Most dominant athlete of all time - Page 2

hahaha you people are so dumb, Messi and Federer? are you fucking serious?

And yeah obv Pele played in different times, history has to be accounted into it, no fucking athlete from the 50s would beat mediocre competition from today, Sugary Ray Robinson would have been easily knocked out by Tyson in the 1st round and Babe Ruth probably wouldnt even make it todays big leages so fucking what.

On November 24 2013 22:21 Endo wrote: Jahangir Khan. Undefeated for 10 years straight.

lol 555 squash straight wins... god damn

not that what im about to write is all that relevant in how the question was worded, but i cant get around it in answering.

in american football, we have a position called tight end, basically a receiver that is heavier and able to block as well as catch passes. one of the top 2 tight ends in the league is a guy named jimmy graham who played 4 years of college basketball at a good school. he was an ok player but nothing special, didnt stand out in college and had no way of making the pros. after his senior year of basketball he stayed at his university, took some grad classes and played one year of football. after that one year he was drafted by the NFL and is now a star in a very short period of time.

basically what im getting at is, if this guy was a failed basketball player yet a star in the NFL, how good would lebron james be doing the exact same thing? hes the same height, stronger, faster, better athlete.

with the exception of maybe basketball due to needing people of a certain physical stature, we dont know if some athlete exists in another sport that would be better suited for something else. in any sport there is danger of losing your best athletes to other sports. but in a 100m dash sprinting competition, we know who the fastest guys in the world are. everybody runs, and the fastest ones are dragged into track and pushed to the top. usain bolt is the best in the world and of anyone who has ever existed.


obviously this is one giant straw man argument, its not answering the question being asked, but i think its an important thing in general when these topics come up.

the real answer to the question is going to be someone who completely dominated a niche sport for a long period of time. i like karelin as an answer because its hard to imagine anyone being better suited for heavyweight wrestling than him. but im sure there are more dominant guys in things like darts, weight lifting, cricket, skateboarding, whatever

On November 24 2013 23:46 Daut wrote: usain bolt. if you pick some unpopular sport then you dont face any tough competition. and the major sports dont have anyone that dominant that really stands out. i mean MJ = Lebron and are either as "dominant" as wilt? best football player of all time? peyton? calvin johnson? who knows. best tennis player of all time has a lopsided losing record to a guy with 13 majors. hockey there is a consensus #1 but is he really head and shoulders ahead of lemeiux, orr, and todays players? babe ruth isnt that far ahead of ty cobb, ted williams, barry bonds. whereas usain bolt shatters records and is the fastest human being of all time. and its not even close. nobody in any other sport besides sprinting can break 10.0 in the 100m. from 1968 to 2007 the world record in the 100m dash dropped .21 seconds. from 2007 to bolt it dropped .16 and the guy is slowing up in races to showboat. if you want to define dominance as never losing, then bolt doesnt really qualify. but to me hes just so clearly the best of any human being that has ever existed at what he does and by such a wide margin. and in other sports you cant really say that for certain due to smaller samples or discrepancy

Yes, I agree, and this is the type of stuff I am thinking about when I make this thread. It's not just that Bolt is so fast, it's that the people behind him were so even. Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin, Asafa Powell and later Yohan Blake, they are all running 9.76, 9.75, 9.74, the 3 of them hoping to break the world record by 0.01 seconds. Then somebody runs 9.58 and completely smashes the world record. I'm sure all of them instantly knew they would never be able to match that, unless they chose to lie to themselves.

I find that fascinating. Not just the feat itself, but the fact that everyone else is at the same level except for this one freak. It's like the Nathan Hot Dog eating contest when you have all the "legends" with the goofy nicknames that are able to eat 20 hot dogs, and then Kobayashi comes along one year and eats 50. (Although we later find out that wasn't so impossible after all).

The only problem I have with the Bolt answer is that if you look at the 200m, Michael Johnson smashed the world record in '96, and he smashed it so hard that it wasn't beaten until Bolt came along. That record was so strong that a lot of people were even surprised when Bolt broke it, even though the 200m is Bolt's best race. So to me that feat by Michael Johnson just causes me to believe that maybe what Bolt did wasn't so unique and maybe his records won't stand for as long as we would think.

bo jackson. gg.

