Who is your pick as the most dominant athlete over the last 50 years?

[pa99fighter]

Originally Posted by dan the man 67

Of course swimming counts.............I mentioned Phelps in the very 1st post of this thread.

Oh. Then I have no idea why not as many people voted for him

[earle]

Originally Posted by Masscore

Not only that, the guy changed the sport of Hockey forever. Before Orr it was unheard of for a defensemen to crash the net or even score that often. I think the guy gets overlooked so often because he did not play that long, but there is not a single person that has completly changed a sport like Orr.

I respectfully beg to differ, Orr was a beast but there was one other player who completely changed the way a sport was played: Bob "Bullet" Hayes.

Bob Hayes was the gold medallist in the 100m and 4x100m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for the U.S. His anchor leg in the 4x1 relay is still considered the fastest of all time, and he's the only man to win gold in the 100m and a superbowl ring. After the Olympics he played wide receiver and punt returner for the Dallas Cowboys. Hayes was so fast that he forced teams to change the way they covered receivers, basically inventing the zone defences we see today.

Up until Usain Bolt came along last year, I always considered Hayes the fastest of all time, winning the 100m out of lane 1 (which as chewed up from previous races, because the tracks were cinder in those days). If you ever get a chance to see the relay clip from the 64' Olympics, watch it, the fastest relay leg ever, full stop.

Just my two cents.

[deadstealth]

My vote goes to Jordan.

[kickedinthehead]

Wayne Gretzky!!

[tallica]

Originally Posted by Masscore

Not only that, the guy changed the sport of Hockey forever. Before Orr it was unheard of for a defensemen to crash the net or even score that often. I think the guy gets overlooked so often because he did not play that long, but there is not a single person that has completly changed a sport like Orr.

I have to agree with you about Orr, the guy was a friggin stud. He totally revolutionized what a defenseman did and dominated the game.

As far as the other sports go Dale Earnhardt changed NASCAR forever. Even though I was never a big fan, you can't deny what he did for racing. Jordan has to be mentioned. The guy just dominated the NBA when he was playing. Finally, Bo Jackson. I think it was said already but he wasn't just alright at baseball and football, he was real damn good at both.

[CEVANS]

Bobby orr

[Degenero]

Wayne Gretzky

Mario Lemieux had another rival for the could-have-been in the record books of hockey. Definitely Bobby Orr. The Man of Gold.

[dan the man 67]

Now we have Usain Bolt.....that guy is pretty dominant in running. Is he more dominant in running than Phelps is in swimming, or Gretzky was in hockey? Hard to say, since we haven't known about him for that long. I think we'd have to see how long his career will span, and how many times he beats his own record, and how far ahead he is compared to the second best guy.

[LethalStriker]

One can kind of view Tony Hawk as the Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky of his respective sport. He was not only a big superstar during the '80's as part of the Bones Brigade but also when skating returned to prominence with the help of the X Games. He's the first skater to ever successfully land a 900.