On Monday morning, it was reported by Variety that the late Muhammad Ali would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a member of the class of 2024. The pairing makes a ton of sense.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining figure in the arena of sports — both inside and out of the ring. In a sense, Ali was a real-life example of a wrestling superstar. You’d see him ‘cut crazy promos’ aka making passionate statements through the media where he’d speak his mind on numerous topics.
This included verbally undressing his opponents with the proverbial mind games often coming into play. However, he also had a bit of a crossover history with professional wrestling which makes his induction not all too surprising. In 1976, Ali had a high-profile match against fellow WWE Hall of Famer Antonio Inoki.
This match took place in Tokyo — and went a whopping 15 rounds. In a sense, it set the scene for other wrestler-boxer matches. During WrestleMania 1 in 1984, Ali was brought back by the powers that be to be the special guest referee in the history tag-team match between Rowdy Roddy Piper, Cowboy Bob Orton, and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, and Mr. T, “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka, and Hulk Hogan.
While Hogan and Mr. T ended up winning the match, Ali’s presence was considerable — as he even threw a couple of punches himself towards Piper! When it’s all said and done, this is yet another honor in the long, illustrious career of the famed boxer.
