Strong style

Strong style

New Japan Pro-Wrestling, headed by Antonio Inoki, used Inoki's "strong style" approach of wrestling as a combat sport, influenced strongly by the styles of catch wrestlers such as Lou Thesz, Karl Gotch, and Billy Robinson. Wrestlers incorporated kicks and strikes from martial arts disciplines, and a strong emphasis was placed on submission wrestling. Inoki became known for "different styles fights" which were predetermined matches against practitioners of various martial arts. This led to his real fight against Muhammad Ali in 1976 that was watched by an estimated 1.4 billion people worldwide. Many of New Japan's wrestlers, including top stars such as Seiji Sakaguchi, Tatsumi Fujinami, Akira Maeda, Satoru Sayama, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada, Masakatsu Funaki, Masahiro Chono, Shinya Hashimoto, Riki Choshu, Minoru Suzuki, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Keiji Mutoh, came from a legitimate martial arts background. This style led to the development of shoot wrestling and the spin-off Universal Wrestling Federation. Sayama developed and founded Shooto, a pioneer mixed martial arts organization, in 1985. That same year, Sayama's student Caesar Takeshi founded Shootboxing. Funaki, Suzuki, and others would found Pancrase and hold their first event two months before UFC 1. Maeda founded Fighting Network Rings in 1991 as a shoot-style promotion, which began transitioning to legitimate MMA competition in 1995. Takada was a co-founder of Pride Fighting Championships and Rizin Fighting Federation.