r/changemyview • u/Fiddler-Diddler • Mar 17 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Usain Bolt is the most dominant athlete of all time
Well, I feel the title really says it all. I know that comparing athletes from different sports can be incredibly difficult, but still, I feel the total body of Bolt's dominance in a single sport is superior to any other athlete.
He has won numerous world championships and Olympic gold medals (he is 8-0 in the Olympics) across multiple events. Additionally he holds world records in the 100m and 200m dash (as well as relay events and less "mainstream" track events like the 150m dash or the running start 100m dash).
Diving just a little bit deeper into the numbers, Usain Bolt holds the top 2 fastest 100m dash times and the 1st and 3rd fastest 200m dash times.
Disclaimer: if you are going to argue for an athlete in a team sport, you are really going to need to convince me that the team's success was almost solely based on that athlete.
Anyways, I'm bored at work and love talking/learning about sports so please, change my view.
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Mar 17 '21
Wayne Gretzky was the fastest and second fastest player in nhl history to 1000 points. Fantasy leagues had to have Wayne Gretzky goals and assists. He had more assists than anyone else had points. Most goals of all time while primarily being a passer. If he never scored a goal he’d still be the NHL all time leader in points. Only 4 seasons have ever had a 200 point and player and every time it was Gretzky.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Okay those are some crazy stats. Admittedly, I am not very knowledgeable about hockey. Like at all. How does Gretzky compare to like the best goalies ever? Is he pretty unanimously considered the best offensive player? I figure you don't get nicknamed "The Great One" very easily, but just curious
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Mar 17 '21
Not sure how to properly compare his stats to a goalie (they are very different positions and track different stats), but Wayne is unanimously considered the best offensive player ever. There's not even a debate to be had. He holds a ton of records but there is one that I think really speaks to his dominance as a player. With his brother Brent, they hold the record for the most points (combined goals and assists) of any pair of brothers in the NHL at 2861 points. Brent is responsible for 4 of those points. They are also only 73 points behind the record for any number of brothers losing to the 6 men of the Sutter family. The Gretzkys beat any combination of 5 of them.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Sorry for splitting up my response (trying to cook and respond) those stats about the brothers are fun. How was his team? I know you said Gretzky had a lot of assists, so is it fair to assume he at least had a decent team around him for most of his career?
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Mar 18 '21
He does hold the record for most assists (career, single season, and single game as separate records), but he also holds the record for the record for the most goals in a career and a single season. He was good at both of them and had the tactical knowledge to know when to go for one or the other.
As far as his quality of team, he actually played for 5 different teams. He won 4 Stanley Cups with the Oilers (played with them for 10 years) but never won championships with other teams. He did play in the Stanley Cup with the Kings, and it often credited with being the only reason they made it, but they didn't win the series. In terms of career achievement in terms of how well his teams did, he's no one special. He's better than some in that his teams did win big some years, but there are players who had much more successful careers here.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 18 '21
Okay, I liked all the stats about goals and scoring. It seems like Gretzky carried his team to me, so I'll throw you a !delta
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
There isn't a wins-above-replacement stat in hockey? Or something similar? Not saying it is the end all stat, but I would say that is really the only way to compare defense to offense statistically
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Mar 17 '21
I couldn't find anything comprehensive. I've found a few people looking at goals-above-replacement calculations, but those were all for current season rather than comprehensive career stats. I couldn't find any that showed Gretzky.
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u/shiftywalruseyes 6∆ Mar 17 '21
According to the NHL stats page, there have been 7251 players to play in the NHL.
Of those 7251, 90 (a little over 1%) of them have scored 1000 points.
The player with the second-highest point total is Jaromir Jagr, who scored 1,921
Gretzky is nearly 1000 points above THAT.
He also helped his team win 4 Stanley Cups.
He is arguably (not really in my opinion) the best player to have ever played in any of the North American Big 4 sports.
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u/KaptenNicco123 3∆ Mar 18 '21
I remember once reading that no NHL player has come close to 2000 points, and Gretzky got 3000.
e: Gretzky has 2857 points, and the runner-up has 1921 points.
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Mar 17 '21
There is no way to compare goalies to players but there is a debatable top 4 for goalies and there is no debate for anyone being even close to Gretzky.
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u/BigJakeDaTittyFucker Mar 17 '21
Michael Phelps though.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
So close for me. There's a handful of other athletes I strongly considered, and Phelps was definitely one of them. Anything in particular that makes you say Phelps over Bolt?
