, the first thing Baba did was pay the man from Manchester, England, a bonus to suffer his only loss in a singles match in Japan.

  Still, as a promoter, Baba was considered a more honest broker than Inoki. He forged relationships and contracts with a group of American stars including Terry Funk, Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, and “Killer” Kowalski. Inoki was effectively frozen out and could only count on himself and ambitions of building a roster of wrestlers to support his business. Tiger Jeet Singh, a wild man from India who literally accosted fans, and Canadian Johnny Powers helped Inoki and NJPW rapidly expand their footprint in the 1970s.

  Part of that effort included the idea that Inoki should be matched with outsiders to make the popular Japanese wrestler the new Karl Gotch. With his manager Hisashi Shinma, Inoki set out to create an image of himself as a shooter, the Japanese dragon slayer. By the mid-70s, Inoki fancied himself another Rikidōzan, defending pro wrestling and Japanese honor against foreign invaders and their disciples.

  “I think that at his peak Inoki was probably the third most popular athlete in the country,” Meltzer said. “As big as wrestling was, it wasn’t the biggest sport in the country. For a pro wrestler to be that big culturally, it really was amazing. Americans can’t grasp Inoki because most think Hulk Hogan. Hogan was big. The Rock was big. Steve Austin was big. As wrestlers, none of these guys were even close to as big as Inoki was in Japan.”

  Grit and determination were hallmarks of Inoki’s matches. He rallied against the odds and looked good doing so. Inoki never turned heel (became a bad guy, in wrestling speak), but his matches were so heated that even a good guy like him could only take so much abuse. Inoki showed his fist and made a big deal of what he was about to do before doing it. In a lot of ways, Inoki’s gimmick was a forerunner to Hulk Hogan’s. Charisma and unique facial features, courtesy of that protruding, pointed jaw, certainly helped set Inoki apart.

  “He’s an incredible performer,” Barnett said. “Hearing about his taking on these other practitioners of martial arts and fighting arts. Even seeing pictures of him and his matches, he’s a great worker. If you just sit back and watch, he has tons of charisma and appears to be the real deal when he’s out there. He’s great at being a wrestler and captures your attention right away.”

  Inoki and his band of wrestlers embraced a “strong style.” The closer the action looked to a real fight, the better, because Inoki sought to give audiences the emotion of a real struggle with less song and dance.

  “He would end up breaking the rules of wrestling in almost all his matches,” Barnett said. “He had a system of getting pushed so far that he couldn’t take anymore. He would punch with a closed fist. He was brutal. It would look brutal as hell when he would take out people.”

  “Whether it was working or shooting, Inoki’s mindset was ‘real.’ You’re really doing everything real all the time, in Inoki’s mind. It’s just whether or not you’re actually shooting, having a real fight, or working, doing a predetermined match. If you treat it real, keep it real, keep your mind real, then whatever it is you do out there will come off as real, and the people will be more engrossed and involved in it and they’ll feel the emotion of the match more than the moves that you’re doing. Trying to keep the suspension of disbelief going, because that will draw the emotional investment out besides just throwing out a bigger and more expensive firework.”

  ROUND SEVEN

  An American cultural icon out of the turbulent, status quo–challenging 1960s went global by the mid-1970s. This is why throughout the emergence of the jet and satellite ages, Muhammad Ali grew accustomed to working at odd hours.

  In 1974, for instance, Ali challenged George Foreman at 4:00 A.M. in Zaire. A year later, he stepped into the ring for a torturous third time with Joe Frazier, not as he had in thier first encounter in primetime on a New York night at Madison Square Garden but at a quarter to eleven in the morning several miles outside of Manila.

  More than a decade had passed since Ali took the most popular first name on Earth as his own, and the world champion’s traveling carnival was at its craziest when he and Frazier went to war in the “Thrilla in Manila,” on October 1, 1975.

  “That was one of the great fights of all time, that third fight,” Pacheco said. “One of the hardest fights I’ve ever seen. I can go back all the way to Jack Dempsey, nobody fought like Ali. When he put on the gloves, you thought, oh, that’s the champion. He would beat the shit out of people.

  “If there was a fight you were looking to stop boxing, to make them stop it as a sport, that was it. That was so rough, so tough you were looking at death in the ring. When Frazier quit, one more punch could have put him out. And when you were looking for the good stuff, that was the one. Boy those guys were tough, tough, top of the line, toe to toe, and it’s me or you. For Ali, it was him. He was giving Frazier everything he could possibly give him to knock him out, and he did.”

