On June 26, 1976, the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan, hosted an event that was billed as the ultimate test of combat supremacy. “The War of the Worlds” pitted the reigning WBC and WBA Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Muhammad Ali, against the founder and ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), Antonio Inoki.
The Challenge: “Is There Any Oriental Fighter?”
The genesis of the fight was a classic case of Muhammad Ali’s mouth writing a check that a promoter was all too happy to cash. In 1975, while at a reception in the United States, Ali reportedly boasted to the president of the Japanese Amateur Wrestling Association.
“Isn’t there any Oriental fighter who will challenge me? I’ll give him one million dollars if he wins.”
The quote made headlines in Tokyo. Antonio Inoki, a man who possessed a P.T. Barnum-level mind for promotion and a legitimate background in catch wrestling (trained by Karl Gotch), saw an opportunity. Inoki’s entire career was built on the concept of “Strong Style”—the idea that professional wrestling was the superior martial art. To prove it, he needed to beat the most famous fighter on the planet.
Inoki’s backers scrambled to put together the money. They offered Ali $6 million (a staggering sum in 1976) to travel to Japan and face Inoki. Ali, assuming this was a standard exhibition—a “work”—happily signed the contract.
The Realization: It Wasn’t a Work
When Muhammad Ali arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, he was in full showman mode. He famously shouted, “There will be no Pearl Harbor! Muhammad Ali returns!” He nicknamed Inoki “The Pelican” due to his prominent chin. The press conferences were electric, filled with the kind of trash talk that Ali had perfected.
However, the mood shifted dramatically once Ali’s camp visited the NJPW dojo. According to wrestling historian Dave Meltzer and accounts from those present, Ali’s handlers watched Inoki training. They saw him sparring, applying submission holds, and utilizing a level of violence that did not look like the choreographed pro wrestling they had seen on American television.
It became clear to Ali’s camp—specifically his manager, Herbert Muhammad, and trainer, Angelo Dundee—that Inoki intended to shoot. He planned to take Ali down, grapple him, and legitimately hurt him to secure a victory for the honor of wrestling.
Ali was a boxer, not a grappler. If Inoki took him to the ground, the fight would be over in seconds, and the Heavyweight Champion of the World would be humiliated. Ali’s camp threatened to pull out of the fight immediately unless the rules were changed to protect their investment.
The Secret Rules
Negotiations were held in a hotel room in Tokyo days before the fight. The resulting rule set was so restrictive that it essentially handcuffed Antonio Inoki.
The rules, which were kept secret from the public to maintain the intrigue, explicitly forbade Inoki from doing almost everything a wrestler does.
- Inoki was not allowed to throw Ali (suplexes or takedowns).
- Inoki was not allowed to tackle Ali.
- Inoki was not allowed to use knees or elbows.
- Crucially, Inoki was not allowed to kick Ali while standing up.
The only way Inoki was permitted to kick Ali was if he had one knee on the mat.
This rule set was designed to keep the fight standing, where Ali would have the overwhelming advantage. However, Inoki was a master tactician. He realized that while he couldn’t kick standing up, the rules did not say he couldn’t kick while lying down.
The Fight: 15 Rounds of Geometry
The bell rang for Round 1. Muhammad Ali danced to the center of the ring, throwing jabs at the air. Antonio Inoki immediately ran across the ring and threw himself into a sliding baseball slide kick.
Ali dodged. Inoki stayed on the mat.
For the next fifteen rounds, this pattern repeated. Inoki realized that if he stood up, he would be boxed into oblivion. If he tried to tackle, he would be disqualified. His only legal offense was to lie on his back—the “Ali-Inoki Position”—and chop at Ali’s legs with his wrestling boots.
Ali was baffled. He circled the prone Inoki, shouting at him to stand up and fight like a man. “Coward!” Ali screamed. Inoki, from his back, gestured for Ali to come down to the ground. Neither man would budge from their zone of advantage.
