ANTONIO INOKI'S TACTICS

Antonio Inoki vs. Bill Robinson (1975)

Giant Baba deployed human-wave tactics, in contrast to this, Antonio Inoki had nothing in his hands. Conversely speaking, creative power was the special weapon of Inoki. He needed foreign wrestlers and a champion belt. Both of them came true when he joined hands with a local organization NWF. Inoki wrested (or bought) NWF World Championship from Johnny Powers. But it was miserable that Powers was the only famous wrestler NEW JAPAN could invite in the early days of this party. Inoki created the personality of a madman for Tiger Jeet Singh. When Inoki and his wife (a famous actress) shopping in Tokyo, suddenly Singh attacked them !! And Inoki was scolded by the chief of police. (^^;

Inoki fought against Bill Robinson in December, 1975. That was the first big match of NEW JAPAN, and after that, famous wrestlers began to come up to the ring of NEW JAPAN. Brute Bernard, Hans Schmidt, Hollywood Blonds, Johnny Valentine, Andre The Giant, etc. And then somehow Inoki joined hands with WWF, and he invited Bob Backlund, Pedro Morales, and Stan Hansen. Inoki took the WWF belt from Backlund, and kept it in a short time. On one hand, Inoki started to fight unusual matches as the martial arts champion. He defeated Willem Ruska, the former judo champion, and he drew with Muhammad Ali.

Inoki was fainted by Hogan's Ax Bomber (1983)

Though Inoki had drawn many criticisms, his spirit of a challenger was very unique. He often said "Baba's wrestling is a fake, my fight is the real !!", but in fact, Inoki seemed to have a respect for Baba. Inoki might have been had an inferiority complex, because he was a son of a poor farmer, but Baba had been a pitcher of Tokyo Giants. Inoki got a lot of believers, many superstars appeared in NEW JAPAN like Stan Hansen, Hulk Hogan, and Tiger Mask, and the popularity of NEW JAPAN exceeded ALL JAPAN's in the early 80's.

And Inoki held the big tournament IWGP in 1983, and He fought against Hulk Hogan at the final match. Hogan attacked Inoki harshly, and Inoki was so tired that he could not stand up to the monster's moves. At last Inoki was fainted by the special move of Hogan 'Ax Bomber'. It was a shocking and a very cruel scene, but that was the peak of Inoki's genius of story making. Because of decline of his power, meaningless fights and unclear judgement increased, and finally spectators got anger and started a riot in 1984.