Inoki ROUND THIRTEEN In all athletic endeavors, energy is best transferred from the ground to the feet to the legs to the hips and so on; power loads before it can be unleashed. The more efficient the transition, the more force is created. This process helped refine martial arts to a feat of literal human engineering. The body is designed to do certain things in certain ways, and special martial artists, like other talented athletes, can appear smooth and rhythmic generating tremendous acceleration and damage. Antonio Inoki didn’t make it look smooth and rhythmic against a man who was the smoothest and most rhythmic of all time. That fight—that’s the correct word for what happened—was ugly, and that’s another reason fans and media sneered at it at the time. Watching Inoki launch himself to the floor while swinging a boot wasn’t the best, but it served him well by keeping that “pelican” chin clear of Ali’s punches. Aesthetics aside, Inoki’s lack of connection to the ground while kicking reduced the attack’s venom.