The crowd, which had paid exorbitant prices (up to 300,000 yen for ringside seats), grew restless. They expected a clash of titans; they got a geometry problem. Ali threw a total of six punches in the entire fight. Inoki landed dozens of low kicks.
The Injury: The Hematoma
While the audience was bored, Muhammad Ali was in agony. Inoki was wearing heavy wrestling boots with hard leather soles and brass eyelets. He was kicking Ali’s left leg repeatedly with full force.
By the middle rounds, Ali’s leg was visibly swelling. He began to limp. The kicks were causing severe internal bleeding and muscle damage. Ali, ever the warrior, refused to show the pain, taunting Inoki throughout the match. But the damage was accumulating.
In the later rounds, Ali managed to land a few jabs when Inoki got too close, but he could not generate power because his base was compromised. The fight ended after 15 rounds. The judges scored it a draw (74-72, 72-68, and 71-71).
The crowd at the Budokan was furious. They threw trash into the ring. They felt ripped off. They did not realize they had just watched a man’s leg being destroyed.
The Medical Aftermath
While Inoki walked away with a broken foot from kicking Ali, the boxer fared much worse.
Upon returning to the United States, Ali’s leg condition deteriorated. He was hospitalized. Doctors discovered two blood clots in his left leg. The repeated trauma had caused severe infection.
At one point, there was a genuine discussion about amputation. If the clots moved to his heart or lungs, they could be fatal. If the infection didn’t clear, the leg would have to go.
Ali recovered, but he was never the same. His legendary footwork—the “Ali Shuffle,” the ability to float like a butterfly—was permanently compromised. He fought Ken Norton in September 1976, just months later, and looked noticeably slower and flat-footed. Many boxing historians argue that the Inoki fight accelerated Ali’s decline in the ring, contributing to the punishment he took in his final fights against Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick.
The Financial Fallout
The event was a financial disaster for the promoters. While the concept was brilliant, the execution alienated the fanbase. Bob Arum, who handled the closed-circuit broadcast in the U.S., reportedly lost a significant amount of money.
In Japan, the reaction was mixed. Initially, Inoki was criticized for the boring fight. However, as news of Ali’s hospitalization spread, public perception shifted. The Japanese public realized that Inoki had not been “playing”; he had legitimately hurt the Heavyweight Champion. This solidified Inoki’s reputation as a tough guy and helped sustain NJPW for decades.
The Friendship
Despite the bizarre nature of the fight and the injuries sustained, a strange bond formed between the two men. They recognized in each other a shared showmanship.
Ali returned to Japan in 1998 for Inoki’s retirement ceremony. In a touching moment, Ali stepped into the ring and embraced his former rival. The theme song that Antonio Inoki used for the majority of his career, “Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye,” was actually a gift from Ali. It was originally composed for Ali (as “Ali Bom-Ba-Ye”) for the biopic The Greatest. Ali gave Inoki the rights to the music, and it became the anthem of Japanese wrestling.
The Birth of MMA
Historically, Inoki vs. Ali is now viewed through a different lens. It is widely considered the grandfather of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). It was the first high-profile instance of style-vs-style combat where the rules had to be adapted to accommodate both.
The “Inoki-Ali position”—where one fighter is on their back kicking the standing fighter’s legs—remains a legitimate, albeit rare, tactic in MMA. Modern fighters look back at the tapes and see Inoki using leg kicks to neutralize a striker, a strategy that would become a staple of the sport decades later.
Conclusion
The “War of the Worlds” was a failure as entertainment, but a triumph as a historical curiosity. It was a night where the carnival world of wrestling crashed into the disciplined world of boxing, resulting in a chaotic mess that satisfied no one.
Yet, the image of Muhammad Ali, the greatest striker in history, circling a man crab-walking on the mat, remains one of the most surreal visuals in sports history. It serves as a reminder of the lengths promoters will go to for a payday, and the physical price athletes pay for their pride. Ali kept his title, but he left a piece of his greatness in the ring at the Budokan, dissolved by blood clots and battered by the boots of Antonio Inoki.