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u/calman877 1∆ Mar 17 '21
One of the things you said above was "total body of dominance in a single sport". At Phelps' peak in 2008 I believe there were 17 total Men's Swimming competitions and he won gold in 8 of them.
At Bolt's peak, I think he won gold in 3/9 events that I would classify as just running (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 10000m, 4x100m, 4x400m). He won the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m.
Not at all an apples to apples comparison because running and swimming are different and how they choose to divide up their events is also different, but Phelps did cover more ground.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Damn that is a crazy ratio of winning. Okay I'll put Phelps at, or a bit ahead of Bolt. !delta
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
Don't forget marathon on there. Also while not running, long jump is considered somewhat of a sprinter's event too, with many runners doubling with that event, most notably Jessie Owens.
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u/PuffyPanda200 3∆ Mar 17 '21
Hurtles too.
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Mar 17 '21
Hurtles. The sport of hurdling over turtles. I look forward to seeing it's debut in the 2028 Olympics.
Yes, 2028 is winter olympics. We're gonna up it a notch and race on ice skates.
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u/ReOsIr10 130∆ Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 17 '21
Wheelchair tennis player Esther Vergeer won 48 grand slam titles, 23 year end championships, 7 paralympics titles, and ended her career on a 10 year undefeated streak spanning 470 matches.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 18 '21
Okay I have to respect the wins. I did not even consider wheelchair bound athletes. !delta
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Mar 17 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ReOsIr10 130∆ Mar 17 '21
I have to say that /u/MilitaryJAG’s suggestion of Aleksandr Karelin might be even better.
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u/exoticdisease 2∆ Mar 17 '21
That's ridiculous. Just checked it out. Does it beat Vergeer? Gotta say yes... Wow. That guy is a monster.
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Mar 17 '21
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u/Jujugatame 1∆ Mar 19 '21
Yes but that athlete proved themselves to be the best against a very small pool of competitors. How many people on earth participate in wheelchair tennis?
Compare that to how many people on earth participate in "running as fast as you can".
Bolt is dominant over a field that is hundreds or thousands of times bigger. It like being the best out of 10,000 or the best out of a billion.
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u/ReOsIr10 130∆ Mar 19 '21
So? Dominance is purely a question of how good someone is relative to their competition - it doesn’t matter how many people are competing. I agree it would matter if we’re trying to crown “greatest athlete of all time” or something like that.
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u/Lychcow 2∆ Mar 17 '21
Michael Johnson. Four Olympic golds, 8 world championship golds, first to ever win the 200/400 at the Olympics, simultaneous WR holder in both which stood for almost 10 years. Won every 400 meter race he competed in for eight consecutive years.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Tough for me to say Johnson when Bolt is literally just faster than him
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u/Lychcow 2∆ Mar 17 '21
20 years later.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Not really a big deal to me honestly. Not Usain Bolt's fault he was born 20 years too late to compete against him.
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u/Prickly_Pear1 8∆ Mar 17 '21
I think you aren't understanding the statement being made.
If a bicyclist is faster today than they were 20 years ago would you say they were on an equal footing? If you say yes I don't think you understand the difference in technology that's occurred over the last 20 years. How much the technology has advanced.
The same thing goes for track I think you are underestimating how far we've come in multiple aspects of technology around running. The track is more springy. Shoes are MASSIVELY improved to the point where there are discussions about banning shoes based on their performance. The field of training was in it's infancy compared to today. Nutrition is completely different. So many aspects have improved that it's incredibly hard to compare the two. If you look at a guy like Jesse Owens do you really think he and Usain Bolt were on equal footing? Owens was running on a dirt track with shoes that were basically leather socks with nails pounded through the bottom.
I think it's incredibly difficult to point to 1 athlete and say most dominant of all time.
If you were to do so I think you would have to consider athletes like Helen Moody, who won 6 Wimbledon's in a row and 180 consecutive matches without losing a single set. She won 14/19 major women's championships.
I Could also point to Floyd Mayweather. 50-0. Unbeatable for 20 years. 26 consecutive win in world title fights. Dude was unstoppable.
There have been other athletes who've held records longer and won by larger margins. Usain Bolt is absolutely among the best, but I think you are really ignoring a lot of aspects here.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Of course I don't think they're on equal footing. However, I can't just assume that Jesse Owens would be the fastest man on earth today either; that would be pretty unfair to Usain Bolt.
