Is Gretzky the most dominant athlete ever in any major sport?

[Uncle Rotter]

Usain Bolt has won the arguably four most prestige Olympic medals over the last two OG. In a sport who allows absolutely no margin of error. If he does the same in 2016 he will be at the top of 99% of lists of greatest athlete ever.

A couple more from track: Herb Elliott & David Rudisha

 

[FrozenJagrt]

The original post ignores a lot of sports that were or are more popular than hockey. The combat sports, for example. You have Sugar Ray Robinson who won over 100 fights by knockout, or Mike Tyson who was easily the most feared figure in the sport, a guy who was seemingly unstoppable until he made some poor life decisions and lost focus. Hell, there are accounts of fighters losing on purpose so they wouldn't have to face him. Or perhaps Roy Jones who won titles across FOUR weight divisions. Jack Dempsey enters the conversation as the original Mike Tyson, a man who unleashed the most savage beating ever seen in professional boxing against an opponent 5 inches and 60 pounds bigger. Jess Willard had never been knocked down in his career, and Dempsey knocked him down seven times in the first round, inflicting broken ribs, teeth, jaw and cheekbone in the process before going on to win the title from Willard who was physically unable to come out for the fourth round. I've watched that fight again and again and it's such a startling display of brutality. It was billed as a David versus Goliath fight, with Willard ending up looking a lot like David when the fight began despite being such a mountain.

Fedor Emelianenko was king of Pride Fighting for about a decade, Ken Shamrock who was branded the world's most dangerous man, Jon Jones who is dismantling everything put in front of him, Georges St Pierre who has beaten every big name in the division and has been called an unstoppable wrestler/takedown artist despite not having any real wrestling experience prior to entering MMA.

What about Tiger Woods? Don't tell me it isn't a major sport, golf is wildly popular all around the world (I personally hate it). 14 major championships, 78 PGA tour victories and 39 Euro victories before he even hit 40. That's absurd.

 

[BULKinen]

The original post ignores a lot of sports that were or are more popular than hockey. The combat sports, for example. You have Sugar Ray Robinson who won over 100 fights by knockout, or Mike Tyson who was easily the most feared figure in the sport, a guy who was seemingly unstoppable until he made some poor life decisions and lost focus. Hell, there are accounts of fighters losing on purpose so they wouldn't have to face him. Or perhaps Roy Jones who won titles across FOUR weight divisions. Jack Dempsey enters the conversation as the original Mike Tyson, a man who unleashed the most savage beating ever seen in professional boxing against an opponent 5 inches and 60 pounds bigger. Jess Willard had never been knocked down in his career, and Dempsey knocked him down seven times in the first round, inflicting broken ribs, teeth, jaw and cheekbone in the process before going on to win the title from Willard who was physically unable to come out for the fourth round. I've watched that fight again and again and it's such a startling display of brutality. It was billed as a David versus Goliath fight, with Willard ending up looking a lot like David when the fight began despite being such a mountain.

Fedor Emelianenko was king of Pride Fighting for about a decade, Ken Shamrock who was branded the world's most dangerous man, Jon Jones who is dismantling everything put in front of him, Georges St Pierre who has beaten every big name in the division and has been called an unstoppable wrestler/takedown artist despite not having any real wrestling experience prior to entering MMA.

What about Tiger Woods? Don't tell me it isn't a major sport, golf is wildly popular all around the world (I personally hate it). 14 major championships, 78 PGA tour victories and 39 Euro victories before he even hit 40. That's absurd.

If we're talking about boxing, Rocky Marciano has to be considered. He never lost a professional fight and retired undefeated. Every other HW champion, from Ali and Tyson to Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko, lost some fights.

 

[ted2019]

These apple and oranges sports comparisons are always tough, but since it's imperfect, here's another contender: Jim Brown.

During his NFL career, Brown rushed for 12,132 yards. The second place player in rushing yards during that era was the Packers Jim Taylor who rushed for 7502 yards whle playing on the era's dominant team.

That's only 61% of what Brown was able to accomplish. Naturally their respective team situations were far different as Brown was totally Cleveland's offensive focus, while Taylor had to share plays with other talented offensive players.

Still.

