North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have found a new friend for life.
Hot on the heels of former NBA star Dennis Rodman’s basketball antics in Pyongyang on the young leader’s birthday, a Japanese pro wrestling legend turned politician is planning to entertain the North Korean capital with a martial arts extravaganza next month — and hopefully meet some senior leaders while he is there.
Kanji “Antonio” Inoki was to leave for Pyongyang today to set the final details for the Aug. 30-31 event, which organizers say will feature pro wrestling, taekwondo, the Japanese martial art aikido and a traditional Korean style of wrestling.
Like Rodman, who said he and Kim were friends for life, even though his trip to Pyongyang in January was a public-relations disaster, Inoki is both a savvy showman and charismatically eccentric. For a politician — he is serving his third term in Japan’s parliament — he is also famously fond of being politically incorrect. During the Gulf War, Inoki organized a pro wrestling show in Iraq and he has visited North Korea nearly 30 times. His proactive position on Pyongyang ties has gotten him in trouble before. He was suspended in parliament last year for 30 days after making an unauthorized trip to the North.
However, government officials are not expected to protest his current plans.
Though he is a household name in Japan, the square-jawed, 1.9m Inoki is probably best remembered elsewhere for fighting Muhammad Ali in Tokyo in 1976, though he spent much of the bout on his back kicking at Ali’s legs. Inoki was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010. He retired from the ring in 1998.
If all goes as planned, this will be the second time Inoki has helped arrange a pro-wrestling show in Pyongyang — and the first was a huge success.
In 1995, Inoki fought American Ric Flair in what was called the “Collision in Korea.”
That two-day event, held in Pyongyang’s huge May Day Stadium, drew a reported 380,000 spectators and was the biggest pay-per-view in pro wrestling history. Ali was among the guest attendees.
Tokyo has cut off virtually all official ties with Pyongyang since 2006 over its nuclear weapons program and other issues, but Inoki runs a non-profit organization that opened an office in Pyongyang last year to promote international sports exchange. His connection to North Korea comes from his mentor, Rikidozan, a post-war wrestling legend in Japan who was born in the North.
Last week, Tokyo announced it was lifting some unilateral sanctions after the North agreed to revive a probe into the fates of at least a dozen Japanese who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Though Tokyo will continue to enforce UN sanctions over North Korea’s nuclear program, the breakthrough on the abductions issue is expected to allow more contact between the countries.
About 20 wrestlers and martial artists are expected to attend, although organizers have not announced their names or nationalities. Organizers say the International Pro-Wrestling Festival in Pyongyang will likely be broadcast over the Internet. It is to be held at Pyongyang’s Chung Ju-yung Stadium, which has a capacity of 15,000.
Inoki, who is 71, told reporters on Monday that while in Pyongyang for the event he hopes to meet with senior North Korean officials. It remains to be seen whether Kim himself will be among the spectators.
The event would be the biggest sports show with a marquee foreigner since Rodman and a team of other former NBA players and streetballers took to the basketball court in Pyongyang’s Indoor Stadium in January.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB