Читать книгу Ali vs. Inoki. The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment онлайн

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“I didn’t want him to do it,” Kilroy said. “Ali was going into his sport, Inoki wasn’t going into Ali’s sport.”

Still, Ali did what he wanted and agreed to compete against a grappler, thus fulfilling a long-held desire to know what it was to take on a “rassler.” Only notorious hypeman Drew “Bundini” Brown, convinced the boxer could easily finish Inoki, egged Ali on.

As the June 26th bout neared (thanks to the international date line, it aired live Friday night, June 25th, in North America), hardcore pro wrestling and boxing fans, Ali supporters, and martial arts aficionados, in small passionate pockets, speculated about the matchup and its legitimacy. Even though the boxer held some hope that the whole thing would end up a “work”—in pro wrestling parlance, a match with a predetermined outcome—talk of that evaporated months earlier after Vince McMahon Sr., a patriarch of American pro wrestling, approached Ali’s camp with the idea.

“McMahon wanted Ali to throw the fight,” Kilroy said. “Ali wouldn’t do it. That’s the truth. That never got out.”