Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?

Gunaxin > Sports > Other > Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?

By Ben on November 30th, 2009

tiger-woods-flexingThis is one of those questions that guys can discuss until the end of time. When I bring it up amongst friends, the discussion gets heated. So, for this list, there will be some ground rules:

  • The athlete from a team sport must have superior statistics to others. This means that merely winning championships without the jaw-dropping stats, like Bill Russell, isn’t enough for this particular ‘most dominant athlete ever’ list. As for Russell, he’s probably the most dominating team player ever, but that’s a different list.
  • The athlete must be dominant throughout a significant portion of a respectable career. Dominating for a few years and then falling into relative mediocrity tarnishes a legacy.
  • It will be impossible to name every dominant athlete in every sport, so we’ll stick with 30 total, from these sports: Auto racing, baseball, basketball, boxing, cycling, football, golf, Greco-Roman wrestling (you’ll see why later), hockey, horse racing, soccer, surfing, swimming, tennis and track.
  • For team sports, the athlete should be dominant in more than one major statistic or aspect of the game. So, the best rebounder or shot-blocker ever won’t necessarily be considered on those stats alone.
  • Men only for this list. We’ll handle women when the Gunaxin audience becomes interested in female sports, or when women start routinely beating men at these sports.
  • If someone you think is missing from this list, chances are, they may certainly be a dominant athlete that we missed, and we urge you to write them in the comments section. But also ask yourself, even had we listed them for the vote, do you think they would win it?

VOTE FOR THE MOST DOMINANT ATHLETE AT THE BOTTOM

AUTO RACING

imagesRichard Petty
Case for: His 200 career NASCAR wins are 95 more than the next guy, he won seven championships, and he’s still considered the best of all time in that sport.
Case against: None.

imagesMichael Schumacher
Case for: His 91 career Formula 1 wins are 40 more than the next guy, and he has won seven championships.
Case against: Schumacher’s success often drew controversy, particularly in title-deciding collisions in 1994 and 1997.

Jimmy Johnson just won his fourth consecutive championship, but his career is far from over and he’s got a long way to go to be considered more dominant than Petty, or even Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR.

BASEBALL

imagesTy Cobb
Case for: A .367 lifetime batting average, far and away the best in baseball history.
Case against: Played in an era where players didn’t hit for power. Also, he was a downright awful person and he’d get booed out of the stadium if he played today.

imagesBabe Ruth
Case for: He was a great pitcher when he pitched, a great hitter when he hit, and sometimes hit more home runs than entire teams. He had a .342 lifetime average.
Case against: Not much, although some argue that he didn’t have to compete against the Negro League players who could have given him more competition.

Not: Barry Bonds and I shouldn’t even have to explain why.

Baseball is one of those sports that anyone you ask will tell you someone different is the most dominant. Others we considered were Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Bob Gibson. Sandy Koufax dominated for just a few years but not long enough.

BASKETBALL

imagesMichael Jordan
Case for: 2 Olympic gold medals, 6-time NBA champion, 6-time NBA Finals MVP, 5-time NBA MVP, 10 NBA scoring titles, holds the NBA records for highest career regular-season scoring average (30.12 points per game) and highest career playoff scoring average (33.4 points per game).
Case against: His stint with the Wizards was a disaster and probably still irks him since he is not one to lose a grudge. Taking off about two seasons to play baseball may have cost him two more championships. Also, other players have offensive records that Jordan didn’t come close to breaking.

imagesWilt Chamberlain
Case for: 2-time NBA champion, 4-time NBA MVP, once averaged 50.4 points a game in a season, once scored 100 points in a game, holds 72 official NBA records, and never fouled out of a game.
Case against: Didn’t win enough championships, though we’ve already stated that that’s not the barometer for being the most ‘dominating athlete.’

Not: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson because we’re confident that Jordan and Chamberlain are ultimately more dominating.

The general consensus in basketball is that Michael Jordan is the best of all time (though Celtics fans will say Bill Russell simply because he has more championships than anyone).

BOXING

imagesMuhammad Ali
Case for: He’s often considered one of the greatest of all time.
Case against: He did not live up to his potential because he left the sport in his prime. Also, he lost five times, didn’t exactly go out ‘on top,’ but excluding him from this list would cause a web riot.

imagesJoe Louis
Case for: Championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months. Named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on Ring Magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Punchers of All Time.
Case against: Ummm… never fought Mike Tyson in his prime?

imagesSugar Ray Robinson
Case for: Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson’s performances at the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create “pound for pound” rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight.
Case against: Lost 19 times.

