Keep the historical significance of this fight in mind, before comparing it to what you’re accustomed to now on a regular basis from the UFC. This event took place in 1976 – about 5 years before Ali retired, so he was still significant in the boxing world at the time. This would be like Manny Pacquiao fighting BJ Penn right now – pretty huge, right?
But unfortunately, the event proved to be quiet uneventful. The fight was ruled a draw after it went the full 15 rounds. The crowd at the Budokan in Japan threw rubbish into the ring and chanted “Money back! Money back!”.
According to Donn Draeger, “the Budokan janitorial people took almost a full day to clean up the garbage that was hurled at the two ‘combatants’ as the result of their lousy performance”.
Apparently Inoki was not allowed to throw, grapple, or tackle…and Ali was prohibited from jabbing. “What’s the point” you ask? Well, you’re not alone in asking that.
Due to varying claims over the years, it is difficult to know the reasons behind these hand-tying rule implementation. But I am assuming it was to protect both contestants from losing face from a knockout or chokeout. MMA was still an untested arena, and both camps were so concerned with protecting their respective fighters that they most likely did not think through the boring consequences of the rule restrictions.
It has been alleged that the fight was originally to have been a worked match. According to boxing journalist Jim Murphy, the original plan was for Ali to accidentally punch the referee and knock him out. While standing over the referee, looking concerned, Inoki would knock him out with a kick to the head. The referee would then come around and count Ali out, giving Inoki the win in front of his fellow countrymen, and allowing Ali to save face because of his noble instincts. However, when Ali found out he had to lose, he refused, turning the fixed fight into a real one.
According to Inoki, Ali and his entourage had signed on expecting the fight to be an exhibition rather than a real contest. It was only when they went to see Inoki train 6 days before the fight, and saw him use a series of brutal drop-kicks and violent grapples on sparring partners, that they sensed it would be legitimate fight.
Inoki alleges he was asked by Ali “OK, so when do we do the rehearsal?”, with Inoki replying: “No, no. This isn’t an exhibition. It’s a real fight!”.
The fight is considered by boxing writers and fans as one of the most embarrassing moments in Ali’s career, but Ali and Inoki became good friends following the fight. Inoki even started using Ali’s theme music, ‘The Greatest’ (taken from the film), as his own signature tune, and borrowed the catchphrase “bom-ba-ye” from Ali’s fans at the Rumble in the Jungle.
So although this won’t go down in history as an epic MMA fight, I think it should certainly go down in history as one of the precursors to MMA today.
You can find the entire fight in pieces online – not that anything eventful happens to watch all 15 rounds. Here’s a clip of the last 6 minute – not to impress you, but to give you a sense of what happened that day…
