Ali vs. Inoki (12 page)

Jhoon Rhee isn't any of these things and he wasn't at the Dunn fight, but his presence was felt in Munich nonetheless.
The taekwondo grand master met Ali through a mutual friend in Philadelphia, and beginning in March 1975 visited the puncher's training camp in Deer Lake, Pa., several days a month to train for martial arts. Rhee worked with Ali on the so-called “Accu-punch,” a name the Korean immigrant coined for a strike that melds thought and action into highspeed data flow. The strike required a screwdriving motion at impact, Rhee said, calling it a lesson from his days training with Bruce Lee. This made sense to Ali, who obsessed over celerity and beating opponents to the punch.

Whenever Ali had the time and Rhee could make the two-hour drive from Washington, D.C., the large boxer and diminutive martial artist shared no-contact sparring sessions that never lasted more than thirty minutes. Other boxers usually showed up so Ali could finish his conditioning routine. Otherwise, Ali and Rhee, a martial arts philosopher and idealist, spoke often in the Pennsylvania country compound about Lee.

Ali took more punches and punishment in the gym than in most of his fights. He would clown around with sparring partners, draping his arms around their shoulders and letting them bang him to the body. This infuriated Angelo Dundee. “Don't do that,” the trainer warned. “You'll be pissing yourself ten years from now not knowing why.” Instead, Ali sometimes put his hands up around his ears and invited sparring partners to hit him about the head. His personal physician, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, had already begun to express concern. Pacheco's distaste for many of the people around Ali, and the circumstances of the great fighter's decline, were more prevalent as each fight passed. And the post-Frazier bums like Coopman and Young would only last so long.

Against Dunn, the last of three tune-ups from February through May of '76, Ali scored five knockdowns. Afterwards, speaking to NBC's Dick Enberg, Ali began with a plug for the upcoming contest against Inoki.

“I want to say I will be fighting next month,” Ali said. “The wrestling champion of the world.”

Enberg ignored the statement and asked Ali about Dunn. The American champion talked up his English challenger as a “young man” who's “gonna be a top-notch contender.”

“I'm glad I was in shape for this fight,” Ali said. “If I was in the same shape this month like I was last month I would have lost the fight, no doubt, because he's a great fighter. He's better than I thought he was. And I predict you'll hear a lot about Richard Dunn.”

Ali was better at prefight prognostication than the postfight kind. Dunn lasted two more contests before retiring in 1977.

Ali's late-September title defense and rubber match against Ken Norton was mentioned, then the boxer again plugged his pending action against Inoki.

“First I'm going to get the Japanese wrestler,” Ali said. “I have great karate teachers. From Washington, D.C., Mr. Jhoon Rhee is his name. He's training me now for the Japanese wrestler.”

On the NBC broadcast, replays of Ali pounding the southpaw Dunn with right-hand leads appeared on screen.

“That wasn't a right hand,” Ali noted. “That was the unique ‘Accu-punch.' It was a karate chop right. If you watch it again.”

Enberg giggled: “That's already your ‘Accu-punch' you were talking about?”

“That's the ‘Accu-punch' I told you about,” answered Ali. “Keep watching and you won't hardly see it. It's so fast.'”

Up next, a trip to Tokyo and another odd start time.

ROUND EIGHT

A
s with any successfully promoted fight—in this case “success” is determined by the amount of money generated—the point is enticing a large enough group of people to spend their hard-earned cash and participate in a moment.

Muhammad Ali had long been a master at inciting crowds to, among other things, do just that. By 1976, selling himself and boxing was old hat to the thirty-four-year-old superstar. In some quarters there was a belief that his act had worn stale, though that didn't change the fact there wasn't anyone who came off as charismatic as Ali. Combined with his sporting pedigree and status as a showman and statesman, basically anything Ali did was picked up by the media. In this way, he was a publicist's dream.

“I worked with many champions,” said Bobby Goodman, the flack hired by Top Rank to work with Ali for the Inoki match. “Everyone stuck to the schedule. They'd talk to the
press and maybe give you a little leeway with an hour or so a day trying to fit things in. Ali was an open book. There were some times he said, ‘Jeez, can't we do a little more?' I would go to Ali when I couldn't come up with another idea or the promotion was going slow.”

In November 1971, for example, Ali faced Buster Mathis at the Astrodome in Houston. Mathis offered little to make Ali angry or competitively aroused. Each time Mathis was in Ali's vicinity he giggled like a kid on the way to the toy store. He loved Ali. Affection between boxers had never been an effective marketing ploy, so Goodman, who worked with Ali since 1963, asked the boxer for help in the promotion department.