Not: Mike Tyson, who, like others, dominated the sport for a period of time, then lost, continued to lose, and tarnished a legacy. Not: Rocky Marciano because few believe he fought anyone that tough.

Boxing sparks quite a bit of debate because there are many dominant ones from different eras.

CYCLING

imagesLance Armstrong
Case for: After surviving cancer, he won the Tour de France seven straight times. At the age of 38 he came back and finished third.
Case against: Accused of doping. Also, many forget that cycling is a team sport, and Armstrong’s team deserves credit for guiding him to victory, as well.

It’s not uncommon to hear someone say Armstrong is the most dominant athlete of all time.

FOOTBALL

imagesJim Brown
Case for: In 2002, he was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever. In 118 career games, Brown averaged 104.3 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry. Only Barry Sanders comes close to those totals.
Case against: None.

imagesJoe Montana
Case for: He won four Super Bowls and helped his teams to 31 fourth quarter come-from-behind wins.
Case against: Other quarterbacks either broke Montana’s records or hold records that Montana never did, and even won the same number of championships. ‘Who’s the best quarterback ever?’ is an article on its own, but we’ll stick with Montana as the representative for this position.

imagesJerry Rice
Case for: The all-time leader in every major statistical category for wide receivers and the all-time leader in touchdowns scored with 208.
Case against: Certainly benefited by having great quarterbacks.

imagesLawrence Taylor
Case for: He has been called the greatest defensive player of all time by members of the media, former players, and coaches.
Case against: Not much, though, like other athletes, his off-field issues make some people forget about his on-field success.

GOLF

imagesTiger Woods
Case for: Was already considered the best golfer ever very early in his career, and it is far from over.
Case against: Though he is on course to obliterate them, he does not yet hold the records for majors or wins, so it’s hard to say he’s the most dominant ever if he hasn’t yet surpassed these milestones.

imagesJack Nicklaus
Case for: He currently holds the record with 18 major victories.
Case against: He’s not Tiger Woods.

Not: Arnold Palmer. He may have ‘transcended’ the game and made the sport incredibly popular, but his records pail in comparison to others.

Tiger Woods should be a finalist for the most dominant of all time.

GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING

imagesAlexander Karelin
Case for: He was undefeated for 13 years. He won gold medals at the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games. He went the last six years of his unbeaten streak without giving up a point.
Case against: Relatively speaking, Greco-Roman wrestling is too small of a sport compared to the others.

While Greco-Roman wrestling isn’t necessarily a sport that many argue about, Karelin’s 13-year winning streak is perhaps the most dominating accomplishment on this list. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth, or anyone else accomplished anything like that.

HOCKEY

imagesWayne Gretzky
Case for: He is so far ahead on the all-time points list, that had he never scored a goal, his assist total would still make him the all-time points leader.
Case against: He wasn’t a two-way player.

imagesBobby Orr
Case for: Led the league in scoring, as a defenseman. Once had a plus/minus of +124 (to put that in perspective, +37 led the league last season).
Case against: His career wasn’t long enough.

Not: Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux, because we’re confident that Gretzky and Orr were ultimately more dominant.

HORSE RACING

secretariatSecretariat
Case for: In 1973 became the first U.S. Triple Crown champion in 25 years, setting new race records in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes.
Case against: He’s a horse.

You all know that you’re going to vote for Secretariat as a goof, so go ahead and cast your ballot now.

SOCCER

diego-maradonaDiego Maradona
Case for: Widely considered to be the second best soccer player of all time.
Case against: Only people from Argentina think that he is better than Pele. Also, a suspension for drugs kept him off the field for some time.

imagesPele
Case for: Won World Cups, flashy player, scored, transcended the game.
Case against: None.

Pele should be a finalist for the most dominating athlete ever.

SURFING

imagesKelly Slater
Case for: 9-time ASP World Champion. 54 victories. 42 World championship tour wins.
Case against: Hard to compare surfing to these other sports.

We also considered Laird Hamilton, Taj Burrow, and the ‘inventor,’ Duke Paoa Kahanamoku.

SWIMMING

imagesMichael Phelps
Case for: He won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Case against: Some of those world records may have been set with the aid of better swimsuit technology that Mark Spitz and Johnny Weissmuller didn’t have.

imagesMark Spitz
Case for: Amongst other things, he won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympic Games.
Case against: Lost his records to Phelps.