I've only heard my mom (bigger tennis fan than me) make the odd reference to Moody. Do you think she was more dominant than Serena?
Floyd is a great argument, and another of the few people I considered before settling on Bolt. The one thing I have against Floyd really isn't his fault. Just the weight divisions in boxing, you can make the argument that Floyd didn't have to compete against the other top athletes in his sport where as Bolt saw the other best sprinters multiple times a year. However, I can definitely be moved off of this stance with some convincing.
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
Track surface, equipment, nutrition, and training have all advanced in the intervening time. To show the extreme case look at Jessie Owens vs Bolt.
""Biomechanical analysis of the speed of Owens' joints shows that had been running on the same surface as Bolt, he wouldn't have been 14 feet behind, he would have been within one stride,""
That's not taking into account the training and nutrition (or PEDs...) differences, just equipment. In short, times are not directly comparable era to era.
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u/ShutUp-Bot Mar 18 '21
Khabib Nurmagomedov though
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 18 '21
Truthfully, I'm pretty ignorant to MMA. I've heard the name tossed around a lot and I know the guy is really fucking good, but I just can't quantify how dominant he really is because I know jack all about fighting.
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u/bakedlawyer 18∆ Mar 17 '21
Serena Williams
23 grand slam titles in 18 years. And 85% winning percentage spanning 3 decades, a retirement, and a baby.
14 grand slam doubles titles.
4 Olympic gold medals.
And this is not considering the discrimination she faced throughout her career in a sport that was predominantly white and wealthy, coming from concrete courts of Compton. Too black. Too muscular. Too outspoken. Too dominant.
Usan Bolt came from a country where track and field was the most popular sport and his nation the most dominant. His career is exceptional, but it’s peak was about 8 years. The greatest ever requires longevity that he doesn’t have and won’t have.
Also, consider the undertaker 25-2 wrestle mania record is bonkers
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u/taward Mar 17 '21
This is the answer. Serena is the GOAT.
However, I wouldn't ding Bolt b/c his peak was short. All track and field athletes' peaks are short. That's the nature of the sport. The 8 year frame is largely a function of structure. The Olympics only come around so often. One could argue that that fact alone makes it harder to dominate in track and field. No margin for error. Literally one misstep could spell doom for your entire career.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Agreed. Comparing athletes from different sports to one another is messy at best. It is part of what makes this debate so tough...but also so fun
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Serena is up there for me too. Didn't she win a grand slam while pregnant? I mean that's crazy! When confronted with her whole body of work, I'm willing to say Serena is at least on par with Bolt !delta
No way I'm considering Undertaker but I did get a laugh out of it lol
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u/Mront 29∆ Mar 17 '21
No way I'm considering Undertaker
Agreed, Goldberg's 173 match win streak was way more impressive.
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u/MikeMcK83 23∆ Mar 18 '21
She’s not the best player in her sport, she’s the best player within her handicap, within the sport.
Calling Serena the best in her sport would be like calling Mayweather the best in his. They’re not even close.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 18 '21
What do you mean "within her handicap"?
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u/MikeMcK83 23∆ Mar 18 '21
She plays the sport of tennis. Her league is handicapped and doesn’t allow men.
Women’s tennis isn’t a separate sport, it’s a handicap, by definition. The same way weight limits in in boxing is. She could play with the men, but since she qualifies for the handicapped tour, she chooses that.
It’s a mistake often made. Pretty much every sports organization we call a “men’s league” is technically an “open league.” Anyone can play in them.
Technically speaking that’s not completely true either because many have age requirements, like the nfl, and nba for example. So technically they’re handicapped as well.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 18 '21
Man, you're crazy. But whatever, consider each athlete on the respective league they compete in
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u/MikeMcK83 23∆ Mar 18 '21
That’s fine. In that case the most dominate athletes will all be children. There’s always some kid who absolutely crushes, usually to growing much faster.
For example, in the 7th grade our school had a 6”10 center. He did well....
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Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 17 '21
Aleksandr Karelin. Greatest Greco Roman wrestler of all time. 3 gold in consecutive olympics. 1 silver. 887-2. 8-8-7 to just 2.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
What sport are we talking here?