  In the later rounds Ali pummeled Frazier, prompting the proud Philadelphian’s trainer, Eddie Futch, to save his fighter from the possibility of a terrible end. Frazier’s left eye was completely closed. He couldn’t see so well out of his right. Everything Ali threw landed and Frazier spat up blood. When the decision to stop came from Frazier’s corner, Ali, who indicated to his camp after the fourteenth round that he was overwhelmed and wanted out, collapsed in his corner.

  Later Ali would say the experience was the closest thing to death that he knew of.

  “Right after the fight all the press was waiting for us,” recalled publicist Bobby Goodman. “I ran up to Ali’s dressing room and he was laid out. He was exhausted. Man I never saw him as tired as that. I said, ‘Muhammad, the press is waiting outside.’ Ali said, ‘I just can’t do it. I’m too tired. I’m exhausted.’ He was shot. I didn’t know quite what to do so I ran across the hall to Joe Frazier’s room. He was being consoled by Eddie Futch, who had his arm around Frazier. I think there were some tears. I said, ‘Joe, the press is downstairs. You got nothing to be ashamed of. You fought a great fight.’ Eddie says, ‘OK, let’s go Joe. Let’s go down.’ He said, ‘OK’ and he toweled himself off. He got his shoes and that was what I needed. He started moving so I ran back across to Ali and I said, ‘Champ, Frazier is on his way down.’ He said, ‘Frazier is going? Frazier is going to the press conference? Where’s my comb?’ He started picking his hair. He put his shoes on and went down.”

  Of all the things that made Ali great, the simple yet crucial piece was desire. He needed the rivalry with Frazier to extend himself as far as he could go without breaking. Outside the ropes, though, he sometimes went further than that.

  Compelling, charismatic, handsome, and a notorious ladies’ man, Ali was in the midst of a torrid love affair with Veronica Porche as he faced Frazier in ’75. Ali had met Porche the previous year after the model and actress was one of four women chosen to travel the U.S. promoting the “Rumble in the Jungle” before flying to Kinshasa for the fight with George Foreman. Soon, Ali boldly brought Porche almost everywhere he went while his wife at the time, Belinda Ali, remained home taking care of their four children.

  Ferdie Pacheco said one reason Ali took the fight in Manila was to spend time with Porche, which meant getting away from his wife for six weeks. Sometimes Porche was Ali’s “cousin.” Other times, according to photo captions in People, for instance, the “nanny.” To no one’s chagrin but Belinda’s, Porche was also called Ali’s better half—which was just about the last straw. In Manila ten days bef
ore the fight, the boxers had the occasion to meet with Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, the “Steel Butterfly,” who became known for her collection of more than one thousand pairs of shoes. As Marcos spoke, he paid respects to Ali and his “beautiful wife.” No one corrected the president of the Philippines, who since 1972 had run the country under martial law.

  “Your wife is beautiful, too,” Ali had the audacity to respond.

  Newsweek reporter Pete Bonventre was in Manila covering Ali, and in his piece for the magazine, “The Ali Mystique,” he referenced that the “stunning Veronica Porche, sometimes known as ‘Ali’s other wife,’ was touring Manila with the champ.”

  After the article was published, Belinda, all five-foot-ten 160 pounds of her, flew to Manila. Some insiders looked forward more to Belinda vs. Veronica, the L.A. beauty pageant winner, than Muhammad vs. Joe.

  Belinda Ali told her husband that if what she read in Newsweek was true, and Porche was sleeping in the same room with him, then she was showing up with divorce papers. According to Pacheco, Ali’s wife also arrived with about sixty suitcases. Very costly suitcases. And she told Ali that either Porche goes or each of the bags would be filled with outrageously priced goods from Manila and Tokyo. After giving Ali a piece of her mind for an hour in his hotel suite, one of fifty-two rooms under the champ’s umbrella, she flew home.

  Porche stayed.

  “It wasn’t nice but it was deserved,” said Pacheco, who claimed Ali felt he’d bought freedom for cheap.

  A serious decline in the boxer’s ring presence loomed as his physical prowess faded over the next five years. Yet his stardom burned as bright as ever, and that meant there was money to be made. This wasn’t the “radical” who conscientiously objected his way to the United States Supreme Court during the Vietnam War. By 1975, in the wake of America’s withdrawal and Saigon’s fall, Ali was rich, commercialized, and accustomed to being a global star.