Phelps will likely be a finalist for the most dominant athlete ever.

TENNIS

imagesRoger Federer
Case for: Already the all-time leader in men’s singles Grand Slam victories, Federer doesn’t look like he’s slowing down.
Case against: For a period of time, Rafael Nadal overtook Federer as the best player in the world, defeating him in the French Open and Wimbledon finals. It’s hard to say Federer is the best ever when he wasn’t even number one in his sport while in his prime.

imagesRod Laver
Case for: He was the world No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, and is the only player to have twice won all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year. He would have had even more titles had the rules for majors been different back then.
Case against: He didn’t have to play Roger Federer.

Not: Pete Sampras because he didn’t come close to winning the French Open, the one gaping hole on his resume.

TRACK

imagesUsain Bolt
Case for: He holds the world record for the 100 metres, the 200 metres and, along with his teammates, the 4×100 metres relay. And he is still young so has more career ahead of him.
Case against: Does one extraordinary year make one the ‘most dominant athlete of all time?’

imagesCarl Lewis
Case for: He won 10 Olympic medals (9 gold), and 10 World Championships medal (8), in a career that spanned from 1979 to 1996.
Case against: A controversy with the long jump in the ‘84 Olympics. Also, he wasn’t as dominant as long as Edwin Moses (below).

imagesEdwin Moses
Case for: Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals. Also, he helped set some of the most strict anti-drug policies for track and field.
Case against: None.

We also considered Jesse Owens, but he wasn’t as dominant as long as the above. We also give a shout out to Jim Thorpe, who is perhaps the most versatile athlete of all time.

Edwin Moses should be a finalist for most dominant athlete of all time.

Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?

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Secretariat

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  • SOL
    I realise cricket isn't exactly a household sport in the US. But the title of this exercise was "Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?", and cricket is a major sport in more countries than American Football (NFL), including India with over 1 billion people.
    So, do a bit of research into a cricketer called Donald Bradman, who over a long and storied career, had a batting average roughly double that of the guy who sits at No.2
    Any objective search would have to conclude that statistically, at least, there is no other more dominant figure in his sport as Sir Donald Bradman.
  • Stupid Hicks
    What a joke. Armstrong?? Really? He just did the tour. Check out Eddy Merckx or even Bernard Hinault.

    Merckx is the most dominant athlete of all time. Not even debatable.
  • crankshaft
    Eddy Merckx was far more dominant in his day than Armstrong was in his day.

    For starters: Armstrong doesn't have the juice to even attempt the 1-hour cycling record. Eddy Merckx held that record for 12 years.

    Armstrong was a one-trick pony. He won The Tour, and not much else. Merckx dominated all riders in many types of cycle races over many years, including The Tour.

    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Merckx
  • Hrun
    To not even have the choice to vote for Eddy "The Cannibal" Merckx over Lance Armstrong is just a sad state of affairs. Eddie entered about 1500 professional races and won every third he entered. He has won all Grand Tour races (11 victories) and every single one-day Classic except Paris-Tours (including 19 wins in the monuments).
  • abuseguy
    Uh, it is actually very uncommon to hear that Lance Armstrong is the most dominant athlete of all time. In fact, I've never heard or read it once. What does the write base this upon?

    Lance is a great cyclist and competitor but probably wouldn't even make the list of the Top Five -- or maybe even ten -- cyclists of all time. He is, however, known as a prima donna and Tour de France Specialist who seldom competed seriously in other races -- and never the other Grand Tours until this year in the Giro when he crashed out.