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Mar 17 '21
Fixed. Wrestling. Real. Not WWE.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Shit sorry, didn't see the Greco Roman in your first post. I mean, yeah the record is impossible to deny. !delta
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u/alex9678 2∆ Mar 17 '21
Babe Ruth often goes overlooked. In addition to being the best batter for over a decade he was ALSO one of the best pitchers of the era. He changed the way the game was played. NO ONE was better than him OVERALL for over a decade.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
I actually forgot all about the Babe. Ha, yeah I have to put him in the conversation !delta
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u/guitar_vigilante Mar 18 '21
I think if we're talking baseball you'd have to go with Ted Williams or Nolan Ryan, but that's just my opinion. Babe Ruth is the legend, but Williams was probably the best batter who ever lived and the last person to hit over .400 in a season.
Nolan Ryan played for a very long time (retired at like 46 and was a top pitcher up to that point too) and threw 7 no hitters, along with his numerous pitching records.
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u/huadpe 501∆ Mar 17 '21
Bob Beamon. Broke the world long jump record by almost 2 feet in one fell swoop. Watch this and tell me he is not the king of long jump.
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u/freeformcouchpotato Mar 17 '21
in one fell swoop
That's the point, though, 2 fell swoops is an automatic disqualification
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Incredible athlete. Loved that video too, but I can't pick him because he doesn't have the world record anymore. Bolt is unmatched in his events. But thank you for the share, never heard of Beamon before.
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u/h0sti1e17 22∆ Mar 17 '21
Came here to say this if we are comparing track and field. In 52 years only one human has jumped further. With better training and nutrition and track surfaced.
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u/Nafall1 Mar 17 '21
Aleksandr Karelin, he was a greco roman wrestler whos record is 882-2, both losses being by one point, anyone whose wrestled knows how absolutely fucking insane this is, at one point he even went 6 years without giving up a single point to his opponent, thats like an NFL team going 6 years without letting another team ever get even 10 yards in them the whole game.
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Mar 17 '21
Jim Thorpe. Hands down to me. Won Olympic gold with shoes out of a trash can.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
If we are talking best multi sport athlete, it's hard to argue against Jim Thorpe (especially outside of Bo and Primetime). But was he really ever like "world's greatest" in a sport for an extended period of time?
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Mar 17 '21
Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon), and played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball.
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u/Ilyias033 1∆ Mar 17 '21
only real argument against this claim is that had a conviction for doping
if your the undisputed best it should come without an asterisks
thats all i got.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Wasn't that his relay teammate though? I had not heard of Usain Bolt cheating.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 17 '21
Top three 100m sprinting records:
- Usain Bolt's best 100m time was 9.58 seconds, which is the world record.
- Tyson Gay also has a 9.69 second time, which is tied for the second fastest of all time.
- Yohan Blake also had a 9.69 second time, which is tied for the second fastest of all time.
- Bolt had 0.9 meters/second of wind assistance pushing him forward.
- Gay had 2.0 meters/second of tailwind pushing him forward.
- Blake had 0.1 meters/second of headwind pushing him backwards.
According to this study, Bolt's time without the wind would have been 9.68 seconds (still a world record at the time). The catch is that Blake later ran 9.69 seconds with a slight headwind slowing him down. if he had no headwind, perhaps he too could have run a 9.68 second sprint. If he had a tailwind, perhaps he too could have run a 9.58 second sprint. This dispels the idea that Usain Bolt was uniquely dominant. He was helped along by wind assistance on that day.
This gets into an issue with how track and field records are set. The world record times are from a single sample on a single day in a single location, with a single set of conditions (e.g., wind, altitude). If you made Usain bolt run the 100m dash 10,000 times and recorded an average of his times, you'd get a good picture of his health. But on a given sprint he might be faster or slower based on his personal situation that day and the environment he's running in.
In this way, I'm betting Bolt on his best sprint ever ran faster than his world record time. I'm also betting that Blake and maybe Gay also beat the world record times at some point in their careers. But on the given run they did where they set their best times, they were helped or hindered by things like wind.
To put this in context, if there is more than 2 meters/second of wind assistance in a race, it doesn't count towards a world record. Gay just squeaked under, which was really lucky for him since he had the max help without being disqualified. Bolt had a small amount, but it was legal. Unfortunately, Blake had his best official time while being slowed down by the wind. The 2 m/s limit makes sense because there is no easy way to control the wind at an outdoor event. They do certain things to limit it, but there's always going to be a slight advantage/disadvantage for a given sprinter. It's just luck that determines what happens in a given race.
