OF THE GREATEST AND THE CONTENDING VIEWS
other factors such as parochialism, nationality and familiarity could help to slant how one feels about a sporting personality.
CHARISMA
If one could see Muhammad Ali as an example, his greatness is not necessarily about the opponents he conquered, but also about the charisma and the colour he brought to boxing. When one looks at his opponents Ali has beaten in his prime, except for possibly Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, George Foreman and Joe Frazier, his opponents have been fairly ordinary.
Yet, a boxer like Mike Tyson, who was like a ‘fighting machine’ in his prime, does not get the kinds of accolades Ali gets from boxing pundits, albeit that, in his prime, no boxer could absorb his raw power, which has many opponents, including former champions Trevor Berbick, Michael Spinks and Donovan ‘Razor’ Ruddock, beaten by fear before they entered the ring.
Football serves up another fantastic example in the Brazilian Pele and the Argentine genius, Diego Maradona. While Pele took the world by storm as a 17-yearold at the 1958 FIFA World Cup, in Sweden, and went on to win three world cup titles, Maradona lit up the 1982 edition and then completely dominated four years later, in a manner never seen at the level of world football before or since.
While the stopwatch and dazzling collection of gold medals has elevated Usain Bolt to the position of undisputed greatest sprinter of all time, I am 100 per cent sure that if it was not for the stopwatch, the Americans would be hanging the greatest of all-time sprinters tag on either Jesse Owen or Carl Lewis, even with all the Olympic Games and IAAF World Championships medals Bolt has won.
Armed with all the contending factors and my own views, such as believing Diego Maradona is not the greatest footballer that has ever walked this planet, albeit just having one World Cup title to Pele’s three, I think it would be quite silly to argue with the persons that Michael Jordan is greater than Lebron James or vice versa.