Antonio Inoki

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{{Infobox Wrestler |name=Kanji Inoki |image=AntonioInoki.jpg |names=Antonio Inoki
"Moeru Toukon" (Fighting Spirit that Burns)
Tokyo Tom |height=190 cm (6 ft 2 in) |weight=102 kg (224 lb) |birth_date=February 20, 1943 |death_date= |birth_place=Yokohama |resides=New York |billed= |trainer=Rikidozan
Karl Gotch |debut=September 30, 1960 vs. Kintaro Oki |retired=1998 |}}

Antonio Inoki (アントニオ猪木), real name Kanji Inoki (猪木寛至 Inoki Kanji, born February 20, 1943) is a retired Japanese professional wrestler who now resides in New York City. His stage name was inspired by Antonino Rocca, a legendary professional wrestler.

1 Career
2 Trivia
3 Finishing and signature moves
4 Championships and accomplishments
- 4.1 Tournaments won
5 External links

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Career

Inoki was discovered by Rikidozan at the age of 17 while he was living in Brazil. He was brought back to Japan for the Japanese Wrestling Association as Rikidozan's disciple. One of his dojo classmates was Giant Baba. After Rikidozan's death, Inoki toiled under the taller Baba's shadow until he joined the original Tokyo Pro Wrestling in 1966. Returning to JWA in late 1967, he was made Baba's partner and the two dominated the tag team ranks as the "B-I Cannon", winning the NWA International tag team belts four times.

Fired from JWA in late 1971 for planning a takeover of the promotion, Inoki founded New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1972. His first match as a New Japan wrestler was against the legendary Karl Gotch.

Antonio Inoki was a pioneer of mixed martial arts and has faced many opponents from all dominant disciplines of combat from various parts of the world, such as Akram Pahalwan in Pakistan. In the 1970s, he fought Willie Williams of Kyokushin Karate, Olympic judo gold medalist Willem Ruska and WBA World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali.

The match with Muhammad Ali in 1976 was originally supposed to have been worked. Ali's camp feared that Inoki would turn the fight into a shoot, which led them to restrict the fight to striking rules only, with no suplexes and slams allowed. Ali landed a total of six punches to Inoki and Inoki kept to his back in a defensive position almost the full duration of the match, hitting Ali with a low kick repeatedly. The bout ended in a draw, 3-3.

Inoki is known to have worked martial arts matches during the "Final Countdown" series (which prepared him for his pro wrestling retirement in 1998). Beside these, most of Inoki's mixed martial arts matches are considered real and legit.

One of the few professional wrestlers whose career lasted longer than 35 years, Inoki established the "strong style", using stiffness and realistic maneuvers to make professional wrestling appear more legit and real. Shoot style wrestling arose from Inoki's "strong style".

Many of Inoki's disciples, including the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama,Masakatsu Funaki, Nobuhiko Takada, Minoru Suzuki, Akira Maeda, Shinsuke Nakamura and Kazuyuki Fujita, among others, have had success in the real fighting competition of mixed martial arts, and the roster of NJPW is known to have pioneered mixed martial arts federations including RINGS, Shooto, PRIDE, and Pancrase.

It is due to Antonio Inoki that fighters like Naoya Ogawa, Josh Barnett, Walid Ismail, and Ryoto Machida have actively represented NJPW in mixed martial arts events giving notoriety to it and professional wrestling.

Inoki continues to bring fighters like Mark Coleman, Quinton Jackson, Dan Bobbish to the professional wrestling ring for organizing of professional wrestling events like HUSTLE.

Antonio Inoki also organizes Mixed Martial Arts events like "NJPW Ultimate Crush" and "Jungle Fight", showing traditional professional wrestling matches and MMA matches on the same card. Some of the major attractions of these events involve the best of NJPW vs. World renowed fighters in real MMA matches, such as Josh Barnett vs. Jimmy Ambriz, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jan Nortje, etc.

Many Of Inoki's events are co-promoted by MMA federations like K-1, most notably the Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye (which in Congo language means "Kill Him!"), as a combination of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts side by side at the same card.