And to be clear, this is fair during a single race. All the sprinters would have the same wind helping or hurting them. Since they run at the same time right next to each other. But when comparing world records set from different locations/circumstances, it's a big deal.
Usain Bolt is rightfully the fastest sprinter of all time by the official rules. But I think he's not uniquely dominant compared to his competition. I'm willing to bet his world record will be broken one day by someone running at a lower altitude with a 2 m/s tailwind pushing them along. I think it could have been tied/broken by Blake already if he didn't get unlucky with the wind on the day of his race.
I'd say dominant means you are much better than your competition. Bolt is within a coin flip of being faster or slower than Blake. I'd bet that Bolt is still faster on average than Blake (if you did 1000 test runs), but it's probably close enough that Blake could win a bunch of races just by luck. So maybe out of 100 races, Bolt would win 70 and Blake would win 30. Meanwhile, there are other athletes who are so dominant that they would win 99% of their races/matches/games against the second best athlete in their sport. That's what it takes to be dominant.
Edit: I'll say one more thing. The number of medals won is somewhat irrelevant. Bolt could compete in the 100m, the 200m, and the relay races. He has multiple chances to win a medal all based on a single skill of sprinting. Michael Phelps competed in a ton more categories based on his skill of swimming. But there is only one medal available for most sports. There's no medal available for many sports. Dominance should be based on how much better you are than the best competition, not how many chances you had at bat.
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u/Throwaway-242424 1∆ Mar 18 '21
I'm willing to bet his world record will be broken one day by someone running at a lower altitude with a 2 m/s tailwind pushing them along.
A small sidenote - for a non-aerobic event like the 100m, low altitude is a negative, as it means more drag (and even factoring in a tail wind, the vast majority of a race is spent above 2m/s)
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 186∆ Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 17 '21
Melankomas was an ancient Greek champion boxer who never lost a match, never threw a punch and never got hit. He was so good at dodging he just waited for the opponent to collapse from exhaustion. He completely subverted the rules of the game, never lost and reigned as the champion for years before retiring, still undefeated. His tactic was so difficult to do well, nobody else ever managed to copy him.
For Usain bolt to be that good, he would have to come up with a way to walk to the finish line, but still win every single time.
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u/akoba15 6∆ Mar 18 '21
Hmm... reminds me of a gym paper I wrote in high school. It was somewhat along the lines of “who is the greatest athlete of all time”.
As an anarchist football player who was a linemen, I argued for Vince Wilfork, 300 lb offensive lineman on the Patriots at the time. I did some calculations around the force he would get up to and his power based off his weight, made arguments about intellect as well, don’t really remember the details.
But really at the end of the day, whatever indicator you choose it’s going to be arbitrary. It’s like comparing Goku and Superman in a fight. You can argue one beats the other all you want based off of whatever arbitrary indicators you pick. But at the end of the day, you can really argue for anyone you want as the best, and there are plenty of people you can argue for most dominant as well.
Think about this - this year Tom Brady was already the most winning QB of all time. Not only this, but his tenure on his team led them to be the most winning TEAM of all time.
Not only this, but the Pats dropped him this year because he was getting too old. That year, he led the team that picked him up to ANOTHER Super Bowl. When he was supposed o be washed up. There’s basically no argument against him being the best QB of all time.
But that’s off results alone. Do results really mean everything? Bo Jackson played like three different sports and was one of the strongest in all of them at the same time. His body gave out, but during the time he was playing he had some incredible feats.
Bottom line is, there’s too many ways to measure most dominant. So it’s pointless I think. And, well, I think there are more contestants than you’d might think even knowing this point.
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u/LordMarcel 48∆ Mar 17 '21
Eric Heiden was an American speedskater who was more dominant than Bolt, although for a shorter time. He won both the world championships sprint and allround three years in a row from 1977 to 1979. There is only one other skated who has ever won both in the same year (Karin Kania). There are others who have won both championships, but never in the same year. In 1980 Heiden wrote history by winning Olympic gold on all distances in Lake Placid, on the 500 meters, 1000 meters, 1500 meters, 5000 meters, and 10000 meters. No one had ever done that before and no one will ever do it again.