How the holy fuck is Bradman not even mentioned yet?? Statistically he easily leads his discipline way more than any other sportsman. Also Phil Taylor, though calling him an athlete is a little generous.

Since you guys prob don't know cricket... A batsman who averages in the 40s will have a nailed on place in his national team. The very sickest in history average in the mid 50s and no one is higher over a reasonable sample size. Except don Bradman who averaged 99.94.

And Phil Taylor has 17 world championships in darts.

Read a newspaper article recently on this subject and the reporter put this guy on top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Bubka

Sergey Bubka (Pole Vaulting)

On November 25 2013 00:11 Spitfiree wrote: Perhaps right about Federer in some aspects, he s obviously most dominant overall in tennis tho.

yeah routinely getting his ass whooped by Nadal even during his prime and never having won a true Grand Slam is more impressive than the complete domination Rod Laver had, riiiiiight ¬¬

On November 25 2013 01:23 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On November 24 2013 22:21 Endo wrote: Jahangir Khan. Undefeated for 10 years straight. lol 555 squash straight wins... god damn

lol ok this guy wins

In 1982, Jahangir astonished everyone by winning the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point.

Dan Kolov!!

First off, I wouldn't include any athlete that competed in team games, such as basketball, soccer, American football, hockey, etc.

Also, when you compare athletes in different eras, it gets difficult. For example, I consider Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the most dominant boxer of my era, while Joe Calzaghe might have been the most dominant boxer of his era. However, with sports like boxing, it gets even trickier with all of those weight classes. The Klitschko brothers are the most dominant heavyweights of their era, but their era is full of crappy heavyweight fighters.

Anyway, I like sports that are timed and/or have a point system, so people can really say who the best is/was over time. For example, we know who the best Donkey Kong arcade player of all-time is, and who the fastest runner of all-time is.

On November 25 2013 02:06 Oly wrote: Since you guys prob don't know cricket... A batsman who averages in the 40s will have a nailed on place in his national team. The very sickest in history average in the mid 50s and no one is higher over a reasonable sample size. Except don Bradman who averaged 99.94. And Phil Taylor has 17 world championships in darts.

ok, i change my answer to don Bradman.

from wiki 'Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is often cited as statistically the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport'

We could never know for sure who the greatest is, because the doping gets better every year. What we can do is split the field in 2 - competitions/sports where doping plays a major role and the other.

In the first category I don't see anyone who is even close to Bolt. 9.58 in 100m sprint is huge, I mean HUGE. This record will last for a very long time. And it will be a real challenge for the chemistry too. Bubka's record is a beast too, but man, this 9.58 will last.

In the category where doping doesn't play a major role I'd say my favorites are Loeb and Kolov.

bo jackson niggas. guy breaks baseball bats

On November 25 2013 02:31 player999 wrote: Show nested quote + On November 25 2013 01:23 Baalim wrote:   On November 24 2013 22:21 Endo wrote: Jahangir Khan. Undefeated for 10 years straight. lol 555 squash straight wins... god damn lol ok this guy wins   In 1982, Jahangir astonished everyone by winning the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point.

he must have come up with that super gay serve to the back corner next to wall and others didn't know how to do it a the time. I played with my friend and it was a total autoloss, because apparently in squash you keep your serve when you win the point

i was gonna go with bubka, but looks like jahangir khan wins so far.

You guys are all idiots. Phil Taylor obviously.

On November 25 2013 03:57 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Show nested quote + On November 25 2013 02:31 player999 wrote:   On November 25 2013 01:23 Baalim wrote:   On November 24 2013 22:21 Endo wrote: Jahangir Khan. Undefeated for 10 years straight. lol 555 squash straight wins... god damn lol ok this guy wins   In 1982, Jahangir astonished everyone by winning the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point. he must have come up with that super gay serve to the back corner next to wall and others didn't know how to do it a the time. I played with my friend and it was a total autoloss, because apparently in squash you keep your serve when you win the point

not really, that's just silly, he's playing vs pros not noobs like you

The hallmark of his play was his incredible fitness and stamina, which Rehmat Khan helped him build up through a punishing training and conditioning regime. Jahangir was quite simply the fittest player in the game, and would wear his opponents down through long rallies played at a furious pace.

Surprised nobody mentioned him... Micheal Phelps.

Most decorated Olympian of all the time, 22 medals and 18 gold ones (double the second place, according to Wikipedia).