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Most dominant sports-people of all time?

G.I.Joe

International Coach
I don't give a horses ass about hockey, but Dhyan Chand's wiki entry craps all over Ahmed's. Decision made. :ph34r:
 

ohtani's jacket

State Vice-Captain
No, I don't think you understand.

"There's no way that I can think of that a basketball player could finish with an average of 40+ points over a thousand games, let alone average 13 points better than the nearest guy"

Precisely the point. It is almost inconceivable that Bradman could do what he did. The only reason you find it more believable, and that I say "almost inconceivable", is that it actually happened. His superiority over all other batsmen equates to averaging over 40 points or whatever in basketball.
I realise it's conceivable because Bradman actually did it, but I still think the length of time you can stay at the crease, and the length of time the game is played for, gives you a greater chance of having a Bradman-esque difference provided you don't get out. Granted a basketball player can attempt to score so long as he's on the court and doesn't foul out, but there's just not the same opportunity.

And basketball is about more categories than just scoring. Chamberlain finished with averages of 30.1 points per game and 22.9 rebounds per game. That's Bradman-esque dominance on the basketball court. And while Jordan was above him in points per game and Russell just below him in rebounds, nobody comes close when you combine the two categories.

Not only that, but basketball players can be discouraged from scoring, like Wilt was during the '67 and '68 seasons with Philadelphia and later on the Lakers. Batsmen may be persuaded to change the way they score, but to my knowledge they're never discouraged from actually scoring. In basketball it's a strategy and won Chamberlain his two NBA titles.

And the other thing that irks me is it's over a thousand games. Who's to say whether Bradman's average would've held up over 100 Test matches?

I understand where Davis is coming from, but I just don't buy the comparison and I also find it unnecessary. How do you compare Bradman to a sport that's not stats based and doesn't have averages?
 

Uppercut

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No, I don't think you understand.

"There's no way that I can think of that a basketball player could finish with an average of 40+ points over a thousand games, let alone average 13 points better than the nearest guy"

Precisely the point. It is almost inconceivable that Bradman could do what he did. The only reason you find it more believable, and that I say "almost inconceivable", is that it actually happened. His superiority over all other batsmen equates to averaging over 40 points or whatever in basketball.
Should probably note that basketball doesn't have unlimited time. For all intents and purposes, Bradman did (because not-outs wouldn't affect his average). So scoring that extra point per game in basketball is doubly hard because you don't have to just score more, you also have to score faster.

All i can say is that i don't think comparing two sports is especially viable. But I find it hard to look past any of the boxers who finished their careers as undefeated world champion, most recently Floyd Mayweather, have done everything they possibly could to dominate the opposition. How can you, in any sport, possibly do any better than that?
 

Xuhaib

International Coach
Should probably note that basketball doesn't have unlimited time. For all intents and purposes, Bradman did (because not-outs wouldn't affect his average). So scoring that extra point per game in basketball is doubly hard because you don't have to just score more, you also have to score faster.

All i can say is that i don't think comparing two sports is especially viable. But I find it hard to look past any of the boxers who finished their careers as undefeated world champion, most recently Floyd Mayweather, have done everything they possibly could to dominate the opposition. How can you, in any sport, possibly do any better than that?
Debatable. He needed brass knucks to knock ut Big Show.:ph34r:
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Where was this Bradman vs. Jordan comparison?
A book called The Best of the Best by Charles Davis a few years back.

Bradman was compared with Jordan, Nicklaus, Ali, Pele, Ruth (or was it Ty Cobb?) among others as I recall, the conclusion basically being that his Test average of 99.94 is the greatest statistical achievement in any major sport.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I figured it was the case, but I thought The Best of the Best was only a comparson of cricketers from other generations. It seemed that way from the Cricket Web review anyway.

Out of curiosity, does Nicklaus have a greater record than Tiger Woods.
 

Indipper

State Regular
A book called The Best of the Best by Charles Davis a few years back.

Bradman was compared with Jordan, Nicklaus, Ali, Pele, Ruth (or was it Ty Cobb?) among others as I recall, the conclusion basically being that his Test average of 99.94 is the greatest statistical achievement in any major sport.
'Twas Ty Cobb, cause Davis used batting average, which was commonly considered the measure of a player back in the day instead of homers or RBIs or OBP or whatever.
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
I figured it was the case, but I thought The Best of the Best was only a comparson of cricketers from other generations. It seemed that way from the Cricket Web review anyway.

Out of curiosity, does Nicklaus have a greater record than Tiger Woods.
I've never read it fully, but as I understand it the bulk of the book was a comparison of Bradman compared to other cricketers. Once his cricketing dominance was confirmed, the book moved on to comparing him with the greats from other sports.

At the time Nicklaus was clearly ahead of Woods as Tiger was still making his mark. Now the gap has been reduced significantly (Nicklaus has 18 Majors to Woods' 14) and it's hard not to see Tiger overtaking him sooner rather than later.
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
'Twas Ty Cobb, cause Davis used batting average, which was commonly considered the measure of a player back in the day instead of homers or RBIs or OBP or whatever.
Ah yes that's right. Actually this is what made the Pele comparison less-than-apt. He was assuming that Pele - as the usually-recognised greatest footballer of all time - had the best international goals/game ratio. In football of course it's not that simple and while Pele's record was outstanding, there are other greats (such as Puskas, Koscis and Muller) who while not quite on Pele's level actually had better strike rates.
 