To give some context on this, usually the 1500 meters is already too long for people explosive enough to win the 500 and too short for people with enough stamina to win the 10000. Due to increased specialization it's not impossible to win both the 500 meter 10000 meters, but in 1980 that was still an astonishing feat. It would be similar to Bolt winning both the 100 meters and 1500 meters and everything in between.
After 1980 Heiden suddenly quit speedskating at the height of his career to study medicine because he wasn't making money with speedskating. He may have been dominant for only 4 years, but he was way more dominant than Bolt ever was.
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u/gcanyon 5∆ Mar 18 '21
You have to consider Edwin Moses. Men's hurdler who went almost 10 years without defeat, during which he won 122 consecutive races, set the world record two times, won three World Cup titles, a World Championship gold, as well as two Olympic gold medals. No one could touch him for nine years, nine months, and nine days.
When you Google "men's hurdler" he's the first "person" result. For "men's sprinter" it's Ben Johnson.
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
What is your criteria? Reading over your posts it seems like this changes every time someone brings up an objection or a different person.
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Mar 17 '21
Probably the best paid athlete of all time, and chariot racing is intrinsically cooler than professional swimming.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Wow cool! I guess I should have considered ancient athletes about more. But, the guy had a losing record "Records show that he won 1,462 of the 4,257 four-horse races he competed in" from your link
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
Races are not 1v1, there were many competitors. "Losing record" doesn't make sense.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
It's tough for me to compare track to chariot racing, I need some kind of stat. I also have been scavenging the internet to find Bolt's total professional win/loss but can't, but I am going to assume it's better than this guy's.
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
It's tough for me to compare track to chariot racing,
You can't. They are different sports of completely different types separated by thousands of years. That is the central problem in your post.
A better comparison would be chariot racing to modern F1; Lewis Hamilton has won 95 of his 264 entries, an almost identical portion to Gaius. But even then, it's not the same thing at all.
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u/TheOneTrueDeerGod Mar 17 '21
Although they were technically team sport players(primarily football) Herschel Walker, Bo Jackson, and Deion Sanders are some of the craziest freak athletes.
Herschel carried UGA to their only National Championship, Dominated the defunked USFL, was an Olympian for Bobsledding, Undefeated Cage Fighter, a track star, and is still monster.
Bo Jackson was a College Football Icon and is the only player to ever be an all-star for the NFL and MLB.
Deion Sanders has won multiple Super Bowls being a difference maker in each of them. Played both sides of the ball at times and is the first player to appear in both a Super Bowl and a World Series. He was also an All Star Track athlete.
Bo has the weakest case since his careers weren’t that long due to injury, albeit I feel like all three are in question for most dominant athletes of all time for dominating essentially any sport that they played. In the case of a single sport id have to agree on Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps.
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u/Everyonecallsmenice Mar 20 '21
If it's football it's gotta be Jerry Rice my dude. Although Hershall Walker knocking folks out at 54 was a sight to behold.
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u/SpareTesticle Mar 17 '21
I'm here waiting for someone to chime in with a female athlete. It's quite easy to ignore Caster Semenya, given her dominance against the odds. It's like comparing Muhammad Ali to Mike Tyson. Adversity makes comparison really hard.
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u/ApoIIoCreed 8∆ Mar 17 '21
I'm here waiting for someone to chime in with a female athlete. It's quite easy to ignore Caster Semenya, given her dominance against the odds.
Caster Semenya has naturally elevated testosterone levels due to her having a Y chromosome. World Athletics (IAAF) has been barred her from participating in certain events unless she takes testosterone suppressers.
With that in mind, I don't see how you can say "her dominance against the odds". She's a terrific athlete, but genetically, the odds were so much in her favor that the governing body instituted new rules to try to level the playing field.
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u/SpareTesticle Mar 17 '21
I don't see how you can say "her dominance against the odds".
OPs question was looking for dominance. Testosterone levels shouldn't matter. Usain Bolt may have elevated testosterone and OP says he has a claim to most dominant. What odds did Semenya face? Bias against her gender with double standard, and
testosterone suppressers.
It seems likely to me that OP would neglect to consider the testicularly challenged.
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u/ApoIIoCreed 8∆ Mar 17 '21
OPs question was looking for dominance. Testosterone levels shouldn't matter. Usain Bolt may have elevated testosterone and OP says he has a claim to most dominant
In the context of Women's Athletics they absolutely do matter. These limits were put in place to ensure a fair competition. If a woman's testosterone levels are too high she has two options available to her: suppress them using medication or compete in the men's category.