Antonio Inoki's Inoki Dojos are also known to have cross-trained wrestlers like Ken Shamrock, Kazushi Sakuraba, Chris Benoit and Samoa Joe.

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Trivia

Inoki was married to actress Mitsuko Baisho from 1971 to 1987. Initially the wedding was going to be paid by JWA, but JWA fired him in late 1971, so Inoki had to form NJPW to keep feeding his new family. Inoki and Baisho have a daughter, Hiroko (who uses her father's surname). Hiroko is married to Simon Inoki, who in 2005 was named President of NJPW.

In 1989, Inoki established the Sports Peace Party (スポーツ平和党). He was elected to the House of Councillors of the National Diet of Japan. He served in that House until 1995, when he failed to win re-election.

Antonio Inoki started the Universal Fighting-arts Organization.

Antonio Inoki was the first pro-wrestler in the world to be elected as a legislator of a country.

Antonio Inoki was the first government official from western or democratic nations to have a political meeting with Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Antonio Inoki met with Saddam Hussein for the release of prisoners from Iraq before the Gulf War. As is the traditional gift for a visiting head-of-state, Saddam gave Inoki a pair of golden swords.

Inoki appeared in the movie, The Bad News Bears Go To Japan, as a wrestler.

During one visit to a school in the 80's, Inoki was punched twice by a brash student. Unfazed, but very angry, Inoki slapped the student extremely hard across the face, knocking him down. The student, who was a Inoki fan, then rose, bowed deeply, and thanked Inoki for the slap. The incident became very famous as the then live clip of this binta (slap in the face) was reshown over and over on Japanese television. Now various celebrities and even common people in Japan ask Inoki to slap them to instill courage or even as some sort of strange blessing. The slap's name is the "Fighting Spirit (or Toukon) Slap." (闘魂ビンタ)

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Finishing and signature moves

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Championships and accomplishments

1-Time IWGP World Heavyweight Champion
1-Time WWWF World Heavyweight Champion (Not recognized by WWE)
2-Time WWF New Japan Martial Arts Champion
1-Time NWA World Tag Team Champion (Mid-America version) (with Hiro Matsuda)
1-Time NWA World Tag Team Champion (Texas version) (with Duke Keomuka)
2-Time NWA North American Tag Team Champion (with Seiji Sakaguchi)
3-Time All-Asia Tag Team Champion (with Michiaki Yoshimura twice and Kintaro Ohki once)
4-Time NWA International Tag Team Champion (with Shohei Baba)
1-Time AJPW United National Champion
3-Time NWF Heavyweight Champion
1-Time UWA Heavyweight Champion
1-Time NWA Texas Heavyweight Champion

World Championship Wrestling

Member of WCW Hall of Fame (inducted 1995)

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

PWI ranked him # 5 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.
PWI also ranked him twice in the best tag teams of the PWI Years. He was ranked # 12 with Tatsumi Fujinami and # 44 with Hulk Hogan.

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Tournaments won

JWA 11th Annual League
NWA 1st Tag League with Kantaro Hoshino
NWA 2nd Tag League with Seiji Sakaguchi
NJPW 1st Annual World League
NJPW 2nd Annual World League
NJPW 1st Annual MSG League
NJPW 2nd Annual MSG League
NJPW 3rd Annual MSG League
NJPW 4th Annual MSG League
NJPW IWGP League 1984
NJPW IWGP League 1986
NJPW Pre-Japanese Championship
NJPW 1st Annual MSG Tag League with Bob Backlund
NJPW 3rd Annual MSG Tag League with Hulk Hogan
NJPW 4th Annual MSG Tag League with Hulk Hogan
NJPW 5th Annual MSG Tag League with Tatsumi Fujinami
NJPW Japan Cup Tag Team League 1986 with Yoshiaki Fujiwara
NJPW Japan Cup Six Man Elimination Tag League 1988 with Riki Choshu & Kantaro Hoshino