    Check out Merckx, Moser, Coppi, Anquetil and Hinault for the real champions. There are many others. Merckx was the best ever. No debate.
  • The Chosen One
    Hard to consider golf, baseball and auto racing sports, as they require no athleticism (except maybe pitchers)
  • James
    What about motorcycle racing? You need some athleticism in that. Valentino Rossi just won his 7th championship and is nowhere near the end of his career.
  • Eddy
    Ill give you racing (even though it takes massive arm strength and excellent reflexes/hand-eye coordination). Then again, you obviously think schumacher is a nascar racer (or believe that nascar racing is the only type of auto racing) and are ignoring the skill needed for such events.
    You have obviously never played golf and if you have you didn't take it seriously or play the whole 18 holes. Play a few rounds then come back to talking about sports.
    And baseball really? Not a sport. I know the rule is dont feed the trolls. But wow. your just plain old wrong on this one. The fact that steroids are an issue in this sport proves that athletic ability has a lot to do with this sport. You, mon ami, have never attempted to hit a curve-ball.
  • hercules71185
    agreed. Racing not an athletic sport. It involves as much athleticism as in billiards. Baseball does take power aka batting, speed to get to the ball when it does get hit. And being able to react after 8 innings of doing nothing and get the ball where it needs to be. Coordination for batting. Eitherway if we are doing and athlete subject. What about Fedor as of now? And what about Mariusz? They are dominant and no one can deny their athleticism.
  • CRJJ
    uh, baseball players are not athletes? And pitchers would be the more athletic of them? Wow, there must be some sort of biased involved. In that vain, an argument can be made that NFL football players are not athletes as well. When everyone is set and "ready", a wide receiver running a pre-designed pattern and just catching a sizable ball while wearing gloves that make the ball almost stick like glue. Then the And WR is considered a "skill" position. Racing and Golf, agreed. Pitchers are better athletes than shortstops, and center fielders, not true.
  • CRJJ
    Also, Michael Jordan, while still in his athletic prime, could not even come close to living his dream of becoming a pro baseball player.
  • Andy
    "Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?" And no Don Bradman on the list?

    What a joke.
  • Greg
    I could not agree more.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman
    "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"
  • Corey
    Yeah agreed, DGB the most dominant sportsman of all time. Ridiculously dominant.
  • desibabu90
    definitely agree with the above ppl about Bradman. Not including Cricket on the list shows how ignorant the west is...being the 2nd most popular sport in the world after soccer it definitely deserves a spot not to mention Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar are probably some of the best athletes the world will ever know.
  • jaywylie
    Yeah - how a list like this can choose to exclude Don Bradman is beyond me. Kinda undermines the credibility of the whole thing.
  • Urkel
    BRUCE LEE
  • A.K. from Kalamazoo, MI
    Lance Armstrong is the biggest cheater of all, he and his sport are filled with
    performance enhancers that should be banned but are not. The truth will come out
    sooner or later.
  • NasserInASaucer
    Karelin for sure. Undefeated for 13 years with a 6 year streak without giving up a point. No one in any sport has matched that. Plus, it's an individual sport, so you can't argue that it came down to his team. It was one man beating every other man he faced for 13 years, until Gardner pulled the biggest upset of all time and chalked another one up for the US of A.
  • I think that Eric Heiden should be considered. Absolutely dominant for several years in Speed Skating, then decided to give cycling a shot and made it into a Tour de France. That's dominant athletics - two extremely trying sports.
  • Cannibal
    Lance Armstrong? not even close! Eddy Merckx, by far. Not even Armstrong himself would argue, in fact, Armstrong has said numerous times that he is even close to Merckx
  • Ath1337
    The word is "dominant". Simple as that. I would argue that Lance would also win "best", but the argument is for dominance, and he most definitely wins that. To win two more TDFs than the greats after overcoming cancer, to beat several people who were worthy of winning the event under normal circumstances (Jan Ullrich was unlucky enough to prime at the same time as Lance), then to take a two year break, come back without properly preparing, after breaking his collarbone, and STILL get third while past his prime...I dunno, you have to be some kind of mixed nuts to contest the dominance there. Oh, and he's coming back again with proper preparation, so we may have to chalk up lucky number 8.
  • YES ITS TRUE
    Yes, Merckx won it 5 times, he also got liver-punched out of it once (yet Armstrong complains about hostile French people) and was one time asked and paid not to come by the organizers because his dominance was too great (yes, that actually happened). Unlike Armstrong he rode all year (6 day track races in winter) and over his long career he won 1 out of every 3 races he entered (this is in a sport where at average 150 competitors are at the starting line).
    He was dominant on the cobbles, in the mountains, time trials and on the track.
    Oh, he also got a phenomenal hour record.
    As is said above here, Lance is happy to admit no one has ever nor will ever come close to the dominance Merckx displayed.

    The most dominant athlete off all times.
  • Pieter
    I would like to argue that Eddy Merckx was way more dominant in the sense that he once even won every single jersey there is to win the Tour De France, and if it had existed the white jersey as well.
  • Hrun
    Yes, dominant is the word. A guy who wins every third race he enters. A guy who wins the equivalent of 1 race per week for his professional career. A guys who won in the same year the sprinter, mountain and overall competition in the TdF. A guy who has won virtually every single bike race there is. That's a guy who dominates his sport.

