What individual dominated their sport more than any other dominated theirs?

[Waz1892]

Steffi Graf blitzed her regein, like no-one before or since.

No-one has a better record overall than Steffi.

Most weeks at number 1.
Grand slams and golden grand slam
13 consectative finals during late 80's.
8 years as number 1
186 consectative weeks at number 1.
5 years (twice) in having a winning streak of over 90%

Martina Navratilova?

In Wimbledon overall trophies yes, alot were doubles though.
But as an overall career Steffi was more dominent imo

[kinboshi]

Steffi Graf blitzed her regein, like no-one before or since.

No-one has a better record overall than Steffi.

Most weeks at number 1.
Grand slams and golden grand slam
13 consectative finals during late 80's.
8 years as number 1
186 consectative weeks at number 1.
5 years (twice) in having a winning streak of over 90%

Martina Navratilova?

In Wimbledon overall trophies yes, alot were doubles though.
But as an overall career Steffi was more dominent imo

Could argue that Graff didn't have as much competition, and that Martina dominated for a much longer period.  The two of them even had a great head-to-head rivalry.  Didn't Martina manage back-to-back slams, something that Steffi didn't manage?

Then, like you say, there's the doubles as well.

[AdamM]

Some MMA candidates

Ronda Rousey
Anderson Silva
Georges St. Pierre

I was going to say, MMA has some great candidates.

Anderson Silva entered the UFC in 2006 18-4 and won 16 on the bounce over the next 6 years, usually in devastating fashion, including a dethroning and twice annihilating of Rich Franklin who, himself was a pretty dominany force with a 22-1-1 record when they first fought. He's lost twice to Chris Weidman, but no body thinks that's because Weidman is a better fighter (good as he is). Hopefully he's back with his recent Diaz win, but I think we're all braced for a retirement, if not now, then following one of his next couple of fights.

Georges St Pierre entered the UFC 5-0 and appart from his novice loss to Matt Hughes (in his prime) and a shock defeat by Matt Serra (legend) he's went 20-2 as a UFC Welterweight, including avenging both losses. Not having any of this Jonny Hendriks was robbed rubbish either. GSP clearly won 3 rounds of 5.

Talking of Matt Hughes, he was pretty dominant before GSP came along and spoilt the party. His 45-9 record has an 18 win streak, followed by two quick losses, then a 19 fight winning run broken only by a loss to BJ Penn smack bang in the middle. The game evolved and time is unforgiving, but 1998 - 2006, Matt Hughes was unarguably the greatest welterweight on the planet.

And what about Jose Aldo at Featherweight? 25-1, 15 straight in WEC/UFC, hasn't lost since 2005. Much as I love Conor McGregor, I just don't see a dethroning when they meet. Utterly dominant champion.

Not to forget Fedor Emilianenko too. Until Fabricio Werdum broke the spell in 2010 Fedor was 31-1-1 and the loss was a controversial 1st round 17 second doctors stoppage. Ignoring that and the NC against Big Nog due to an accidental clash of heads, Fedor won 31 straight against a murderers row on heavyweight/open weight killers. If only the UFC deal could have been done.

Ronda Rousey is 10-0, and that includes 9 1st round stoppages, and 8 armbar submissions. Cat Zingano's 9-0 streak is coming to an end saturday 28th Feb.

Jon Jones (sadly, cos he's a dick) has been utterly dominant, at least he was until Alex Gustaffson was robbed at UFC 165. He's gone 5 rounds in his last 3 fights and I think once he loses to Alex at the rematch this summer, much like with Fedor, the spell will break, and he'll look human again.

Finally, you have to mention Demetrious Johnson. 21-2-1, and his only loss in UFC was to Dominic Crus at Bantam Weight. As a Flyweight, he looks unbeatable for the foreseeable future.

[arbboy]

Amazing how no one has even mentioned Mayweather in this discussion.  Not suggesting for a minute he is worthy but i thought someone would have mentioned him as a sideline.

[superwomble]

How about Michael Phelps? Far more medals than any other swimmer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_Olympic_swimming_medalists

[vegaslover]

Amazing how no one has even mentioned Mayweather in this discussion.  Not suggesting for a minute he is worthy but i thought someone would have mentioned him as a sideline.

Interesting one that should probably be considered.
Personally would never pick a boxer from the last 20 years as it is all politics and who can take the easiest fight/hang onto a belt most of the time. Cant say that about someone like Tiger

[TightEnd]

On Feb 3rd 2008 Tiger Woods shot 65 and came from 5 or 6 shots behind during the 4th round to win the Dubai Desert classic.

After that weekend the gap between his world ranking points and Phil Mickelson's world ranking points in second place was bigger than the gap between Phil Mickelson in 2nd place and the guy ranked 1000th in the world.

