That topic about best gamer of all time got me thinking about athletes.
Jim Thorpe Michael Jordan Pele
As many other great athletes as there are, I can't think of any arguments against any of these three guys. Each one dominated their own era in their own way, with the only exception being that Jordan kinda sucked at baseball...but made up for it by being complete god-mode in basketball.
And yes I know, this doesn't include the last 10 years...but let's face it, we'll need a few years of perspective before trying to consider guys like Peyton Manning, Lionel Messi, etc.
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My opinion is that if you include Ali, you have to include Joe Frazier too. No matter how much the popular media has tried to slant the rivalry in Ali's favor because he was such a selling point, anyone who thinks Ali was a significantly better boxer than Frazier has had the wool pulled over their eyes. There's a reason it's considered the most compelling individual-sports rivalry in American history; if Ali was that much better, it wouldn't have been so compelling.
And honestly, if any boxer is going to be included, it has to be either Rocky Marciano or Manny Pacquiao (which might actually happen if he gets to fight Floyd Mayweather in the next 2 years).
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I would go Jordan/Thorpe/Ali, I think. HM to Gretzky and Pele. I have a hard time backing Ruth given his fitness.
the answer changes depending on the criteria. if this is "best athlete at their sport relative to the competition", you get a different answer than the most athletic guy to have existed. tough to argue Gretzky over Usain Bolt, for example.
there are too many great athletes from a variety of different sports to make an objective top 3
sure you can post your favorites, but there's no way to objectively compare all the best athletes and find three that are clearly better than the rest. There are too many extremely good, extremely dominant athletes that many of you guys (and myself) have never heard about.
From: PartOfYourWorld | #004 Pele - the "greatest player in the world's most popular sport" guy
Maradona > Pele imo
I hate the little drugged-up c*** but he pretty much won the World Cup in 1986 single-handedly (literally). Pele was a phenomenal player in a phenomenal team. Maradona is also proven in Europe, whereas Pele spent the majority of his dometic career in Brazil - not a bad league by any stretch of the imagination, but still not up to the standard of European leagues. Napoli have only ever won the Italian league twice, and that was driven to a large degree by Maradona.
Any three of Maradona (or Pele I guess, it's still arguable)/Laver/Bradman/Gretsky/Ali is a good bet. Hold a gun to my head and I'd probably say Bradman/Gretsky/Ali.
I know a lot of boxing aficionados say Ali wasn't the best boxer ever, but I don't know, does Ali have indisputably, tangibly inferior results? Ali certainly transcended the sport far more than Robinson did.
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Robinson is pretty much the blueprint for everything after.
Hell Robinson has only 19 losses in 200 fights and we all know what happenedin Ali's last "big" fight, sure he was past his prime against Holmes but he still got killed just like how Sugar Ray was past his prime in his last fights.
But when the top top top guys like Ali, Joe Louis AND Sugar Ray Leonard say you're better then its kinda hard to argue against that.
Heck for teamsports its even harder, I mean Argentina's D kinda had to be top notch for Maradona to be allowed to run wild like that.
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Hard to argue with Jordan for me. Guy just... was unstoppable. Like he was perhaps not the most talented or ever truly dominating game to game but he just was a monstrous and awesome force to watch on the court.
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But ask people if they've heard of Louis and if they've heard of Ali, more people will have heard of Ali, no? Ask somebody who said "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" and people will know that is Ali, no? People will use that quote without even necessarily knowing who said it, even.
I'm not sure there's any athlete with as much cultural impact as Ali, and certainly no other boxer.
Robinson may well be a technically superior boxer to Ali, but Ali's probably close enough for it to be in debate and Ali's transcendence of the sport puts him over the top for me.
Bradman is there on stats alone; like yoblazer (an American) said earlier, he is the "stats" guy.
And it's not "most popular" or "better known" at all. That's a gross oversimplification.
There has to be a combination. There are very few who can really combine being an amazingly watchable personality that transcends their sport, draws new fans to the sport maybe, being the man everybody wants to see - while still having the stats etc to be in the argument. Ali may well be a technically inferior boxer to Robinson but if it is in debate, then what Ali did for boxing puts him over the top.
Bradman didn't have that transcendence or personality (as much, he was still a pretty eccentric genius if some stories about him are to be believed) but his raw stats are so insane, he's practically there by default. It is a similar story with Gretsky if memory serves.
There's a reason Ali is considered in GoaT arguments far more than Robinson or anybody else in boxing. I mean there are still those that consider Ali to be the best ever on a purely technical basis - TheRock and I had this exact conversation just a few days ago, in fact. The fact that a bunch of Robinson's contemporaries said nice stuff about him doesn't really settle that argument. But for me when you add on Ali's cultural impact, yeah, he's more fitting of the "GoaT" title.
Hell - you could even say that Robinson is the best boxer, but Ali is the better representative of Boxing in a GoaT argument, though that's probably overcomplicating things.
Fun fact: Wayne Gretzky has the most career goals in NHL history at 894. That's 93 more than #2 Gordie Howe (801), and 153 better than #3 Brett Hull (741).
Gretzky also leads the career points totals (points = goals + assists), with 2857 career points, 970 better than #2 Mark Messier (1887).
That means that if you took away every goal that Gretzky ever scored, he would still have more points than any other player in history.
That always blows my mind.
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yeah, Gretzky has the numbers for sure. I just don't see him as being in the mold of a best athlete. he's in the Tiger Woods class of 'really good at their sport but not really what I think of when I think of an athlete'.
I actually think Bonds is a good candidate if you're going to go that route. I know everyone will lol steroids him into the ground but he was so dominant in a crowd of people who were doing the same thing that I find it totally impressive. no one had the numbers that he did - Ruth included.
baseball is so individual that one player can't really be held accountable for that stuff, I think. not like you can in football or basketball or hockey. it's not like Bonds didn't kill it in that Angels world series.
From: voltch | #035 I know, its still an argument people love to use though, I mean really how many sports are there where you can win a title with just one guy?
All individual sports!
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Can't really think of a World Cup/Champions League winning side that relied on just the one megastar.
You'll have to fill me in on your american titles.
The closest you can get is American basketball (NBA). And even then, the only players i can think of who fit that bill were guys like George Mikan who played in the 50's/60's. Not even Michael Jordan could win the NBA title by himself when the rest of the Bulls sucked, even though he tore up some really good teams in the playoffs. Interestingly enough, you could say that this previous year's NBA champs (Mavericks) had just one megastar (Nowitzki), but they didn't win by relying just on him; they played super-smart team defense and had a deep, veteran roster.
Actually, the closest I can think of right now is Peyton Manning for the Colts. They won the NFL title just a few years ago, and this year he had season-ending surgery before the season started and the Colts went 2-14. I know plenty of other things happened in between, but I think the argument could be made that Manning is the most "indispensable" player in American team sports.
That said...no, there aren't any sports anymore where a single megastar
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From: XIII_rocks | #040 Can't really think of a World Cup/Champions League winning side that relied on just the one megastar.
Like I said, Maradona 86 would probably be the key example of this. Beyond him it's one of the worst WC-winning sides.
I mean the other players did things, but that team is practically nothing without him
Argentina only allowed 5 goals the entire tournament, 2 of them coming in the final match against West Germany. While Maradona is an exceptional player, it's hardly fair to call his team one of the "worst" WC-winning sides when they only allowed 5 goals in 7 matches (3 in 6, prior to the final game). So unless Maradona tracked back on every play to a central defending position, it would be more fair to say that Maradona was the most important contributor to Argentina's offense. 5 goals allowed in the entire WC tournament is probably not the record, but it's a very good defensive showing nonetheless.
That being said, I think it's reasonable to put him above Pele on the grounds that Maradona was more important to his team, because that is absolutely true.
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Can't really think of a World Cup/Champions League winning side that relied on just the one megastar.
You'll have to fill me in on your american titles.
The closest you can get is American basketball (NBA). And even then, the only players i can think of who fit that bill were guys like George Mikan who played in the 50's/60's. Not even Michael Jordan could win the NBA title by himself when the rest of the Bulls sucked, even though he tore up some really good teams in the playoffs. Interestingly enough, you could say that this previous year's NBA champs (Mavericks) had just one megastar (Nowitzki), but they didn't win by relying just on him; they played super-smart team defense and had a deep, veteran roster.
Actually, the closest I can think of right now is Peyton Manning for the Colts. They won the NFL title just a few years ago, and this year he had season-ending surgery before the season started and the Colts went 2-14. I know plenty of other things happened in between, but I think the argument could be made that Manning is the most "indispensable" player in American team sports.
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That's not impressive. Spain conceded no goals in the knockout rounds in 2010 and only 2 overall, Italy conceded twice in 2006, Brazil conceded thrice in 2002, France conceded thrice in 98. Couldn't be bothered going further back than that but conceding 5 in 7 is not particularly impressive. Their defence was not that good. If anything previous WCs indicate they won inspite of a relatively leaky defence, rather than because of it.
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When people say "did it on his own" it's obviously an exaggeration. It's just a way of saying there is one superstar player who far exceeds his team-mates. Man Utd got the "one-man team" jibe a lot in 08-ish, Arsenal got it with Henry and are getting it now with Van Persie, Liverpool got it with Gerrard.
It's obvious to everybody that the other players bring something, but I think Argentina's success in 86 can be attributed largely to Maradona.
No, of course he doesn't. Does Ronaldo win the CL with West Brom (ignoring the fact that they weren't in it)? No, of course he doesn't.
But Argentina don't win the world cup without Maradona, and they probably don't even get past the second round, and certainly not the quarters. They could survive the loss of any other player, though.