Jimmy Brown also had a 5.2 yards per carry and averaged 104.3 yards per game for His career. In 1963 Brown had in a 14 game season 1863 yards, 12 TD's and a 6.4 yards per carry and averaged 133.1 yards a game in an era in which everyone ran the ball.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

If we're talking about boxing, Rocky Marciano has to be considered. He never lost a professional fight and retired undefeated. Every other HW champion, from Ali and Tyson to Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko, lost some fights.

I'm a fan of Marciano, but his fight card is so watered down that he has not, does not and will never enter to conversation of say top ten pound for pound fighters (usually finishes just outside, still in the top 15). Marciano is remembered fondly not for his record, but more for his heart. He never really dominated.

This isn't to say he wasn't a tremendously talented fighter to go along with that heart, but really what does an undefeated record mean? Mayweather has never lost a fight and you'd have people laughing in the streets if you brought him into a conversation for most dominant. The fact with Rocky is that the best fighters he ever faced were on the wrong side of 30, often approaching 40. Guys like Moore and Walcott (who by all accounts embarrassed Rocky for most of their first fight at 38 years old) were great at one point, but really on the cusp of retirement by the time he got to them. It's generally agreed that Marciano fought in the second weakest boxing era of all time, the talent was virtually nonexistant.

As I said, I'm a fan. The guy was a pitbull with a never say die attitude who beat the snot out of much bigger men, but he is a victim not only of having faced the weakest competition he could possibly have faced, but also his fighting style. The fact is, Marciano wasn't the smartest of fighters. He'd basically duck his head, say "Show me what you got", then stand and trade for as long as it took, throwing exponentially more misses than hits in the process. I have no doubt that if he were in the age of boxing where he'd be facing guys like Ali and Frazier and Foreman and Liston, he would have had his fair share of losses given his lack of footwork, terrible accuracy and relatively poor in-ring IQ. Put him against a brilliant fighter with actual head movement and power/heart to match (Tyson or Ali) and it would have been a slaughter.

 

[Cruor]

Roger Federer: is the best tennisplayer ever, but it doesn´t show in statistics by how far (Sampras and others being quite close in Grand Slams for one...).

I wouldn't call them close in slams, one has 14 and the other has 17...that is a significant gap. Federer's dominance is better expressed in other terms though I agree, like his semi-final record at slams (24) or his total final apperance in slams, or his number of weeks at no 1. What can be said though is that Federer's legacy is marred by a massive miss-match in the form of Nadal and that no real grass season exists (together with surface homogenization). This fact alone makes it difficult to judge with other sports, Federer can't rely on anyone else but himself out there compared to team sports.

If we are to compare dominating tennis players though, context is crucial and let's take a look at Rafa and Federer:

Federer has 7 Wimbledon titles on grass, 9 on hard-court (AO and US Open) and 1 on clay. On the flipside Nadal has 8 out of his 12 titles on clay. Say what you will, but Nadal has lots to thank the long clay season.

 

[Cruor]

Some good names but I will post what I always post when this is discussed.

I also think that Donald Bradman, Michael Phelps, Edvin Moses and Sergei Bubka should be mentioned.

(if you are also considering major sports from the rest of the world)

For those that have no idea who he is, here is his professional OG, WC and EC record:

Olympic Games
Competitor for Soviet Union
Gold 1988 Seoul Super heavyweight
Gold 1992 Barcelona Super heavyweight
Competitor for Russia
Gold 1996 Atlanta Super heavyweight
Silver 2000 Sydney 97 – 130 kg

World Championships
Gold Martigny 1989 Up to 130 kg
Gold Ostia 1990 Up to 130 kg
Gold Varna 1991 Up to 130 kg
Gold Stockholm 1993 Up to 130 kg
Gold Tampere 1994 Up to 130 kg
Gold Prague 1995 Up to 130 kg
Gold Wroclaw 1997 Up to 130 kg
Gold Gävle 1998 Up to 130 kg
Gold Athens 1999 Up to 130 kg

European Championships
Gold Kolbotyn 1988 Up to 130 kg
Gold Oulu 1989 Up to 130 kg
Gold Poznań 1990 Up to 130 kg
Gold Aschaffenburg 1991 Up to 130 kg
Gold Copenhagen 1992 Up to 130 kg
Gold Istanbul 1993 Up to 130 kg
Gold Athens 1994 Up to 130 kg
Gold Besançon 1995 Up to 130 kg
Gold Budapest 1996 Up to 130 kg
Gold Minsk 1998 Up to 130 kg
Gold Sofia 1999 Up to 130 kg
Gold Moscow 2000 Up to 130 kg

 

[habsrule4eva3089]

Statistics wise there is no athlete in the history of sport that has or ever will come close to Sir Donald Bradman as posters have mentioned. Pure genius.