    Lance Armstrong dominated the TdF. That's it.
  • Pieter
    I would like to argue that Eddy Merckx was way more dominant in the sense that he once even won every single jersey there is to win the Tour De France, and if it had existed the white jersey as well.
  • mattyslovs
    I don't know how anyone who knows a little history about sports could consider Michael Jordan the most dominant athlete of all time. The team was built around him so he could score. He didn't have to rebound. And he missed more shots than he made. As far as career statistics, Larry Bird is better in almost every statistical category except scoring. Jordan isn't even the best basketball player of all time. Wilt Chamberlain not only had the same scoring average despite switching his game to defense late in his career, in his prime scored 30 points and got 20 rebounds a game. He also led the league in assists one year. This discussion is simple for me: Clone five Wilts and five Michaels, let them play, and Michael doesn't win a game.
  • John
    You yanks make me laugh. Greco Roman Wrestling? What about cricket, one of the most widely played sports on the planet. Just because Americans don't play it doesn't mean it should be excluded. Sir Donald Bradman has a record that is so dominant in comparison to his peers that it would make the likes of Gretzky shake his head in disbelief............if he, like most North Americans,weren't so clueless about the sport.
  • Sid
    Ok....if you are going to consider Baseball, then you have to consider it's grand daddy -- Cricket, whose most dominating player, Sachin Tendulkar (India) has been rewriting the record books for the past 20 years and counting! He's up there with Jordan, Armstrong, Schumacher and Federer as the best of the best. I would give him a lot more props than most athletes mentioned here, because the pressure he faces every time he comes in to bat, is just unbelievable. In India, cricket is like a religion, and Sachin Tendulkar is without a doubt it's God!!
  • mb
  • John
    Sid, you're obviously a blind Indian fan. Tendulkar isn't even the greatest batsman of his time. Ever heard of Lara? And the only records Tendulkar is breaking relate to longevity, hardly an indicator of greatness. Yes, he is ONE of the best ever but he's hardly the greatest ever. We all know who that is.....DGB.
  • Hal
    You really need to put Josh Gibson on this list:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Gibson
  • abc123
    sergei bubka. Though he only competed in one event (the pole vault) he set the world record several times and his record of 6.14 meters still stands from 1994, and despite improvements in technology, nobody has come close.
  • Dave Ho
    This is a stupid comparison. It's not even like comparing apples and oranges, but more like apples and home appliances.

    By the way, where is Eddy Merckx for cycling?? He was way more dominant than the Tour de France wonderboy.
  • Bill
    Joe Montana was great, but Brett Favre shoudln't be forgotten as he is still playing at 40 with so many consectutive games and practically owning ever passing record there is.
  • Ath1337
    Your case against Lance Armstrong is that he was accused of doping? Well no duh he was accused! Tons of people who are half as good as him dope, so naturally people are going to *accuse* him of it. But he has only been flagged once and it turned out to be faulty, this being in cycling, the sport that goes to the most length to check for doping. Accusations alone don't mean anything.

    When you consider that a handful of the greats of cycling won 5 Tour de France's, the most grueling competition ever, and Lance is the only person to ever break that number (not to mention to extend his lead by another win), I don't know how you can not think he was the most dominant athlete ever. And hell, he's coming back next year!
  • Biroboy
    Valentino Rossi is the all-time greatest motorsport athlete if not the winner of this list! at age 30 he has won 9 championships in the world premier motorcycle racing MotoGP.
    MotoGP is a fully physical sport (try throwing around a motorcycle whilst racing at nearly 100mph in corners).
    According to his wiki page he has podiumed 164 times winning 103 of those and has set the fastest lap up to that point on that track 83 times!
    There have even been claims that his earnings are higher than that of tiger woods who is repeatedly said to be the wealthiest sport star at the moment.
    In one particularly memorable race he was awarded a 15 second time penalty for an illegal overtake, he was so badass that he decided he wanted to win enough that he pulled more than 15 seconds ahead of second place winning the race!
  • CRJJ
    But isn't motoGP more of a skill or talent? I think a great athlete could be a good moto racer but that doesn't mean that the best moto racer was the gym class hero or captain of any HS sports they tried. Tough call.
  • Durben
    Regarding the Maradona, you got your facts not very correctly. While Pele has more trophies, Maradona did it almost alone in 1986. Maradona is not wildly considered the second best palyer ever but on pair with Pele and not only in Argentina. The younger genarations tend to choose Maradona while the older ones tipically choose Pele.
  • James
    He did do it all alone, he even used his hand to score the winning goal against England in '86.
  • CRJJ
    I think "the hand of God" is what get people like me to not give Maradona as much credit as he may deserve, and I was born and raised as a futbol lifer. Spectacular player though, he had beautiful game...
  • SportsFan
    "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Zaharias
    Olympics in 1932, three medals in different events. All American Basketball player, professional Golfer, and more.
    Nobody's been that good at that many sports ever.
  • Ben
    # Men only for this list. We’ll handle women when the Gunaxin audience becomes interested in female sports, or when women start routinely beating men at these sports.
  • za
    The jab at Nicklaus for "Not being Tiger Woods" is unforgivable. If ANYTHING it should be a knock on Tiger for "not being Jack Nicklaus." A fantastic way to make a mockery of your entire article, I didn't even keep reading.
  • farlinax
    HUGE gaping hole:

