(NOAH) "I wanted you to say "Idiot" Keiji Mutoh mourns Inoki at his retirement event in February next year

7th October 2022

Nikkansports.com

Keiji Mutoh (59) who was a prop of "The Three Musketeers" during the New Japan Pro Wrestling era, remembered his master Antonio Inoki, who died of heart failure on October 1st at the age of 79. At the ceremony held before the start of the first match, he entered the ring with a portrait of the deceased and with the spectators and athletes bid farewell with a memorial ten count. Backstage he said, "Inoki was always fighting". 

Mutoh entered All Japan in 1984. His teacher, Inoki, had high expectations for him, and he became a pillar of the "Three Musketeers", who carried on his will. However, he began to tell me that, "Frankly, I jumped from Inoki about twenty years ago, so I am a bit farther away from most people..." Still, when he mentioned that he invited Inoki to the "Pro Wrestling Masters" that he presided over in February 2020, and his thoughts overflowed. "I really wanted to get Inoki into the ring, so I went to make a request and got a good reply right away." Mutoh said earnestly, "In the end, I think the Masters was a really good event."

It is said that what Inoki taught him was to have an unconventional attitude. 

"I don't really like conventional attitudes anyway and in a way I have similar sensibilities. I don't know how to convey what I learned from Inoki as I raise people, but I'm trying my best to teach them. If you don't do it that way, the teachings will gradually degenerate". He vowed to inherit Inoki-ism. 

Mutoh has announced his retirement in February next year, and he regrets that Inoki will not be able to come to the event at The Tokyo Dome. He thought about his teacher in heaven and said, "If you ask me what I want, I want him to come and watch at The Dome on February 21st. I want him to say "You still have a long way to go" and "Idiot*", even if it was just to the monitor. I have never been complimented. I was always told I had a long way to go..."

Translated from Nikkan Sports.com

Picture credit: Nikkan Sports.com

NOTES

Idiot: Similar to Baba, whose favorite exclamation appeared to be "Fool!". One of his last words was when Referee Kyohei Wada told him that Toshiaki Kawada had been injured, Baba said "Fool! What did he do?"