I think Gretzky compares to Sachin Tendulkar the most. Both incredibly once in a lifetime players who just had the greatest mind to play their respective sport.

 

[skillhockey]

Lionel messi and soccer is most competitive sport in the world

 

[blogofmike]

These apple and oranges sports comparisons are always tough, but since it's imperfect, here's another contender: Jim Brown.

During his NFL career, Brown rushed for 12,132 yards. The second place player in rushing yards during that era was the Packers Jim Taylor who rushed for 7502 yards whle playing on the era's dominant team.

That's only 61% of what Brown was able to accomplish. Naturally their respective team situations were far different as Brown was totally Cleveland's offensive focus, while Taylor had to share plays with other talented offensive players.

Still.

Brown also averaged a middling 60.25 yards per playoff game, with 1 TD in 4 games, while Taylor averaged over 70 per game, and over 80 before he turned 30. Taylor shared rushing attempts with Paul Hornung, who also averaged more than Brown (64.6).

Gretzky was just as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season.

 

[brianscot]

Here's where the apples and oranges start to kick in.

When you played the Cleveland Browns in the playoffs, you had to stop Jim Brown. When you played Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, et al; you also needed to prepare for Bart Starr, Max Mcgee, Boyd Dowler, and the beat goes on.

The Packers ended up putting three offensive linseman in the NFL hall of fame -- Ringo, Kramer, and Forrest Gregg. Cleveland really didn't begin to have a more diversified, dangerous, attack until later in Brown's career when they drafted Gary Collins and Paul Warfield.

 

[pluppe]

No denying Messi has a great team, built mostly for him. Kind of what Gretzky had most of the years in Edmonton. Would be interesting to see him on a lesser team. Kind of like Ronaldo (de lima, one of my favourite players ever) in PSV and Maradona in Napoli. And as everyone of these strikers and few more, along with a few midfielders, central defenders and sweepers could be argued the best or near best ever if their case is correctley presented. So I guess you really can´t say Messi dominated as other mentioned.



Karelin sure should be one of the first mentioned in this thread. Moses and Bubka is no arguing that they are clear number one in their sports. But ain´t Mark Spitz considered at least Phelps equal? I do not follow swimming closely, so could be wrong.

Haven´t really thougt about the female side, as Bubka was mentioned my first thougt was Yelena Isinbayeva. Navratilova? But there you have Graf near. Sörenstam? Wickenheiser? Flo-Jo, even if probably drugged?

I don't really think there is any case for Mark Spitz being close to Phelps since he has him beat in mostly everything and often greatly.

18 - 9 (olympic gold medals)
22 - 11 (olympic medals)
11 - 4 (individual olympic gold medals)
8 - 7 (most gold medals in single olympics)
7 - 3 (world swimmer of the year)
39 - 33 (world records)
22 - 0 (World Championship gold medals (note that Spitz retired at age 22 the year before the WC were started))

Mark Spitz's reputation is acctually "only" built on being the best freestyle and butterfly swimmer for 2 weeks in 1972. That olympics was awesome but put it like this. If they were both Irish and had the exact same achievements Mark Spits would be almost completely forgotten outside of Ireland and Phelps would still be the greatest olympian ever.

Mark also underperformed greately at his first olympics. Something Phelps has never done even though his career is much longer.

 

[Tyrus]

In Federer's case, while I think he is at least one of the best ever, he hasn't been as dominant as he needs to be to enter that conversation because Nadal has beaten him regularly. If Federer had continued his 2003-2006 trashing of opponents, he would certainly be up there, but he hasn't.

Oh please, prime Nadal is the best clay tennisman that ever played the sport and probably the best we'll ever see, but Federer is clearly the player with the biggest legacy and arguably the most talented one.

 

[1912]

 

[Morozov]

There's likely very few if any people on earth who can claim they judged these two with the eye test, but statistically I give it to Bradman for sure.

Cricket wasn't included in the OP but it should be, it's more "major" worldwide than baseball, hockey and football are. Of course when I say "football" I mean American Football since the OP said "football" and "soccer".