    Fedor Emelianenko of Mixed Martial Arts... if you're going to include Wrestling you need to include MMA, which has (almost?) surpassed boxing in terms of popularity.

    With a record of 31-1 and 1 NC, and his only "loss" due to a very controversial cut which he later revenged, he has to be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. He's by far the baddest man on the planet and consistently ranked as the top pound for pound fighter in the world.

    If you don't think MMA is a sport, go join a kickboxing class and time how long until you puke
  • Tom
    I'll add to farlinax's comment by mentioning that the 1 loss not ONLY came from a cut, it was an accidental illegal attack that was completely not intended by the attacker, dealt almost no pain or damage to Fedor, and happened within the first 10 seconds of the fight, and you could barely see it happen because neither fighter reacts to it at all -- it wasn't a big deal. However, since it was a tournament, and a winner HAD to be declared, and since a rule WAS broken, they were forced to give Fedor a loss, even though it was in no way, shape, or arguable form a loss. To say Fedor is actually 32-0-2 is one of the easiest and most one-sided agreed debates in all of controversial sports debates.

    Fedor definitely deserves at least a chance to get votes. I'd argue he, at his current career point, would only deserve to be half way up the list of these greats, but judging by the way people are voting, he'd most likely sneak into the top ten.
  • jstr
    Babe Zaharias was by far the greatest...
  • mrpresident
    Nolan Ryan for Baseball anyone? 7 no hitters? all time strikeout record?
  • cookworth
    Yeah that is a huge omission, but still not Gretzky
  • kewl mallu
    Where's cricket....its arguably more popular than all the sports on this page ...except maybe football...or as you termed it...soccer
  • Wes
    Nothing of note for the ladies?
  • Wes
    Nothing for ladies?
  • jigga
    Where's Manny Pacquiao???
  • diego
    no manny pacquiao in boxing? really?
    7 titles in 7 weight divisions is way more than enough for most fighters daring to be great
  • Biroboy
    Valentino Rossi is the all-time greatest motorsport athlete if not the winner of this list! at age 30 he has won 9 championships in the world premier motorcycle racing MotoGP.
    MotoGP is a fully physical sport (try throwing around a motorcycle whilst racing at nearly 100mph in corners).
    According to his wiki page he has podiumed 164 times winning 103 of those and has set the fastest lap up to that point on that track 83 times!
    There have even been claims that his earnings are higher than that of tiger woods who is repeatedly said to be the wealthiest sport star at the moment.
    In one particularly memorable race he was awarded a 15 second time penalty for an illegal overtake, he was so badass that he decided he wanted to win enough that he pulled more than 15 seconds ahead of second place winning the race!
  • JD
    I'd change the "Greco-Roman Wrestling" category to just "Wrestling and add in Cael Sanderson.

    He went undefeated in four years of college wrestling (159–0), winning four consecutive NCAA titles (1999–2002).
  • Tom
    Pretty awesome article, but with a few glaring oddities.

    In the Usain Bolt section you wrote "Case against: Does one extraordinary year make one the ‘most dominant athlete of all time?’ " -- Phelps mostly falls into this same pitfall, which is also one you outlined in your own rules, yet you add the suggestion that Phelps should be considered for best of all time? I think you made a mistake in that call, because it betrays one of your rules most of us would agree with.

