I honestly think the current era is a pretty fecking good one to be a boxing fan in too. Heavyweights have been gash since the mid 90s obviously, but there's been some outstanding talent and great fights in the lower weight divisons. Mayweather's been frustrating as he rarely if ever fights the best in his weight class since his lightweight days, but we're fecking lucky to be watching Pacman's career unfold. Hopkins too. His renaissance since moving up from middleweight has been historic. Pac, Barrera, JMM and Morales was an incredible era of featherweights. We've had classics like Corrales-Castillo 1 and the Vasquez-Rafael Marquez fights. I'd put Margarito-Cotto up there too.
The Greatest Athlete Ever.
- Thread starter Rooney24
- Start date
And I reckon I could beat Usain Bolt over 100 metres if someone was dangling a chicken tikka kebab at the finishing line.
Fred Perry excelled at 2 different sports at a level beyond anyone else I can think of. We know how good he was at tennis. He was also world singles champion at table tennis at the age of 20.
I'm gonna put forward a few Norwegians just to be patriotic.
Bjørn Dæhlie - Cross Country skiing: 9 Olympic gold medals, 8 World Championship gold medals
Kjetil Andre Aamodt - Most decorated alpinist ever with 20 championship medals including 4 Olympic gold medals and 5 World Championship gold medals
Ole Einar Bjørndalen - Biathlon: 5 Olympic gold medals, 14 World Championship gold medals, 89 World cup wins (including one in cross country)
Simply put the three greatest athletes ever in their respective sports.
Bjørn Dæhlie - Cross Country skiing: 9 Olympic gold medals, 8 World Championship gold medals
Kjetil Andre Aamodt - Most decorated alpinist ever with 20 championship medals including 4 Olympic gold medals and 5 World Championship gold medals
Ole Einar Bjørndalen - Biathlon: 5 Olympic gold medals, 14 World Championship gold medals, 89 World cup wins (including one in cross country)
Simply put the three greatest athletes ever in their respective sports.
ooooo forgot about skiers.
Apparently those cross country guys are some of the fittest athletes on the planet. They eat something like 20,000 calaries a day, to keep their energy levels up when competing.
Super Human.
They really are insane. And it's a very technical sport as well. Not to mention biathlon where they shoot with a pulse of approximately 180-185 if not more.
This guy Nucks must be a WUM, he cant be serious. The greatest boxer ever is without question Sugar Ray Robinson, anybody who says differently does not really know what they are talking about. I've boxed as well and come from a boxing family and have had champions in my extended family and have watched boxing my whole life also. To say that Vlad would do Ali...... are you fecking serious. There is not a single pro or ex pro that would agree with you.... you're insane.
So apart from all that boxing stuff, has anybody mentioned Jim Thorpe
1 Double gold medalist in Decathlon + Pentathlon same olympics 1912
2 professional Baseball player NY Giants, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Braves
3 professional football player (American)
4 professional basketball player
Honors
Voted greatest American football player of 1st half century by AP
American house of representatives voted him greatest athlete of the century
Football hall of fame
Olympic hall of fame
tranck and field hall of fame
NFL team of the decade 1920s
He must be in with a shout
1 Double gold medalist in Decathlon + Pentathlon same olympics 1912
2 professional Baseball player NY Giants, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Braves
3 professional football player (American)
4 professional basketball player
Honors
Voted greatest American football player of 1st half century by AP
American house of representatives voted him greatest athlete of the century
Football hall of fame
Olympic hall of fame
tranck and field hall of fame
NFL team of the decade 1920s
He must be in with a shout
One-trick pony!
Don't go on with this
.......you're gonna do yourself no favours
none at all
Only in boxing will people argue that a midget is the best fighter in the world.
If you have to choose one fighter from any division in the history of boxing to represent you in a boxing match, you are picking a heavyweight.
End of story, end of discussion.
Spoony is clearly an old man living in the past. I bet he would argue that footballers in the 60's are as good or better than modern players. Then we talk about modern nutrition and training and so on and so forth, it would be like comparing men with boys in terms of physical development.
This really furthers the point I make in the previous post. Thorpe was a great athlete sure, but how good was he really? You are talking about an era where these guys by and large had rudimentary physical and mental training. You are not looking at specialized athletes recognizing their athletic potential both physically and mentally. You're talking about fit guys going out and just having at it with a bit of training and their natural ability. Thorpe was the best of this bunch for sure, no question about it.
However for every Micheal Jordan there are dozens of guys out there who were MORE naturally gifted than he was, but just lacked one of the critical elements that allowed Jordan to drive himself to the pinnacle of his sport. Maybe it's drive, maybe discipline, maybe work ethic maybe something else, but he had ALL of the above and more.
If these guys stopped developing at a highschool level, nobody knows who Micheal Jordan is. Nobody cares. What made Jordan great, was the level of training and science in sports now. He took a high level of natural ability and built on it, he met or came very close to his maximum potential.
This is why I feel like it is unfair to classify athletes from completely different eras like this. It isn't fair to guys like Thorpe who did not have the opportunity to take advantage of the sports science and medicine that turns modern athletes into finely tuned high performance machines. It isn't fair to modern athletes to compare them to the dominance of athletes from past eras where the competition was nowhere as stiff.
The evolution of the world record 100m time is evidence of this.
There are highschool kids today, that if you transplanted them to Thorpes era, not only would they beat him, they would beat him in EVERY SPORT he excelled at.
Some of the best highschool football teams in the nation today would trounce professional champions back then.
This isn't a slight against Thorpe, it just illustrates the evolution of athletics.
I'm not sure science and modern training made Jordan to be honest. I think it was raw talent and incredible amount of hard work. Wasn't he kicked off the high school team. Do you know the story of how he increased his jumping ability? The man was determined.
As for the rest of your post claiming better training and science as a result of such great improvement, I'd have to disagree with that too.
The reason today's athletes are little better then those in the past is down to one factor: competition.
Every generation wants to outdo previous generation. If Pele was the best player in the world at one point, there wasn't much incentive for him to improve, however, the next generation that came along did want to out do him.
I think science is important in a limited way, but very overrated by many people.
Jim Thorpe is probably the winner if it is about being an athlete
As for Jordan, he had the mindset of a winner, that's what made him the best NBA, and by proxy best basketball player of all time, in everything he did he wanted to be the best.
As for Jordan, he had the mindset of a winner, that's what made him the best NBA, and by proxy best basketball player of all time, in everything he did he wanted to be the best.
Seriously, stop posting. You are looking beyond retarded with this. There are maybe some subjects you know really well and in depth that you could debate .....but this is clearly not one of them
Do yourself a favour mate
How about the best Nintendo Wii game, ever? Nucks should try debating it.
