Praise for Ali vs. Inoki
“It’s only fitting that Josh Gross—an early MMA adopter and as fine a writer/reporter as the sport has—gives us this dispatch of an original boxer-versus-grappler contest. Our only question: When’s the movie coming out?”
—L. JON WERTHEIM, executive editor, Sports Illustrated
Copyright © 2016 by Josh Gross
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Printed in the United States of America
First E-Book Edition: June 2016.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-942952-20-6
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and Lisa Story Author photo courtesy of Eva Napp
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For my mom, who gave me the chance to tell this story
TABLE of CONTENTS
FOREWORD
I was a kid, all of eleven years old, when the fight between Muhammad Ali and Antonio Inoki took place in 1976. At that time, the two biggest names in martial arts were Bruce Lee and Ali. As a kid who got bullied because I suffered from a skin disease, severe asthma attacks, and being very skinny, I often dreamt: “If I only had skills like them, the bullies would be in trouble!”
Several years later, having beaten my childhood bullies, I watched the documentary Kings of the Square Ring. That was when I saw the match between Ali and Inoki, which took place in the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. I would have never guessed that many years later I’d successfully defend my Pancrase world title in that same arena by stopping Frank Shamrock.
Crazy how life goes, right?
Still to this day one of my biggest wishes is to meet the legend Muhammad Ali. This guy had it all: looks, charisma,
