Muhammad Ali will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2024, the promo revealed Monday early morning.
The event will occur April 5 throughout WrestleMania 40 weekend in Philadelphia.
Ali passed away in June 2016 at the age of 74.
A sporting icon whose impact covered the world, Ali was the unique visitor referee in the primary occasion of the very first WrestleMania, a tag-tag match including Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff.
Ali, among the all-time terrific fighters, provided a right-hand man to Piper’s chin, among lots of enduring minutes the heavyweight champ developed at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
That wasn’t Ali’s only venture into sports home entertainment. In June 1976, Ali dealt with Japanese legend Antonio Inoki in the “War of the Worlds” exhibit match in Tokyo.
Ali-Inoki was a critical occasion that’s still commemorated today; the mixed-rules match is credited as a precursor to the surge of MMA. In front of 32,000 viewers, Ali-Inoki was ruled a 15-round draw. It was likewise relayed by means of closed-circuit to roughly 33,000 individuals at Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets at the time.
All these years later on, Ali will sign up with Inoki in the WWE Hall of Fame. In 1990, Ali got in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in its launching class. He won the heavyweight champion 3 times, most especially in a sixth-round TKO success over Sonny Liston in 1964 and an eighth-round KO of George Foreman in 1974.
Both were upset triumphes for Ali in bouts called “Fight of the Year” by Ring Magazine. Ali won an Olympic gold medal in 1960.
