The forgotten story of ... Muhammad Ali v Antonio Inoki

Warning: this piece is 4,000 words long. If you don't think you can get away with pretending to work while you read for that long, you might want to print it out and read it on the train home later

Picture Muhammad Ali.

How do you see him?

Standing snarling over Sonny Liston? Shadow boxing on the bottom of a swimming pool? Leaning into the ropes as George Foreman pummels his kidneys? Stooping, shaking, to light the Olympic flame?

How about Ali flapping about on the canvas while an 18 stone wrestler sits on his face? Who wants to remember Ali that way?

There are some things a person should never have to see happen to a man like Ali. This is the story of one of them.

25 May 1976. It is eight months on from his third and final fight against Joe Frazier, the Thrilla in Manila and Ali has been busy boxing stooges. At the age of 33, he has suggested that it would be his final year before retirement. In January he beat a Belgian named Jean-Pierre Coopman with a knockout in the fifth. In April, he turned up overweight for a bout with Jimmy Young, and was taken a full 15 rounds by a 15-1 outsider. Chastened, in May Ali travelled to Munich, where he knocked out Yorkshireman Richard Dunn in five rounds.

Frank Keating was there for the Guardian.

"Dunne done with, Ali spent last night getting himself and us psyched up for his next superdooper smackeroo – in a few days he ups his marquee from here to Tokyo where he takes on the gigantic Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki. Inoki will be able to run the full range of all-in wrestling moves and use ploys including karate chops, at which he is, according to Ali at his wide-eyed best, 'the most fearsome man in who-le, wi-de, wo-rld.' Anything goes apparently."

Not quite anything. A special