AJPW English Twitter – [Giant] Baba commented “Inoki is a quiet man but surprises me during practice because he shows extreme amount of fight. I will work hard too so that I won’t lose to Inoki.”
A casual conversation published in 1960, Inoki said “We’re always together and I want to keep this good relation”. Baba commented “Inoki is a quiet man but surprises me during practice because he shows extreme amount of fight. I will work hard too so that I won’t lose to Inoki.” pic.twitter.com/wn9JNjr2pZ
— AJPW International (@ajpwint) March 9, 2023
2 comments
Some other tweets
https://twitter.com/ajpwint/status/1632993335911800834
https://twitter.com/ajpwint/status/1633294761896583169
I think Inoki’s impact and legacy ended up being greater than Baba’s (it’s close tho, and Rikidozan still overshadows both), but during their primes and when they were together, Baba was always seen as being Inoki’s better, due to his size and his drawing power.
It wasn’t until about the late 70’s/early 80’s I wanna say, when Baba’s body was getting weaker and he has to slow down, that Inoki became the most popular in Japan.