Sports
Muhammad Ali will be posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame – a look back at the lesser-known story of the professional wrestling boxing champion
Muhammad Ali died in 2016, but the impact of the world’s best heavyweight boxer still resonates in surprising ways throughout the sports world. From child support awards to Grammy nominations, this boxing Hall of Famer is about to receive one other honor. Ali will introduced to the WWE Hall of Fame posthumously on April 5, joining Mike Tyson as the only other boxer to receive this honor.
Ali’s widow, Lonnie Ali, will introduce him to the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia before WrestleMania 40and the entire event will be broadcast live Peacock. The three-time world heavyweight champion became the first inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. However, much less is understood about his involvement in wrestling, which surprisingly dates back to 1961 – the very starting of his profession.
The story of Muhammad Ali in wrestling
At just 19 years old, Ali was already an Olympic gold medal-winning boxer and a brash, charismatic young man who desired to take his profession to greater arenas and was inspired by wrestling.
“Man, I really like seeing my name in print. I really like seeing my name on the market for everybody to see,” he added he told the Saturday Evening Post. then. There’s no doubt he craved fame, and the light bulb went off after watching the wildly over-the-top wrestler Gorgeous George frequently enter the ring dressed in ruffles and satinlooking like angry Mozart as “Pomp and Circumstance” played in the background.
“(I got it) after seeing Gorgeous George fight in Las Vegas,” Muhammad Ali told Hubert Mizel of The Associated Press in an interview (via CBS Sports) in 1969. “I saw his assistants spraying deodorant in the opponents’ corner to regulate the bad smell. I also saw 13,000 full seats. I talked to the Magnificent One for five minutes after the game and commenced talking and bragging,” he said.
“He told me that individuals would come to see me beaten. Others would come to see me win. I’d make them come and go.
Wrestling inspired Ali to cultivate his boxing persona and attract national attention. His performances were unmissable, each out and in of the ring. In interviews, he was known for his clever wordplay and sometimes recited poetry.
“It’s not jive. The fight will be over in five minutes!”
Just hearken to the world-class trash talk between Ali and his opponent Joe Frazier before the famous 1971 “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden in New York and you may’t help but think of WrestleMania.
Ali’s “sports performances” captivated the audience’s attention since you never knew what might occur when he was in the room. In the lead-as much as the 1974 rematch, a spontaneous fight broke out between Ali and Frazier during an interview with Howard Cosell, and individuals are still wondering whether it was staged or real.
Muhammad Ali takes his talents to the wrestling ring
Perhaps his most famous wrestling match was the 1976 “War of the Worlds” bout, which pitted the heavyweight boxing champion against wrestler Antonio Inoki in Tokyo, Japan. To prove his dominance in pro wrestling, Inoki arranged fights with champions of various martial arts and upped the ante when he challenged Ali.
Although the fight led to a draw, it was a huge PR success, which reportedly attracted 32,000 live viewers, with one other 33,000 viewers watching in the US. It is essentially considered the forerunner of the sport of MMA.
Nearly a decade later, when Ali entered the ring as a guest referee for the first-ever WrestleMania headline event, wrestling fans went wild.
The audience chanted his name and gave the boxer a standing ovation before the fight. Hulk Hogan joined his partner, Mr. T, in a tag team match against “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” by Paul Orndoff. Ali entered the fray in a memorable move, shooting Piper. Ultimately, the winners were Hulk Hogan and Mr. T
Even as his Parkinson’s disease worsened, Ali he never turned down a probability to advertise boxing and wrestling. In 1995, Ali and a group of professional wrestlers (including Inoki) went on a sports diplomacy mission to North Korea at the invitation of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. He was the guest of honor at the North Korean wrestling event “Collision in Korea”, hosted jointly by pro wrestling from the US and Japan. It was a huge two-night pay-per-view show that reportedly attracted 150,000 viewers each night.
Not every athlete has enough charisma to vary their sport perpetually. With Induction approaching, wrestling’s influence on the best boxer of all time will finally be recognized.