Prior to Inoki’s rise to fame, wrestling in Japan was little known outside of Japan. Inoki showcased his talents all over the world for a number of decades, and in doing so he made audiences in America, as well as many other nations around the world, take notice of wrestling in Japan. Upon retiring as a supeurstar, Inoki has remained in the wrestling business, as a wrestling promotor, and Inoki has shown himself to be a man that has made a huge difference to professional wrestling.

Inoki’s first sport was in fact not wrestling, and instead he began his sporting career as a basketball player. This was short lived, and by the age of 17, Inoki had a position in the Japan Wrestling Association, where he would learn the trade from which he would go onto create a legacy. At the time he was the protege of Rikidozan, who died due to stabbing whilst in America. This left Inoki alone, and up until 1966, he fought in the shadow of the bigger, stronger superstar, Giant Baba.

DID YOU KNOW? Antonio Inoki won the regional Brazilian championships in Discus and Javelin, and then the All Brazilian championships in both Shot Put and Discus?

Inoki then went on to create Tokyo Pro Wrestling, and this was Inoki’s first taste at being the face of a company. During this period of time he gained much of his experience. Although this company wasn’t moving forward, other companies now became aware of exactly what Antonio Inoki could offer to their companies, and due to the financial problems in TPW, the company folded only a year after Inoki had began to lead them. From here he returned to the Japan Wrestling Association, where he had begun his wrestling career seven years earlier.

It was during his second stint in the JWA that Inoki first faced a superstar who was held with high regard by fans in America, in the form of a true wrestling legend, Bruno Sammartino. He was now tagging with Giant Baba, and during a tag match in which Bruno Sammartino was involved, Sammartino claims that Inoki tried to “shoot” on him during a match, meaning that Inoki was landing real hits on Sammartino. Sammartino responded by pounding Inoki, leading to Inoki walking out on the match, clearly unhappy with the reaction from the then world champion. However, at this point in his career, Inoki was still learning a lot about the business, and he would begin to become recognised by wrestling fans in 1972, when after being fired by JWA, he went onto create New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Whilst in NJPW, Inoki ended Bob Backlund’s reign as WWF Champion, although this reign is not recognised. Under controversial circumstances, Backlund regained the title the following day. The championship belt was offered back to Inoki, but he refused the title and the record books show Backlund’s reign lasted from 1978-83, despite the fact that he lost the championship to Inoki, and the championship was vacant for twelve days. Inoki was now a name being mentioned all around the world, and his martial arts career was taking off simultaneous to a similar taking off of his wrestling career.

DID YOU KNOW? Antonio Inoki and Ric Flair fought in North Korea in front of an attendance of 170,000 fans, with Inoki being victorious over the “Nature Boy”.

Inoki began his martial arts career by squaring off against Willem Ruska, the olympic judo champion from the Netherlands. On this occasion, Inoki was put through physical torture throughout this match, almost falling victim to a submission defeat on many occasions, as Ruska persistantly locked on armbars and sleeper hold, but it was Inoki’s resiliance that won the “World’s Top Martial Artist Deciding Match”, due to TKO following three consecutive back suplexes.

It was then time for the biggest and msot anticipated match in the history of mixed martial arts, as Antonio Inoki went head-to-head against world champion boxer of the time, Muhammad Ali. The match turned out to be an anti-climax, as Ali’s camp enforced so many rules on Inoki, that the Japanese wrestler was limited to performing sliding kicks for the entire match, and spent almost the entire fight on his back, as he knew that the rules enforced on this match meant that Ali could not throw a punch to Inoki whilst Inoki was down. Inoki was three points up at the final bell, but had all three removed due to being penalised. Ali was hospitalized after the fight, and Inoki was left in a multi-million yen debt, and so was forced to continue fighting mixed martial arts matches to repay it.

DID YOU KNOW? Muhammad Ali reportedly saw Inoki training for their match, and asked “OK, so when do we do the rehearsal?” and after Inoki responded “No, no. This isn’t an exhibition. It’s a real fight!” Ali then went on to enforce rules saying that Inoki could not tackle or throw Ali, and could only kick him if one of Inoki’s knees was in contact with the mat.

Inoki fought twenty MMA fights in total, against top competitors in all forms of fighting. He fought the Olympic judo champion, the boxing world champion, as well as the man that took the title from Ali, being Leon Spinks. He also took on Andre the Giant, who claimed that Inoki didn’t represent wrestling well during MMA fights. Inoki responded by fighting Andre, and even back suplexing the behemoth before winning by TKO. Inoki only had one loss at the end of his MMA career, to Shota Chochishvili, and Inoki set the record straight a month later by defeating Shota by submission. Antonio Inoki’s MMA record at the end of his career is 16 wins (9 KO, 5 submissions, 2 pins), 1 loss (1 KO), 3 draws.

Inoki has since sold his 51.5% share in NJPW to Yuke’s, and has launched his third wrestling company of his career (Inoki Genome Federation). Inoki began trading talent with TNA, with superstars such as Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar holding the main championship belt of the brand, the IWGP title. Inoki was also included in the WWE Hall Of Fame Class Of 2010, making him the first Japanese wrestler to be inducted.

Inoki has been responsible for putting Japanese wrestling on the map, as well as kick-starting mixed martial arts, which today has a bigger fanbase than ever. Being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame is just a small testament, to the huge mark that Inoki has left on the wrestling industry. I’ve been James D, and you’ve been reading about the career of the man responsible for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and huge evolutions in Japanese wrestling and MMA.

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