Antonio Inoki Retirement Match
Antonio Inoki (4'09" ground cobra [abdominal stretch on the grond]) Don Frye
I.W.G.P. Heavyweight Title Match
Tatsumi Fujinami (21'18" german suplex hold) Kensuke Sasaki
I.W.G.P. Tag Team Title Match
Masahiro Chono & Keiji Mutoh 1-0 Shin'ya Hashimoto & Osamu Nishimura
Chono (18'27" chicken wing) Nishimura
I.W.G.P. Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Jushin Thunder Liger (15'28" pin) Kendo Ka Shin
THE FINAL INOKI TOURNAMENT: final
Don Frye (5'0" TKO) Naoya Ogawa
Shinjiro Ohtani (12'10" dragon suplex hold) Yuji Yasuraoka
Tatsuhito Takaiwa (17'05" pin) Kouji Kanemoto
Shiro Koshinaka, Tatsutoshi Goto, & Michiyoshi Ohara 1-0 Junji Hirata, Kazuo Yamazaki, & Tadao Yasuda
Koshinaka (9'26" pin) Yasuda
Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima 1-0 Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito
Nakanishi (12'04" high-jack back breaker) Saito
THE FINAL INOKI TOURNAMENT: semi-final
Don Frye (3'57" KO) Igor Meindart
Naoya Ogawa (3'30" cross arm scissors) Brian Johnston
Tokyo Dome
I had arrived at the Dome by noon. I was thinking about buying merchandises before many people arrive, but more than that, I just couldn't sit down and relax at home.
Although the card wasn't to start until 4pm, the tickets were already sold out as a lot of people were around the Dome. To get 1,500 tickets in the standing section, there were 300 people who waited at the Dome over night. The crowd was 70,000, which was a new record for both Tokyo Dome and any fighting sport events in Japan. After the card, I was lining up to leave the Dome, Hidekazu Tanaka (ring announcer) told us that they actually put more than 70,000 people but want to keep it secret because it was illegal to have more people in the building.
After buying the merchandises, I looked in the Yamashita Bookstore. I saw Inoki everywhere in the store. After buying the related books, I sat down at the park in front of the Dome until the appointment at 3pm to meet my friends.
The Card Starts
The Entrance
Retirement Match
The bell of the destiny was rang at 8:26pm. Frye starts giving punches. Inoki gives a suddent front rolling kick. They go into the ground moves after Frye's suplex.
Inoki has advantage over Frye when it comes to the mat wrestling.
Inoki easily reverses Frye's heel hold with a same hold. Fyre, in panic, escapes to the rope. After reversing Inoki's vicious sleeper hold, Frye gets on a mount position for punches. However, Inoki reverses for the mount position to gve punches to Frye. When they were about to getting apart, Inoki throws a vicious kick into Frye's face.
Frye stands up, and then, Inoki immediately gives him an enzuigiri and bow-pulling straight punches. Around this time, the exciement of "the past" came back. At 4'09", Inoki put a cobra twist (abdominal stretch) into the ground to make Frye give up. Cobra twist was a finishing move in Inoki's younger days. It is in fact effective enough for a finisher.
Retirement Ceremony
Future
Open Sparring
Antonio Inoki vs. Nobuaki Kakuta
Naoya Ogawa (5'15" cross arm scissors) Dave Beneteau
Don Frye (5'11" KO) Kazuo Yamazaki
Brian Johnston (7'49" TKO) Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Igor Meindart (6'33" KO) Kazuyuki Fujita
1997/12/27 Report on Inoki's retirement
Television and newspapers reported Inoki's retirement. The following is an article from Tokyo Sports Newspaper:
At this point, the articles said that Inoki's retirement seemed to be finalized, but they were not the official announcement from Inoki's side.
I myself was already ready for Inoki's retirement and thought the time has come.
I knew I couldn't expect the good fight like the past, and whether being in the ring or not, Inoki was always Inoki to me. Whatever Inoki does, it gives us a dream, and I will continue to support Inoki anyway.
To see Inoki in the ring today, I had a mixed emotion with pleasure and loneliness, but the pleasure was bigger after all. However, everything has the beginning and end. If Inoki is preparing the occasion to show his apprecation to the fans, nothing is more thankful. This is my oponion on Inoki's retirement.
Complete speech of Inoki
"My retirement and Choshu's have been reversed. This year is important for both New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Japan's martial arts culture to expand to the world. In such situation, I will have my last Count Down. On April 4th, I will have the last match here at Tokyo Dome.
Please look forward to it. I would like to announce that to everybody here today.
I would like to show you a beautiful ending on April 4th here. I'll take challenge from anybody anytime. I would like to say that until the end."