Ali's eyes grew big and wide. He had an idea to grab front-page headlines around the world. Goodman listened as Ali detailed his thoughts on perpetrating a fake kidnapping. Get a log cabin in the woods, Ali told Goodman. Set him up with a ring and sparring partners, and a few days before the scheduled bout he would miraculously emerge unscathed and ready. Goodman made a fair point. “If you're missing,” he told Ali, “no one is going to buy tickets to the fight.” Ali agreed and the boxer said they could come up with something else.

Most of the time promoters didn't need a gimmick to sell an Ali fight. The boxer's presence alone was enough to make it a successful venture. But what about when the fight itself was a gimmick? That, after all, is how most people viewed the Inoki contest, which was sandwiched between Ali's day job: title defenses against Richard Dunn in Munich and Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

Ali was not above stunts. Clearly. But even for a man reputed to push boundaries, selling the Inoki contest
stretched the limits of the imagination. Few people knew what to make of it, and one of the major story lines leading up to the contest centered around the notion that it wasn't on the up-and-up.

Ron Holmes, president of Lincoln National Productions, the California corporation created on March 30, 1976, for the sole purpose of making Ali vs. Inoki, was charged with “promoting” the mixed-rules contest. The week of the match in Japan, amidst swirling rumors and speculation that the matchup was (a) a scripted pro wrestling match, (b) a freak show destined to be a debacle, or (c) a lawless sham, Holmes told Phil Pepe of the New York
Daily News
that, for $6.1 million—the biggest purse ever awarded to a fighter at the time—“it better be on the level. If I wanted an exhibition, I could have had it for one million.”

“For six million,” said Holmes, who was also described by the media as Inoki's American liaison in Japan, “I want to see blood.”

New Japan Pro Wrestling (Inoki's group), through Lincoln National Productions Ltd., guaranteed to deliver $3 million to Ali regardless of how well the bout sold at the gate or on closed circuit. The boxer was then promised the first $3 million that Top Rank banked from broadcast-based revenue. Inoki would receive the next $2 million of Top Rank's television earnings. Presumably, more than enough fans would have bought in that everyone involved could go home happy.

Of course, that was contingent on convincing the public that this was worth watching, regardless of its legitimacy or not. That required a hard sales pitch from Ali, and, beginning the day the bout was officially announced at a press
conference in New York City to the final media events in Tokyo, Ali put in his work. In Japan and the U.S., Inoki did too, participating in multiple press tours during the run-up to the fight. Yet the bulk of the promotion, the reason people cared, fell squarely on the boxer's shoulders.

As much as any bout he participated in before or after, this match was Ali's baby. He pushed for it in the press. He contested that the point needed to be proven. Ali used every ounce of his fame to sell the bout. And this was exactly what the promotion's other interested parties hoped for.

New Japan Pro Wrestling was just establishing business ties with the WWWF when Inoki and his manager, Hisashi Shinma, approached Vince McMahon Sr. with the idea for Ali–Inoki. Because of Ali's history on closed circuit, the wrestling folks looked to attach their train to him. McMahon went around convincing promoters in other wrestling territories to participate. A lot of them were skeptical because it was something new. They had their business and were doing all right. Fronting with Inoki was a bit strange since no one in the U.S. knew who he was, but of course Ali was the biggest thing going, and his presence made the night the first wrestling-affiliated closed-circuit that transcended the genre.

“You had Vince Junior saying, ‘Wow, I have the most famous person on the planet promoting what I want to do, or at least part of what I want to do,'” said Dan Madigan, a writer for the WWE in the early 2000s.

Wrestling fans tend to stay within wrestling confines, but the rub from the righteous lineage of boxing, a smart guy could do something with that. During the weeks leading up to the fight, Ali and pro wrestling legend Freddie Blassie, Ali's “manager,” appeared as guests on numerous talk
shows, including
The Tonight Show
. They joined the ubiquitous Howard Cosell on ABC's
Wide World of Sports
and Ali wrestled in scripted showcases in Chicago and Philadelphia.

On June 1, in the City of Brotherly Love, Ali tangled with Robert Marella, aka Gorilla Monsoon. Before a quick victory for Monsoon, Ali was introduced to the crowd as he took a seat in the front row. After the match, Ali entered the ring, took a few shots at Monsoon, and pointed his finger at him. Monsoon picked up Ali, twirled him around, and dumped the boxer to the canvas.

“Monsoon was going to put him down gently but Ali got a little scared, and he fell on his hip,” said Gene Kilroy, who joined the boxer at the Philadelphia Arena and witnessed the pre-bit rehearsal. “I saw and said, ‘Oh shit.'”

Vince McMahon Jr. called the broadcasts for some WWWF shows and interviewed Monsoon at ringside. Ali was a great boxer, Monsoon said, but a lousy wrestler who didn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch.

