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

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Ali leaned forward.

“There’s $10 million involved,” he said, which was an exaggeration since he had agreed to a purse of $6.1 million while Inoki was set to take home in the neighborhood of $2 million. “I wouldn’t take the sport of boxing and disgrace it. I wouldn’t pull a fraud on the public. This is real. There’s no plan. The blood. The holds. The pain. Everything is going to be real. I’m not here in this time of my life to come out with some phony action.”

The next night Charlton Heston and comedian Kelly Monteith had the pleasure of welcoming Johnny Carson back to Burbank, Calif. After hearing Ed McMahon describe a wacky time at a bicentennial gathering in the West Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Ill.—“You told me never to play a fairgrounds, and I made a mistake,” McMahon admitted to Carson. “I didn’t listen to you.”—the late-night king lamented his days touring the Midwest.

Professional wrestlers knew as well as anyone what it was like to play in front of fairgrounds fans. The tradition of wrestling tours, like America, is long and vast, and in significant ways linked to the man Ali signed to fight in Tokyo.