    Also: You say Rocky Marciano never fought anyone that tough . . . but when you check out all the fighters he beat, Joe Louis is one of them . . . who made the list above Rocky. Not saying Rocky deserves to be ranked, I'm just saying you chose some poor wording.

    Those 2 oddities aside, my only suggestion would be adding an MMA section, and having Fedor added to the voting poll, along with a few other top lifetime contenders. Would be very hard to choose, and I'll admit Fedor wouldn't win the whole vote, but he would still deserve many more votes than about a third or so of this voting list.

    Good job though!
  • Dustinyourjuice
    I agree that MMA (Fedor & Anderson Silva) should be on the list.

    Also.. to include only pre-WW2 baseball players makes the baseball section irrelevant. It was a completely different game in 1930 than it is now (All white players, no slider, limited competition, etc.) and Ruth wouldn't even make a major league roster if he was alive today. Pujols is the most dominant hitter ever, and Bob Gibson arguably the most dominant pitcher. IMO, those should be the options.

    And if this is a discussion of "dominance" how can Calzaghe and Mayweather not be on the boxing list? Undeafeated records against top competition seem to be the definition of domination.
  • turboderek
    Leaving out motorcycle racing is a mistake. Both road-racing and motorcross/supercross have had dominate performers. Valentino Rossi won championships across different platformers of bike from 2-stroke 500cc to 990cc/800cc 4 stroke. MX/SX has had Ricky Carmichael.
  • Standardbred
    Note on horse racing.

    The most dominant athlete in the history of any athletic event is a horse named Hambletonian. All North American Standardbred horses are descendants of this turn of the century champion. No other athlete can claim complete genetic domination of a sport.
  • something123
    Where's Fedor and Anderson Silva?
  • Justin
    "Greco-Roman wrestling is too small of a sport compared to the others." This is kind of unusual since you made no such remark about American Football which is mostly just athletes from America competing in the sport. Greco Roman wrestling is an international and Olympic sport that is trained in many nations all over the world pulling from athletes all over the globe.
  • TrueAfrican!
    Seriously, which fool left both Rugby (Union, League and 7's) and Cricket (which will be the most popular sport in the future) off of the list?

    Rugby players should get a hand up on the Football players - since they take part in a continuous play with more match mechanisms (like scrums, lineouts, rucks, mauls yadda yadda yadda...)
    However, Cricket Especially, as there are greats such as... well anyone who played for Australia during the 90's more or less 2007... and scores more!

    PS, your "soccer" list is poorly researched - most true fans, like him or not, see Zidane as being better than Pele and Marradonna (also, what about players such as Cantona or Messi)
  • Caiel
    In terms of basketball are you only considering NBA careers? Kareem Abdul Jabbar dominated in highschool, in college, and had an illustirous NBA career.
  • Brian
    I know it's technically wheelchair tennis, but Esther Vergeer should be on this list. Here's a paste from Wikipedia.

    "At international tournaments, Vergeer has (as of September 11, 2009) won 139 singles and 122 doubles titles. Her overall record is 574 wins and 25 losses in singles, and 390 wins and 30 losses in doubles [2]. Since 31 March 2001 she has lost only one singles match (on 30 Jan 2003 at the Sydney International to Daniela Di Toro from Australia). Between August 2004 and October 2006 she even won 250 consecutive sets, only one of which ended with a tiebreaker. Vergeer is currently on a 376-match winning streak[3][4] .
    She has been nominated five times [5] for the Laureus Award for Sportsperson with a Disability of the Year, winning it twice in 2002 and 2008."

    Small sport, I know, but still, she needs to be recognized.
  • jon
    there should be an MMA category. those men are the best athletes of all time.
  • Matt
    Albert Pujols? (sorry if he was already said)...he's not even 30 yet and has been dominating since say 1 in the MLB.
  • Bo Jackson.
  • Fast_Eddie
    I'd like to thank all the real cycling fans for coming out and defending the true champions of the sport. Lance could hold the Cannibals feed bag.
  • Smudge
    Funny how all the votes are going towards current/recent athletes.
    In my mind, there is no way in hell that Spitz or Laver should be anywhere near the bottom.
  • Hugh
    Best of all time?
    Let's not forget Jim Thorpe:
    "In 1950, Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press (AP)."
  • SOL
    I realise cricket isn't exactly a household sport in the US. But the title of this exercise was "Who is the Most Dominant Athlete Ever?", and cricket is a major sport in more countries than American Football (NFL), including India with over 1 billion people.
    So, do a bit of research into a cricketer called Donald Bradman, who over a long and storied career, had a batting average roughly double that of the guy who sits at No.2
    Any objective search would have to conclude that statistically, at least, there is no other more dominant figure in his sport as Sir Donald Bradman.
  • Far and Away, it's got to be Sir Don Bradman. To match the dominance of his career 99.94 runs average, Jordan would have had to score 43 points per game. And he lost several years of his career to World War II and debilitating muscle pain. He's been statistically proven to be the most dominant athlete ever, and by a staggeringly huge amount.