On script were two matches in Chicago at the International Amphitheatre on June 10 in conjunction with one of the WWWF's territorial partners, Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association. Wearing sixteen-ounce gloves, Ali peppered Kenny Jay, thirty-six, a 225-pounder from Cleveland, and curly-haired, twenty-six-year-old Buddy Wolff of St. Cloud, Minn., into bloody wrecks. Ali was tossed around some and even showed a few wrestling maneuvers of his own as 1,000 fans, given free entry into the building, chanted his name for TV cameras from ABC's
Wide World of Sports
.

“I hit him with shots a boxer would fall with,” Ali said in the dressing room afterwards. “Just wait 'til I get on those
little four-ounce gloves against that Japanese wrestler. He'll really be bleeding.”

As newspaper columnists across the country questioned Ali's affiliation with wrestling and reminisced about the days when a boxer fighting a grappler might have meant something, the world champion continued to drum up press for the Inoki match.

Ali joined his trainer, Angelo Dundee, and Freddie Blassie, adorned with an eye-popping diamond ring on his right pinkie, on a red double-decker bus ride around Los Angeles the day after their
The Tonight Show
appearance. The U.S. press tour for the most important mixed match since the turn of the century concluded at Aileen Eaton's Olympic Auditorium, which would host a live wrestling event promoted by Mike LeBell to coincide with the closed-circuit feed from New York and Japan.

Up until the contest was officially signed at a ceremony during fight week in Tokyo, the rules of engagement for the match between Ali and Inoki were under scrutiny and produced a heated debate that seemingly imperiled the whole production. Newspaper reports pegged LeBell as an important figure in the Ali–Inoki rule-making process. According to wire reports, he joined Dundee and Vince McMahon Sr. in drafting the original set that was released a month before the bout.

On May 28, newspaper reports indicated rules had been agreed upon to govern the mixed-style fight. During fifteen three-minute rounds, the wrestler could use tactics common to both karate and wrestling, including chops and elbow strikes. The fight would be scored on a five-point must system with two judges and the referee keeping tabs. The referee
could only separate the fighters if they touched the ropes. If a contestant was counted out to ten, or his shoulders were pinned to the mat for a count of three, or a corner conceded or the doctor stepped in, the fight would be called.

Ali and Inoki could wear regular boxing trunks or wrestling tights, with boxing shoes or bare feet. Four-ounce gloves, karate protective gloves, or any reasonable modification of those gloves were allowed. Or they could fight bare fisted. The boxer was able to use regular two-inch gauze and one-inch tape on his hands with the bandaging to be supervised by the Japanese Boxing Commission and a rep of the wrestler.

Oil, grease, or other foreign substances on a fighter's body, fists, hair, or gloves would be prohibited.

Fouls included hitting, kicking, or kneeing below the belt; butting with the head or shoulders; jabbing or thumbing an opponent's eyes with an open glove or hand; tape on the wrestler's wrist or fist; and hitting or attacking after a break by the ref or after the bell.

The boxer was expected to observe customary boxing rules while standing. Ali could continue to throw punches if he went to the canvas, and he had the right to switch at any time to Inoki's style of martial arts.

The wrestler needed to observe customary wrestling rules while standing, kneeling, or on the canvas, but he could punch if both men stood.

Despite Mike LeBell's influential role, there weren't many people who would claim to be fans of the L.A. wrestling promoter. Part of the reason wrestling folks disliked Aileen
Eaton's elder son was they felt he had no respect. Eaton put him in a position of privilege and while he cared about making a buck he displayed no loyalty or reverence for the boys or the business. It may be strong to say he was generally despised, but in 2009 no one from wrestling went to his funeral when he died at the age of seventy-nine from respiratory failure. The only calls Gene received were from people who said Mike owed them money.

Freddie Blassie hated Mike LeBell. In his autobiography, Blassie was blunt: “Even during the best of times, I was always waiting for him to put a hatchet in my back. I feel pretty confident saying that every wrestler in the territory felt the same way. Because of all the publicity we got in L.A., you'd wind up with the press clippings while he wound up with the money.”

East Coast star Bruno Sammartino was sufficiently put off by LeBell in 1972, and never worked with him again.

Perhaps most telling, into his eighties “Judo” Gene LeBell maintains an intense distaste for his deceased brother. Considered cold and callous by many, some employees at the Olympic took to calling him Mike “LeSmell.”

“Mike LeBell was a cold, cold customer. It's hard to believe that Mike and Gene were brothers, because they couldn't possibly be any different,” said Bill Caplan. “They looked completely different. Their demeanor was different, their personalities. I'm sure Mike never got into a fight, let alone be a martial arts guy and a stuntman like Gene. I'm certain that he never did what I did, pop Don Fraser in George Parnassus' office. He seemed to be a guy without passion. He had dark black hair, combed straight back, and Gene's this curly red-headed guy. It's unbelievable they were brothers.

“It was rumored that Mike made a lot of money by skimming out of the box office. I don't know if it's true or not. He bought a big mansion. Aileen lived in a big home but Mike's was even bigger and more expensive.”