Cricket is the biggest sport worldwide after "soccer", the only other that may come close is Basketball.

Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport

The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket". In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game. The respective records are .366 and 30.1

There is no Orr or Mario to Bradman, there is no talk of "the next Bradman" there is no young guy that comes in that comparisons are ever drawn to, the possibility of anyone ever even sniffing Bradman's stats is unthinkable by anyone. He averaged 99.94 runs per innings, the next highest average is 60.97 and this was across only 22 tests/41 innings

Tendulkar is widely accepted as the second best batsman of all time, his average is 53.

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is credit an Australian as the most dominant athlete

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Lots of great names mentioned. With my USA background, I can't speak with any kind of authority on cricket... and certainly have some blind-spots with soccer, too. [Though the vibe I get from Messi is "on pace to be... will be in the discussion among" rather than a completed work.]

I'm fond of telling this story about Michael Jordan: when Phil Jackson took over for Doug Collins, he conducted inter-squad scrimmages and discovered that Jordan's team always won. No matter who his teammates were, they always won. It could be Cartwright+Pippen+Grant+Armstrong & another vs. Michael Jordan, a "6-fouls-to-give" hack-a-shacker & another three depth guys- and it was Jordan's team that won.

This is certainly no proof that Jordan tops the list... but it's an anecdote that I believe is entitled to a little place here.

 

[blamebettman*]

A car is not alive, and thus not an athlete.

If you're putting racey car drivers as dominant athletes then why not put the worlds best video game players in the list as well. Essentially all they do is sit and operate machinery

 

[leeroggy]

Let's add this athlete (see if you can name him):

While in high school:

Player of the year in his state
Wins state championships
Won a professional tournament in his sport WHILE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL

While in College:

Four-time All-American
Three NCAA titles
Player of the Year a couple of times
Graduates *** Laude with a Biochemistry degree!

After college:

Joins the US National Team
World Champion - 1982 (played every four years)
Olympic Gold - 1984
World Champion - 1986
Olympic Gold - 1988
Named the best in the world and awarded a new trophy created because of his dominance

Turns Pro:

Wins 148 tournament championships, first all-time at the time
Highest paid athlete in his sport
Wins a professional tournament AT AGE 45!

Returns to Olympics when they admit pros and wins a gold medal in 1996 at AGE 36!

Any guesses?

Think he belongs in this conversation?

 

[leeroggy]

Graduates *** Laude with a Biochemistry degree!

Hilarious that we can't quote an legitimate academic accomplishment!!

 

[BraveCanadian]

When you consider the fact that top hockey players have relatively less impact on their teams fortunes than top players in other sports:

Most likely Gretzky is the most dominant, yes. Year in and year out he just went to town.

In other sports players can have a bigger impact just by the nature of the game, though.

 

[BraveCanadian]

A car is not alive, and thus not an athlete.

If you're putting racey car drivers as dominant athletes then why not put the worlds best video game players in the list as well. Essentially all they do is sit and operate machinery

Not a fan of the race car drivers either to be honest. (not to say it is easy or anything)

Especially when, pretty obviously, the quality of the car has a big impact on their ability to perform.

 

[Pominville Knows]

A car is not alive, and thus not an athlete.

If you're putting racey car drivers as dominant athletes then why not put the worlds best video game players in the list as well. Essentially all they do is sit and operate machinery

Yeah, but i believe video gaming is actually more decisive than auto racing. Especially in F-1 the cars are not equally good so much will depend on luck and timing if getting into a good one.
The "sport" are to a high degree there only to promote brands and sell cars.

 

[Sentinel]

Lionel messi and soccer is most competitive sport in the world

I only hope Messi actually wins something when not on the all-world talent team.

Didn't we have this conversation recently about Gretzky vs. Jordan?

To me Gretzky is easily the most dominant athlete in his sport in history.

 

[member 51464]

leeroggy, I have to imagine that is a track athlete. Just throwing it out there...Carl Lewis?

Also, any boxers in the conversation?

What about a guy like Jim Thorpe?

 

[leeroggy]

leeroggy, I have to imagine that is a track athlete. Just throwing it out there...Carl Lewis?

Also, any boxers in the conversation?

What about a guy like Jim Thorpe?

Nope, not a track athlete, keep going . . .



Pretty good resume for this discussion though, isn't it?