Sports have been going on for 100+ years. But there's always been that someone who's been the greatest at it. Who's the greatest NBA player of all time? NFL? NHL? Golf? BOxing? Sprint? Long Runners? Greatest clutch players of all time? Greatest games of all time? Greatest in their positions? Greatest QB's? Greatest C in NHL history? SO on and so forth.
So for this. Just name a great player and we can have a friendly debate. Just name somebody who you thoguth was the best. Whether its the best overrall player? or the best in their respective positions.
Let's get this going.
(And please don't say Kobe is better than Jordan and say something dumb. I will destroy you. With my bare hands.
Easily. When you look over the course of everything an athlete could do in their sport Ray has to be the one who had it all. I.e. if we're talking football I'd debate that Messi isn't near the best player in the world because he's not exactly going to be the best defending corners, making tackles or goalkeeping. Where Robinson had it all. He scored knockouts going forwards, on the back foot, via combinations, 1 hit counter punches, if he couldn't get the KO he could outbox anyone. In the inside with wars, on the outside behind the jab. He made everything look beautiful too. He comes from a dancing background, when he's in the ring he used to glide, he didn't step or plod like other fighters do. He had one of the hardest and smooth left hooks around which was his best punch, but his right hand was deadly too, all set up behind a stiff jab. Despite his finer qualities he was also blessed with one of the best chins in the sport. His versatility in skill and style is second to none, I know there are great athletes in other sports but it's hard to think of one that combines athletic and technical prowess and assets to such effect and aethstetics.
He fought 200 times,he scored over 100 KOs, he won 173 fights and most of his losses came when he was a 40 year old man on his last legs. It took 40 pro fights before he lost, many boxers these days don't even compile 40 bouts. He was unbeaten as an amateur so if you add that to his pro career he was in the ring 125 times before he tasted defeat and that was to one of the best Middleweights of all time, Jake LaMotta - the Raging Bull (who Ray beat 5(!) times in his career). He fought everyone and anyone, at any weight. Not many people know this but he was about to win the Light Heavyweight title but had to retire due to heat exhaustion, he was well up on points when he had to withdraw - a 3 weight champion in those days would've been something really special. The only reason why he moved up to Middleweight at first is because there were no welterweights crazy enough to get into the ring with him, remember those days there were only the main weight classes no super or juniors to make it easy and only one title - the fight game was controlled by the Mafia so it was almost impossible for anyone who wasn't involved with them to get a crack at the title. Ray never flirted with temptation of doing so and managed to get several title fights because they couldn't afford to ignore him despite belonging to an unfavoured minority group. He fought with basically no notice on many occasions too, having 2 or 3 weeks rest before fights and getting straight back into it, we'd never hear of any good athlete performing week in week out like that in this kind of a sport today.
Rivalries. Most of his rival's have built their legacy around fighting him, which is impressive enough, but the thing is that he had long series of fights against the best in the business. Just having a quick skim through his record on wiki he had LaMotta x6, Basilio x3, Kid Gavilan x2, Basora x2, Randy Turpin x2, Bobo Olson x3, Gene Fullmer x4, Fritzie Zivic etc etc. Then he fought other greats like Rocky Graziano, Joey Maxim, Henry Armstrong and others, the only 2 people I can think of who he didn't fight and I think he'd probably have beaten both of them. Those are Marcel Cerdan and Tony Zale. I'm not sure why the latter never happened but Cerdan died in a plane accident and I'm sure they'd have crossed paths otherwise. Many of those fighters are considered the best in a golden era of welterweights and middleweights - i.e. if they were alive now Sergio Martínez would be getting his arse kicked. There's surprisingly quite a lot of full length video footage of these guys in their prime and from a lot of what I've seen I can't say I would disagree.
He suffered knockdowns, got up and won. Same goes if he lost a fight, he'd secure a rematch and win it. Nobody beat him twice his IQ was so high there wasn't a strategy anyone could think up to defy him a second time if he slipped up the first. His adaptibility meant it was impossible to set a gameplan to beat him.
That aside, he is the protoype for a modern day sports star (or celebrity in general) long before his times. He was a ruthless businessmen, a born entertainer, a handsome chap, articulate and a showman. He's credited with inventing the concept of an entourage and the term was coined for him. He had his own midget for christ sake.
The second is an interview where it shows that hook I mentioned earlier and the third is part one of him and LaMotta discussing their championship bout, the second and 3rd are available on youtube if you look for them.
I could go on forever about him and his legacy in and outside of the ring. I think that there should be a film made out about him to immortalise him in folklore. He's spoken about in the entertainment and sporting world, but over time his relevance has diminished where people are more likely to remember LaMotta due to Raging Bull or Graziano because of Somebody Up There Loves Me etc.
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Jesse made it pretty clear for the boxing. So I think I'm gonna catch for the NHL, while it's actually the only league in America that I'm interested in and on the other hand, know something about it. First of all, it's actually pretty easy to choose the top 3 for the nomination of the best NHL player ever, isn't it? There is three names that everyone who has been following ice hockey are familiar with. Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky. I should probably write something about my choice but now I'll just pick my personal favourite and it's Wayne Gretzky. I'll write something about him later, because I don't time for that now.