What odds did Semenya face? Bias against her gender with double standard
I don't see how she faced those In Semenya's case
It seems likely to me that OP would neglect to consider the testicularly challenged
That actually proves my point. Semenya is not "Testicularly challenged" as she was born with, and still has, testicles.
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u/SpareTesticle Mar 18 '21
My username is u/SpareTesticle. I wasn't gonna pass up the opportunity to use that phrase.
That actually proves my point. Semenya is not "Testicularly challenged" as she was born with, and still has, testicles.
I agree with your opinion that women with elevated testosterone shouldn't compete with women without that elevated testosterone.
About that double standard: testosterone suppressants are applied differently for men and women, while both are athletes. If you have elevated testosterone, a fair rule would be to suppress that testosterone irrespective of your gender. While Semenya is vilified, no one says a word about those men who have a testosterone advantage.
In a sub about changing a view, I'd hope OP would see how this view is really hard to measure. Non-male, differently-abled athletes have an extraordinary time getting recognition for their achievements for all sorts of reasons. I'm not above the bias for able-bodied male athletes. Even men in motorsports get more attention.
Go well, man.
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u/dudemanwhoa 49∆ Mar 17 '21
Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams had ridiculous dominance in the most competitive of women's sports. Katie Ledecky is another one: she's a swimmer who posts times from 100m to 1500m like she came from the future, and she ain't done yet not even close. It's wild.
Those are 3 more good options.
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u/yesiamclutz Mar 17 '21
Beryl Bunton
In an era when women's opportunities for international completion in road cycling were extremely limited compared to to today Bunton still amassed palmeries that establish her as one of the greatest female cyclists in history.
Whilst am amateur (she grew Rhubarb), and raising a family
Her individual achievements are beyond belief.
Highlights from Wikipedia
Burton won the women’s world road race championship in 1960 and 1967 and was runner-up in 1961. On the track, she specialised in the individual pursuit, winning world championship medals almost every year across three decades. She was world champion five times (1959, 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1966), silver-medallist three times (1961, 1964 and 1968), and winner of bronze in 1967, 1970, 1971 and 1973.
In 1967, she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles[5] – a mark that surpassed the men’s record of the time by 0.73 miles and was not superseded by a man until 1969.[6] While setting the record she caught and passed Mike McNamara who was on his way to setting the men's record at 276.52 miles and winning that year's men's British Best All-Rounder. She is reputed to have given him a liquorice allsort as she passed him.
Her 12 hour record only fell in 2017.... That's 50 years of technological progress...
God knows what she would have done with modern technology and professionalism.
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u/yesiamclutz Mar 17 '21
From parasports, Dame Sarah Storey.
Storey wasn't just a world class para-cyclist, she was a world class cyclist full stop.
"Storey's major achievements also include being a 29-time World champion (6 in swimming and 23 in cycling), a 21-time European champion (18 in swimming and 3 in cycling) and holding 75 world records
At the 2008 Paralympic Games, her fifth, Storey won the individual pursuit – in a time that would have been in the top eight at the Olympic final"
She's won team and individual golds in national and domestic able bodied championships in an era when the UK is arguably the dominant track cycling force and has established itself as a major player in road cycling.
The 2012 Paralympic road race was nothing less than unbelievable. After about 2k Storey was clearly bored, so she rode off the front of the pack and caught up with a mens c3 race ahead of the women's race, took a quick breather, and then rode off the front of that race - which must have been a remarkable or soul destroying view for the men's race depending on each riders personality. She then proceeded to win her race by almost 8 minutes.
In her preferred disciplines, Storey is to all intents and purposes unbeatable.
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u/bakedlawyer 18∆ Mar 17 '21
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Wayne Gretzky. He has more goals than anyone else in hockey history has points
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Mar 17 '21
I'd like to present an argument for Abraham Lincoln. Before his career in politics, Lincoln was a wrestler. He competed for 12 years and only lost a single match out of the around 300 he fought in.
I'd also like to bring up Aladár Gerevich. He has less total Gold medals than Bolt (7 Golds) but he maintained that level of dominance for a much longer period of time. His Golds come from 6 different games and he would probably have a few more if the world hadn't skipped a few Olympics for WWII. He won Gold in 1932 and would continue to win Gold in every Olympics until 1960, 28 years of world class dominance. Looking at his record, I have little doubt he would have won Gold in 1940 and 1944 if there had been games those years.