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Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Ah yes that's right. Actually this is what made the Pele comparison less-than-apt. He was assuming that Pele - as the usually-recognised greatest footballer of all time - had the greatest international goals/game ratio. In football of course it's not that simple and while Pele's record was great, there are others (such as Puskas, Koscis and Muller) who while being inferior players had better strike rates.
A bit harsh on Puskas. Ill agree that most may rank Pele over Puskas but Id never use the term 'inferior' in the same sentance as his name.
 

garage flower

State Vice-Captain
Only one mention for Phil Taylor! Is that because we don't consider darts to be a sport? If we do, then he has to be right up there. Phenomenal.
 

King Pietersen

International Captain
As is Fedor Emelianenko. This guy should be one of the most famous sportsmen in the world. He is far and away the most successful Mixed Martial Artist of all-time. He has a 32-1 professional MMA record, but that 1 loss shouldn't have been recorded as a loss. He was fighting in a RINGS tournament, and was caught by an elbow (which were illegal in that organisation, unless elbow pads were worn, which they weren't in this instance). The elbow opened a cut which he had sustained in a previous fight, which meant he couldn't continue in the tournament, and because of the tournament format this meant it was put down as a loss on his record. Outside a tournament format the bout would have been declared a No Contest or a DQ victory for Fedor.

Throughout Fedor's career, he was won a whole heap of trophies and tournaments. He's won 2 RINGS tournaments, the PRIDE FC Heavyweight title, the PRIDE FC Heavyweight GP and is the current WAMMA HW champion, with 2 successful defences to his name. No-one else has managed to dominate the sport of MMA like Fedor Emelianenko. He's beaten top level competition in the form of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (twice), Ricardo Arona, Renato Sobral, Heath Herring, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic, Mark Hunt, Gary Goodridge, Matt Lindland, Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers.

The guy is just an incredible Martial Artist. Not only does he have the MMA trophies and belts, but he is a multiple time World and Russian Sambo Champion and Russian Judo Champion. He's been in some incredible fights, his war with Cro Cop, the 3 battles with Nogueira, the oh-so-impressive comeback against Kevin Randleman after being slammed on his head, the picture perfect knockouts of Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers. What a fighter, one of the truely under-appreciated sportspeople in the world. If you're a fan of combat sports and you've not seen anything of Fedor Emelianenko, then I urge you to watch the fights linked above, especially the Randleman fight if you're new to MMA. Pretty sure any fan of sports can appreciate that fight.
 
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Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
As is Fedor Emelianenko. This guy should be one of the most famous sportsmen in the world. He is far and away the most successful Mixed Martial Artist of all-time. He has a 32-1 professional MMA record, but that 1 loss shouldn't have been recorded as a loss. He was fighting in a RINGS tournament, and was caught by an elbow (which were illegal in that organisation, unless elbow pads were worn, which they weren't in this instance). The elbow opened a cut which he had sustained in a previous fight, which meant he couldn't continue in the tournament, and because of the tournament format this meant it was put down as a loss on his record. Outside a tournament format the bout would have been declared a No Contest or a DQ victory for Fedor.

Throughout Fedor's career, he was won a whole heap of trophies and tournaments. He's won 2 RINGS tournaments, the PRIDE FC Heavyweight title, the PRIDE FC Heavyweight GP and is the current WAMMA HW champion, with 2 successful defences to his name. No-one else has managed to dominate the sport of MMA like Fedor Emelianenko. He's beaten top level competition in the form of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (twice), Ricardo Arona, Renato Sobral, Heath Herring, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic, Mark Hunt, Gary Goodridge, Matt Lindland, Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers.

The guy is just an incredible Martial Artist. Not only does he have the MMA trophies and belts, but he is a multiple time World and Russian Sambo Champion and Russian Judo Champion. He's been in some incredible fights, his war with Cro Cop, the 3 battles with Nogueira, the oh-so-impressive comeback against Kevin Randleman after being slammed on his head, the picture perfect knockouts of Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers. What a fighter, one of the truely under-appreciated sportspeople in the world. If you're a fan of combat sports and you've not seen anything of Fedor Emelianenko, then I urge you to watch the fights linked above, especially the Randleman fight if you're new to MMA. Pretty sure any fan of sports can appreciate that fight.
Does a fan of combat sport exist that has not heard of Fedor?

Anyway, agree 100%. The guy is amazing. A fighting machine and I get chills before every fight.

Fedors only loss BS IMO
 
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King Pietersen

International Captain
There shouldn't be an MMA fan that isn't familiar with Fedor Emelianenko, but there are. Fedor isn't anywhere near as big a name in the US as he should be. He's starting to become more recognisable by the Mainstream now that he's fighting for Strikeforce, but I'm sure there are quite a few "fans" of MMA that don't believe there is anything going on outside the UFC. I'm sure there are boxing fans that aren't familiar with Fedor too. He should be one of the most recognisible sportsmen in the world, unfortunately for Fedor, most of his success came in early-mid 2000's when MMA was a far smaller sport, and the large majority of his success came outside the US, which really stopped him reaching the mainstream fans until recently. That doesn't take away from his dominance though, still one of the greatest sportsmen of all-time in my eyes.
 

janicejryan

Cricket Spectator
Don't know about you guys. But I think Manny Pacquiao is a champion in his own right. 7 boxing championship belts in his name.
 

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