| Game | Genre |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC2 |
 (Martial Arts) |
- |
★4 (314) |
★5 (360) |
★7 (360) |
- |
129
inokiHonoo no Fighter -Inoki Bomaye-
炎のファイター -猪木ボンバイエ-
--- New ---
| Game | Genre |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PTB |
 |
★2 (87) |
★4 (181) |
★6 (279) |
★8 (408) |
- |
129 inoki2Picking up from the 3rd-generation of arcades, a few select tunes from professional wresting have been adopted across the years -mostly select wrestler opening themes, like RAINMAKER- heading to arcades and eventually coming to consoles with time. The surprising thing, however, is that the very first wrestling-rooted tune in Taiko history hails aaalll the way back to the 2nd arcade release, in one pivotal track for both the Japanese martial arts scene as well as the worldwide boxing one.
The bombasticly-titled "Flame Fighter" was the entrance theme for former Japanese wrestler Muhammad Hussain Inoki, born Kanji Inoki (猪木寛至) and known in the ring as Antonio Inoki (アントニオ猪木), as a tribute to Italian wrestler Antonio Rocca. Honoo no Fighter is actually an arrangement of Ali Bombaye, an insert song from composer Micheal Masser for the 1977 biopic movie The Greatest, about professional wrestler Muhammad Ali's carreer and greatest matches filmed inbetween. The Inoki arrangement came to be due to a memorable match happening the year prior said biopic movie between Muhammad Ali and Antonio Inoki, commonly reguarded by fighting fanatics as a precedessor to mixed martial arts fighting in modern times. Out of respect towards the punch-flinging champion's prowess, the original song got arranged years later and geared with 'Inoki Bombaye' shouting (lit. "Inoki, Go For It"), a slight deformation of the iconic "Ali Boma Ye" (lit. "Ali, Kill Him") audience chanting from the boxer's historical Rumble in the Jungle match of 1973, against George Foreman. Outside of the ring and prior to Inoki's death in late 2022, the Japanese wrestler also joined Japan's House of Concilors for two separate mandates (1989-1995 and 2013-2019).
Sure, we've seen plenty of times a Gen1-available Taiko song with incomplete chart sets/shared notecharts/both scenarios being brought back in later years with all the perks of the generational gap coming with it -a modern chart set, an updated music source (still cover), new SongID, the works-... but never like before this very instance we've had to wait for such a long time for it! For the first time in franchise memory to date, more than 20 years have passed between a song's original debut and its next port into later Taiko games; for those keeping the score at home, we're talking about a time span of 8.384 days between Taiko 2's release and July 20th this year, the day of the Pop Tap Beat update that brought back this licensed tune from the franchise's early beginnings!