    Past him, why no Eddy Merckx? He won all possible jerseys at all three of the Grand Tours: '68 Giro, '69 Tour, and '73 Vuelta, and is the only person to have done so in the Tour. He also won the most Grand Tours (11). He even set the hour record. Armstrong may have won the Tour de France more times, but he was a Tour specialist. Merckx won everything, a staggering 525 races, altogether. Even in the Tour, he won 34 stages to Armstrong's 22.
  • damichi
    Really Really bad list
    1) NASCAR is not a sport! It's watching people going in an oval waiting for a crash (almost as booring as baseball)
    2) baseball is not a sport. If you're fat and good at your sport and it's not called sumo, there is something wrong with your sport.
    3) what about MotoGP? I would consider Valentino Rossi with 6 titles in MotoGP and probably winning this year too, the "Doctor" is the man to beat.
    4) what about MMA? I mean who cares about boxing anymore? I would go with Fedor Emelianenko winning PRIDE and also against UFC's top fighter at that time Mark Coleman.
  • BGH
    Like has already been mentioned, leaving Sir Donald Bradman off the list completely undermines the integrity of it.
  • sue
    Cal Ripken Jr for baseball
  • motogp fan
    Valentino Rossi - 103 Grand Prix victories - 9 World Championships accross 3 different classes and multiple types of motorcycles of various brands. Dominant is a word you hear often associated with his name.
  • Bushmills21
    Jim Thorpe, and we're done.
  • mordi
    mma?
    marial arts in general?
    ie the GRACIES!?
  • I'll acknowledge the failure to include Eddy Merckx, but I have to tell you I've never heard of Donald Bradman before. Sure that makes me ignorant of Cricket, but I'd venture to guess that 99% of the people in the United States couldn't tell you who the fuck Donald Bradman is. Doesn't mean he wasn't dominate, but certainly explains his omission from a list on a U.S. based site.
  • nimrodassassin
    Gordie Howe is not considered as most dominant in hockey? He played in four decades. His achieved his best scoring in seasons that the NHL defensive categories were at the top. When injuries affected the Wings, he moved to defense and excelled. The majority of his achievements came before expansion watered down the game. In the twilight of his career, Orr did not dominate him face to face. Not to mention that he played dirty in a skillful and graceful manner far better than anyone who ever laced them up.
    That Gordie is known as Mr. Hockey is not without foundation. It appears that someone suffers from "ESPN syndrome"; i.e., nothing significant happened before 1979.
  • khaine
    Ray Lewis
  • JAH
    I would have to vote for Vasiliy Alekseyev, the great Soviet weightlifter from the 70's. He broke 80 world records, 81 Soviet records and won every world championships/Olympics from 1970 to 1977 inclusive.
  • john doe
    no manny pacquaio? the only boxer that had 7 titles in 7 weight division. regarded as pound for pound king by majority of boxing analysts. this list is lame.
  • Scott
    When looking at basketball players, if we're talking dominance, you can't just talk scoring average or records -- I think you need to look at the difference between first and second place. For instance, how far ahead was Michael Jordan of the next best player in scoring average and how good he was?

    That's why I gotta go with Wilt Chamberlain on this one. There was such a huge talent differential between him and everyone else at the time. He holds the top 4 single-game scoring totals, and the top 3 single-season scoring averages. He averaged 38 points a game as a ROOKIE, more than Michael Jordan EVER averaged. His stats during his prime years were so far and above anyone else in the league, it's ridiculous.

    Jordan was incredible, but he wasn't scoring 15-20 points a game more than anyone else, plus grabbing 30 rebounds.
  • cookworth
    If people truly knew about Hockey this wouldn't even be close. Not a single one of Jordans accomplishments even compares to any of Gretzky, the guy holds over 160 individual records, Whats Jordan got like 3, come on.
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