{"id":3779,"date":"2024-08-27T17:18:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T17:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/how-muhammad-ali-v-antonio-inoki-started-crossover-fight-trend\/"},"modified":"2024-08-27T17:18:32","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T17:18:32","slug":"how-muhammad-ali-v-antonio-inoki-started-crossover-fight-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/how-muhammad-ali-v-antonio-inoki-started-crossover-fight-trend\/","title":{"rendered":"How Muhammad Ali v Antonio Inoki started crossover fight trend"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Floyd Mayweather v Conor McGregor, Francis Ngannou v Tyson Fury and Nate Diaz v Jake Paul. Crossover boxing is commonplace in the modern era, but it all started in 1976 – with one of the most famous fighters of all time.<\/b><\/p>\n

On 26 June of that year, Muhammad Ali, then a two-time world heavyweight boxing champion, stepped out to face Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki in front of 14,500 fans at the Budokan arena in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

It was a match that ended with a trip to hospital for Ali – and rubbish thrown into the ring by a disappointed crowd. <\/p>\n

But before it all began, hopes were high.<\/p>\n

Ali had been introduced to the president of the Japanese amateur wrestling association, Ichiro Hatha, in 1975 and the boxer asked if anyone would be willing to challenge him for a fee of $1m. <\/p>\n

It made headline news in Japan and Inoki – one of the country’s household names – and his backers offered Ali $6m to fight.<\/p>\n

Sean Allsop, from the Sporting Witness podcast, spoke to photographer Claude Charlier to look back at the bout billed as\u00a0the ‘War of the Worlds’.<\/a> Charlier, then 23, was living in Tokyo at the time of the fight.<\/p>\n

“You had tons and tons of people outside the Budokan hoping to have a glimpse of Muhammad Ali or Antonio Inoki,” he said.<\/p>\n

Charlier recalls the build-up inside the arena: “Inoki always wore his purple robe. Ali came in waving and shouting, and it was quite exciting at the beginning.”<\/p>\n

The bout was an opportunity for Ali – who had beaten Joe Frazier in the third fight of their trilogy just eight months earlier – to cement his status as not just the greatest boxer in the world, but also the best athlete.<\/p>\n

Originally planned to be rehearsed, the exhibition match became a real fight. However, Ali had watched Inoki training in Tokyo and, seeing the threat he posed, new rules were put in place.<\/p>\n

“Inoki told me something interesting,” Charlier said. <\/p>\n

“He said ‘I think Ali is not taking the fight very seriously. He thinks that this is just going to be a show. But it’s not the show, we’re going to really fight, and I may break his arm or his leg.’ Inoki was a powerful fighter.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Floyd Mayweather v Conor McGregor, Francis Ngannou v Tyson Fury and Nate Diaz v Jake Paul. Crossover boxing is commonplace in the modern era, but it all started in 1976 – with one of the most famous fighters of all time. On 26 June of that year, Muhammad Ali, then a two-time world heavyweight boxing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3781,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions\/3781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}