Edited by Sam the Smile, 28 November 2011 - 11:31 PM.
Sam the Smile, on 28 November 2011 - 10:18 PM, said:
Jesse made it pretty clear for the NBA. So I think I'm gonna catch for the NHL, while it's actually the only league in America that I'm interested in and on the other hand, know something about it. First of all, it's actually pretty easy to choose the top 3 for the nomination of the best NHL player ever, isn't it? There is three names that everyone who has been following ice hockey are familiar with. Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky. I should probably write something about my choice but now I'll just pick my personal favourite and it's Wayne Gretzky. I'll write something about him later, because I don't time for that now.
Lewis Hamilton, on 29 November 2011 - 12:27 AM, said:
I'm gonna write something on the greatest racing driver of all time: Ayrton Senna.
I'm really looking forward to that Sammy. I've heard a lot of stories about him from my dad. He was a report back in the 70s and 80s and has actually interviewed Senna couple of times at the beginning of his career.
Ever since his true retirement from the sport, there has been a league-wide search for the next Micheal Jordan. Kobe was once regarded as this athlete, followed by LeBron James. ESPN has gone as far as calling Kobe Bryant the greatest player to ever play the game, putting him ahead of Jordan. If you were to ask me, I’d call it a ridiculous and down right blasphemous assessment. Michael Jordan will always be the greatest player to ever grace a basketball court.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan, born on February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn New York, started out his career in Laney High School in Wilmington, N.C., and was cut from the varsity basketball program. Yes, the great Michael Jordan was cut. Motivated, Jordan trained extremely hard, and made the varsity squad a year later. He averaged a triple double his senior year, scoring 29.2 points per game.
Jordan making his famous jumper against Georgetown in the dying seconds to give UNC the lead.
This prompted a scholarship offer from the University of North Carolina, then coached by Dean Smith, where he famously made the game winner in the National Championship game against Georgetown. This game winner catapulted him into the national ranks, but he was still being overshadowed by another all time great, James Worthy (According to Jordan, this made him confident that he could exceed expectations and become a great player).
However, his junior year saw his career explode, winning multiple college honors, and helping Team USA achieve basketball gold in 1984. That same year, he decided to skip his senior year, and declared himself eligible for the NBA Draft, where he was drafted 3rd overall by the Chicago Bulls. This being the place where his illustrious career would begin.
After being passed up by the Rockets and Trailblazers (Sam Bowie? Really Portland?), Michael Jordan found a home with the Chicago Bulls, who where 27-55 the year before. Jordan immediately took over that team, winning 35 games and making the playoffs, winning Rookie of the Year Honors, and finished third in PPG with 28.2, behind Larry Bird and Benard King. A year later marked his arrival to NBA superstardom, scoring 63 points against the legendary Celtics at the Garden, in a game nicknamed “The Arrival”. This catapulted Jordan, and made Larry Legend himself to say, “That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.” Not bad for a player in his second year. And he was just getting started.
During the 86-87 season, Michael Jordan scored over 3,000 points, making him the first to do so since Wilt Chamberlain, averaging a whopping 37.1 points per game, which is the highest of any NBA player for the past 20 years, and one of the highest in NBA History, and started a string of 7 straight 30ppg average for His Airnes. He earned the nickname “Air Jordan”, simply it looked like he was flying every time he went up for a lay up or dunk. Unfortunately for Jordan, the Bulls could not make it to the finals, losing to numerous teams, including the Bad Boy Pistons for 2 straight years. Once 1991 hit, things changed quickly, and the Bulls dynasty began.
In 1991, Michael Jordan won his second MVP award, averaging 33.6 ppg, and leading to the Bulls to another showdown with the Bad Boy Pistons lead by the Isaiah Thomas, a Chicago Boy, and Joe Dumars. The Pistons dominated the Bulls the years before, but this time things where different. The Bulls took control of the series from the get go, with help of the newly formed triangle offense, and swept the Pistons, reaching the NBA Finals for the first time in Michael Jordan’s career.
During the Finals, the confident Bulls beat the Showtime Lakers in 5, with Jordan, who averaged 31.1 ppg, won MVP honors in the Finals, and got the monkey off his back. Also, one of his big playoffs moments happened here, when he took the ball from just inside the three point line, drove to the basket, went up for a dunk and midway through switched the ball into his other hand and made the lay up. It was nicknamed “The Move”. That ended a string of 13 consecutive field goals made in that game, as the Bulls ended up winning that game. This was one of many classic Jordan playoff performances.
The next two years saw Jordan win two more titles, with game including “The Shrug”, where he made 6 straight 3 pointers, prompting him to look towards Marv Albert and just shrug, simply because Michael Jordan was never known as a 3 point shooter. But it showed how much work Jordan put into his jumper, which made him deadlier as his career went on. During the Finals against the Suns that next year, in a team that included Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, Jordan, instead of taking the final shot, passed the ball to sharpshooter John Paxson, who nailed a three to give the Bulls their 3rd championship in as many years. Jordan won the MVP and Finals MVP both of those years.
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