 Siding with Antonio Inoki and his faction of fighters opposed to NJPW, he was expected to debut as an active wrestler in August, teaming up with Kazuyuki Fujita and his allies.However, for unknown reasons, this never came to fruition, and he eventually remained in a non-wrestling role.The same year, Ismail also proposed aggressively a rematch with Royce Gracie under mixed martial arts rules, criticizing Gracie as a "fake fighter."