Free Ali vs. Inoki by Josh Gross Page B

by the illusion of landing a second money punch, a fight finisher, Banks became a predictable headhunter with that left hook. As he crumbled under Ali’s angular fighting and incessant, buzzing jab, Banks, penned Liebling, “was like a man trying to fight off wasps with a shovel.”
    Unsure of Ali’s recuperative powers until Banks touched his charge’s off button, Dundee was encouraged to see the type of pugilist he was dealing with. Critics, meanwhile, had new information to critique regarding the quality of Ali’s chin.
    For all of the whirlwind dancing and speed that defined so much of Ali’s career, Banks showed that perhaps The Greatest’s best boxing trait was standing when he had to. Ali did so many things better than most, and determining his “best” is difficult to pin down. The man’s energy output in life was preternatural, yet he was as relaxed as any fighter—a fundamental reason for his legendary stamina and pace. A rare few boxers, never mind heavyweights, moved as Ali did. As Liebling noted in his
New Yorker
piece “Poet and Pedagogue,” which beautifully described the Banks fight, the “Louisville Lip” needed no help providing the press a quote, making news, or, as the story noted, coming up with rhymes. Less than two years removed from the Rome Olympics, Claywas a business, the full package, well on his way, with financial backers and a support system, to an unparalleled life.

    Beating Banks set in motion a pivotal stretch for the rising contender. Eighteen days passed between Ali’s debut at MSG and the last night in February, a Wednesday, when he stopped another left-hooker, Don Warner, in four rounds in Miami. Ali predicted a finish in five, but because Warner wouldn’t shake hands before the fight he said he deducted a round for poor sportsmanship. Highlighted by three bouts in Tinseltown, Ali fought a half dozen times in 1962 and enjoyed the run of L.A. during a period that shaped him as a boxer, showman, and person.
    Vice President Richard Nixon dedicated the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on July 4, 1959, barely a year before Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts accepted, inside the same building, the Democratic party’s nomination for President of the United States of America. Kennedy bested Nixon in the fall of 1960 after a groundbreaking election that produced another sort of combat sport: televised presidential debates.
    By the spring of ’62, as Ali checked in to the Alexandria Hotel on 5th and Spring Street in Downtown L.A., Kennedy was entangled in the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam festered, the Cold War frosted, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was mere months away.
    On top of everything else, the young president faced the pleas of L.A.-based pro wrestler “Classy” Freddie Blassie, who stood as the dominant West Coast champion after taking the belt from Frenchman Édouard Carpentier atthe Sports Arena in June 1961. The following month, Lou Thesz, who put over Japan’s Rikidōzan in ’58, did the same for Blassie while legendary boxer Jersey Joe Walcott served as the referee.
    Blassie drove big television ratings in L.A. on Wednesday nights from 8:00 to 9:30 P.M. on KCOP channel 13. So far as live sports went, boxing (and, ahem, wrestling) were easier and less expensive to broadcast than, say, baseball because they required only a couple cameras to sufficiently cover the action. From the start, TV and pro wrestling went as well together as any two things could, a fact that was partly responsible for Rikidōzan’s success in Japan.
    On March 28, 1962, within walking distance of Little Tokyo, L.A.’s strong Asian community filled the Olympic Auditorium hoping that the father of
puroresu
, Rikidōzan, would make history as the first Japanese to challenge for and subsequently win an American pro wrestling title.
    Despite stomping Masahiko Kimura in Tokyo and possessing a wild-man reputation away from the ring, Rikidōzan wasn’t well known in the West. Still, the new