He was 423 world ranking points in front of Mickelson and Mickelson's total world ranking points on that day were 394.

The top 200 were listed here.

http://www.golftoday.co.uk/tours/rankings/world_wk05_08.html

I can't see footballers as dominating their events and some of the athletes and tennis players might benefit from the level of the opponents faced in their era. Tiger dominated a sport played against 150 runner fields most weeks and was so far ahead of a guy that became a multiple major winner and is already in the golf Hall of fame. Of the first 32 Golf World Championship events he won 16 of them.

Talyor in 2nd for me.

this is obviously a very powerful argument indeed

just out of interest, Nicklaus won 18 majors (19 2nds, 9 3rds) as part of 110 tournament wins over a 44 year career, only focussing on a comparatively light schdeule every year

does that amount of success over such a long time count for anything, or were fields so comparatively shallow in those days that Tger's achivement is that much better?

(i appreciate we are talking about 1 and 2 all time, so its semantics, but anyway)

[MintTrav]

Regarding the OP, though I always wanted Ali to win, I can't see that he was the most dominant boxer in history. Even just amongst heavyweights, I can think of at least six who were more dominant in their eras (Louis, Marciano, Holmes, Tyson,  Vitali,  Wlad).

Also think Anquetil, Hinault & Big Mig were probably as dominant as Merckx in their time.

[Waz1892]

Steffi Graf blitzed her regein, like no-one before or since.

No-one has a better record overall than Steffi.

Most weeks at number 1.
Grand slams and golden grand slam
13 consectative finals during late 80's.
8 years as number 1
186 consectative weeks at number 1.
5 years (twice) in having a winning streak of over 90%

Martina Navratilova?

In Wimbledon overall trophies yes, alot were doubles though.
But as an overall career Steffi was more dominent imo

Could argue that Graff didn't have as much competition, and that Martina dominated for a much longer period.  The two of them even had a great head-to-head rivalry.  Didn't Martina manage back-to-back slams, something that Steffi didn't manage?

Then, like you say, there's the doubles as well.
[/quote


Didnt think she ever won an actual grand slam, evert stopped her 3 times.

Steffi won it in '88 (golden too) and was stopped from repeating it 4 seperate times winning 3 of the 4.

I would say she dominanted for longer, '87 first grand slam, '99 her last.  Overall 22 vs 18 single titles in Steffi favour.

Longest number 1 consec
Only ever golden
Quickest final win (34mins)

[kinboshi]

Amazing how no one has even mentioned Mayweather in this discussion.  Not suggesting for a minute he is worthy but i thought someone would have mentioned him as a sideline.

Was thinking of Roy Jones Jr, who was massively dominant until everything fell apart towards the end. He fought everyone in his division as well - unlike Mayweather.

[AndrewT]

How about Michael Phelps? Far more medals than any other swimmer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_Olympic_swimming_medalists

The thing about swimming is that once you've won one gold it's easy to pick up more.

"You won a gold for swimming 2 lengths on your front. Now try it on your back. Now do 4 lengths. Now do 2 lengths as part of a team where everyone does the same style. Now have a go where you do the same but everyone else does different styles". Suddenly you've got more gold round your neck than Mr T.

[Jon MW]

How about Michael Phelps? Far more medals than any other swimmer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_Olympic_swimming_medalists

The thing about swimming is that once you've won one gold it's easy to pick up more.

"You won a gold for swimming 2 lengths on your front. Now try it on your back. Now do 4 lengths. Now do 2 lengths as part of a team where everyone does the same style. Now have a go where you do the same but everyone else does different styles". Suddenly you've got more gold round your neck than Mr T.

It's a good explanation of how you can get more than in other sports - but doesn't really explain why one swimmer would get so many more than other swimmers

[arbboy]

How about Michael Phelps? Far more medals than any other swimmer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_Olympic_swimming_medalists

The thing about swimming is that once you've won one gold it's easy to pick up more.

"You won a gold for swimming 2 lengths on your front. Now try it on your back. Now do 4 lengths. Now do 2 lengths as part of a team where everyone does the same style. Now have a go where you do the same but everyone else does different styles". Suddenly you've got more gold round your neck than Mr T.

Pretty much how i have always seen swimming.  The biggest factor in winning multiple golds is your ability to recover between races.  If you are the best freestyle swimmer and you are american you will probably win 5 golds with relays for just being good at one stroke.

[Waz1892]

Do we know if someone been amazingly dominent in lesser known sports; badminton, archery, bowls (the pipe guy springs to mind) and loads of other ones.

[arbboy]

Do we know if someone been amazingly dominent in lesser known sports; badminton, archery, bowls (the pipe guy springs to mind) and loads of other ones.

I thought of the bowls guy (David Bryant) i think his name was.