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SIX OCCASIONS WHEN WRESTLERS FOUGHT OPPONENTS FROM OTHER SPORTS

Six occasions when Wrestlers fought opponents from other sports

With the eagerly anticipated clash between Floyd Mayweather and MMA star Conor McGregor upon us, fans are already wondering whether they’ll get to see anything more than a couple of A-Listers waltzing around a ring for a prolonged period... With something like £500 million up for grabs you’d like to think it will be a bit more than just a dance contest, but history shows these types of events generally fail to reach the heights of expectation and tend to leave the paying public wondering exactly what they’ve just witnessed...

Here we look at six of the most underwhelming contests when Wrestlers met opponents from a different sport.

1) Floyd Mayweather v The Big Show

Who knew that Floyd Mayweather had been through this Boxer v Wrestler shenanigans previously? Labelled as ‘The Biggest vs The Best’, wrestler The Big Show lined up with a 16 inch height advantage over Mayweather but it was the little man who took the honours in an entertaining 2008 clash. It wasn’t all good news for Mayweather however, he was reportedly left majorly short changed on the €20 million he was expecting for this ludicrous clash. He’ll be hoping that’s not the case after his showdown with Conor McGregor and at the time of writing on 13/07/2017 he is 1/6 favourite with betting sites to outperform the Irish UFC man.

2) Antonio Inoki v Mohammad Ali

One is arguably the greatest Japanese wrestler of all time and one is arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Seemingly not satisfied with the vast amounts of money they’d each already racked up, it was decided they would have a showdown between the two sports in Tokyo on June 26th 1976. Allegedly, Inoki thought that his mixed martial art was the strongest of them all and since he had already beaten a top judo fighter, beating a boxer was the next step on his way to proving this. As it happens, Ali threw just 12 punches throughout the contest and basically spent the whole time trying to avoid constant attacks to his legs by Inoki’s floor kicks. 15 rounds later it was called a draw and they pocketed about €9 million between them. It was just a year after Ali had beaten Joe Frasier in ‘The Thrilla in Manila’ and safe to say one of the great man’s more embarrassing chapters of his career.

3) Andre The Giant v Chuck Wepner

As part of the undercard that night in Tokyo, legendary wrestler and star of cult movie, The Princess Bride, Andre The Giant, took to the ring to take on Chuck Wepner who had had a pretty decent boxing career himself and was the guy who the Rocky films were based on. The crowd didn’t have to sit through fifteen rounds this time and after just three rounds Andre The Giant had chucked his opponent out of the ring in a lopsided contest.

4) Rocky Balboa v Thunderlips

It may have been a fictional battle, created for the big screen (unlike WWE of course...), but boy did it cause a stir. In fact it’s still credited as being the catalyst for wrestling as we know it today. One thing it certainly did is catapult Hulk Hogan towards global stardom. He played the audatious Thunderlips in the third Rocky film and the phenomenon of Hulkmania followed soon after.

5) Butterbean v Mark Mero

The first of two entries for the notoriously out of shape, Butterbean, who certainly looked enough like a wrestler to make a successful splash in the sport. It was 1997 when Eric Esch (his real name) squared up to wrestler Mark Mero but it didn’t last long. It all came to an end when the notoriously fiery Mero was disqualified for a low blow.

6) Butterbean v Bart Gunn

Two years later, in 1999, Butterbean returned to the WWE but this time to face Bart Gunn, a qualified electrician, and it took the man-mountain boxer just 35 seconds to spark Gunn out cold with a classic haymaker. It was to be Bart Gunn’s last appearance in WWE and it was back to earth wires and circuit boards for the man from Titusville Florida.

Sources & References:

1. Betway Sports: Boxing Odds & Favourites

2. WWE Wrestling: MMA's first big fight: Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki

3. IMDB Movies: Rocky III: Stallone vs Hogan

4. Boxing Records: Eric Esch (Butterbean)

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