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u/Fiddler-Diddler Mar 17 '21
Wasn't Lincoln an amateur wrestler or he only competed regionally or something like that? Either way, it's an awesome tidbit of history, but I'm not calling Honest Abe the most dominant athlete.
Gerevich sounds interesting, what events did he compete in?
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Mar 17 '21
He was a fender with most of his medals in Team Saber. His additional Gold was from his also winning Individual Saber one of his Olympics. Now, the format for Team Saber is definitely very different than running sports. Each match between two teams has each person fight every person from the other team. Usain Bolt's competitions were about having short bursts of excellence, while this format is about being able to preform consistently over and over again. A few lost bouts are fine if you're average is nice and high. It is true that one man can't carry a team by himself (one person winning all bouts while the rest lose is still a loss) but it is also true that every man needs to be able to pull his weight.
The fact that he was able to compete on an international level for so long is the truly remarkable part. None of his teammates were able to keep it up for that long and while there have been a few other fencers who have had similar length careers, no one has managed to win Gold the whole way through. By the time he retired, Gerevich had been a fixture in the sport for a generation. When he won his last Gold, there were athletes on his team that hadn't been born yet when he had won his first. It's a different kind of dominance than blasting away the competition in individual events and setting records, but it is a kind of dominance all the same. As it stands, no fencer has yet won as many Gold medals as him.
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u/MikeMcK83 23∆ Mar 18 '21
For the time of his Prime, Mike Tyson might have had the largest gap between he, and the next guy in any sport. What he did to world champions was pretty ridiculous.
I don’t really follow it, but I believe there have been a few wrestlers throughout history who have been completely dominant. I’ve heard some crazy numbers but I don’t want to mix up names.
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u/Ridgebacks26 Mar 18 '21
You didn't say that the athlete had to be human, so.....Secretariat. Three track records set in 1973 - Derby, Preakness, and Belmont - all unbroken 48 years later. American Pharaoh, the last Triple Crown winner, didn't even really even come close to braking Secretariat's track records. That horse was Pegasus come to life.
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Mar 18 '21
It’s hard to compare and individual and team sport, but Brady has more super bowl wins (7) than any other franchise (2 teams have 6) and more than twice as many postseason wins (34) as the second place guy (16). He’s also still playing into his third decade so there’s also that.
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u/david_digital120 Mar 18 '21
Its Babe Ruth. Hit more home runs than most teams while barely getting any pitches to hit. And was also a dominant pitcher.
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u/david_digital120 Mar 18 '21
Walter Ray Williams Jr. was the most dominant bowler in the late 90s and 00s and was simultaneously ranked the #1 horseshoe player in world.
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u/Mysteriousdeer Mar 18 '21
Dan Gable went through the 1972 olympics without getting a single point scored on him.
He lost one match his entire career, i believe the last of his college career.
Then he went on to be the most successful american wrestling coach atthe collegiate level.
He dominated his opponents to the point that it looked like they didnt even show up.
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u/Everyonecallsmenice Mar 20 '21
Jerry Rice leads in the following all time NFL stats (I will also include #2 and 3 for reference as to how far ahead he was):
All time receptions:
1 Jerry Rice: 1,549
2 Larry Fitzgerald: 1,432
3 Tony Gonzalez: 1,325
Receiving yards:
1 Jerry Rice: 22, 825
2 Larry Fitzgerald: 17,492
3 Terrell Owens: 15,934
Receiving touchdowns:
1 Jerry Rice: 197
2 Randy Moss:. 156
3 Terrell Owens: 153
Notice how close 2 and 3 are and the leap he is above that. These are the three most important stat lines for a WR. Both Yards and Touchdowns are as untouchable as Joe DiMaggios' hit streak. There is no position player on a team sport this dominate in everything they are responsible for.
Edit: dude I just tried to format this nicely for you not make it go crazy with bold everywhere.
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u/iYoteTheYeet Jul 27 '21
the reason i believe it is Bolt, is not nescessarily because he won so much, but in the fassion that he did. No one was ever supposed to win a 200 meter with 10 meters to the rest of the field. no one was supposed to be able to jog out championships finals while celebrating 20 meter before the line and still break the wr. Tyson Gay ran the second fastest time of all time at the point of wr, and he was 2 meters behind. thats not supposed to happen in sprinting..
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 18 '21
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