v2 G.O.A.T The Last 16 Match 6

First topic message reminder :

The GOAT moved into the second half of the last 16 draw yesterday and match 5 presented arguably the biggest match up of the tournament so far with football icon Diego Maradonna taking on Don Bradman for a spot in the last 8. It was Bradman that established a strong lead from the outset and despite a valiant effort from Maradonna who started to pick up vote throughout the day he eventually fell just 7 votes short in a 54%- 56% vote split in favour of the batting legend.

Diego Maradonna exits the tournament having dispatched Tony McCoy, Bobby Jones, Edwin Moses and Daley Thompson on his way to the last 16.

Today’s match up pits Michael Jordan vs. Wayne Gretzky for a spot in the last 8.
Please vote for the participant you believe has achieved the most in sport
Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Wayne Gretzky- Ice Hockey- Championed by Azzy Mahmood

"If you’re looking for a G.O.A.T., then look no further than Wayne Gretzky, or as he is more commonly known, ‘The Great One’. Gretzky is the best ice hockey player of all-time, by some considerable distance, with an incredible number of records set during his 20-year NHL career that will never, ever be broken.

In ice hockey there are a wide variety of stats. To make this brief, I’ll only talk about the three main stats – points, goals and assists. Points = goals + assists in case you’re unfamiliar with ice hockey (please do ask questions in the thread, I’m happy to answer them).

Points: Gretzky is the leading point-scorer in NHL history, with 2,857 points. Second-placed Mark Messier has 1,887 points. Only one player in NHL history has scored over 200 points in a single season – which Gretzky did four times. And only Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have ever scored more than 155 points in a season. Points-wise, Gretzky was the greatest player by far.

Goals: Gretzky scored 894 goals in his career, 93 more than second-placed Gordie Howe. He took the 5th most number of shots in history. A devastating stat is that he leads all players in short-handed goals – with 73 – showing that, even playing with the equivalent of 9 men, he was still head and shoulders above the rest. The most number of goals in one season is 92 – by Gretzky. He also has the most number of hat-tricks – 50 in total. As the stats show, Gretzky was the best goal scorer in hockey history.

Assists: Gretzky provided 1,963 assists which, you may notice, is more than any other player has even when combining goals and assists. Even if he had never scored a goal in his career, he’d still lead the points table. That is a measure of just how great Gretzky was.

When Gretzky retired in 1999, he held 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, and six All-Star game records. Most of these will never be beaten. He was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, waiving the normal 3-year waiting period. The NHL retired his jersey number 99 league-wide, the only player to have had this recognition. If you see a sports player with ‘99’ on his shirt, it is almost certainly a tribute to The Great One.

In terms of peer recognition, Gretzky captured nine Hart Trophies as the league’s MVP, five Lester B. Pearson Awards as the players’ MVP, five Lady Byng Trophies for sportsmanship and performance, and two Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP. During his career he also won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers –the ultimate trophy in ice hockey - and led the Los Angeles Kings to the Stanley Cup Finals as well. Following his playing career, he became Executive Director of the Canadian men’s ice hockey team, leading them to Olympic Gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

In all of sporting history, no transfer, draft pick or trade has ever caused as much emotional outpouring as ‘The Trade’. On 9 August 1988 Canada was in uproar as Edmonton traded Gretzky to Los Angeles for $15m (at that time, a hefty sum), plus an exchange of other players back-and-forth. Canadian politicians demanded that the Canadian government block the trade, and the owner of Edmonton was vilified to such an extent that his own fans burned effigies of him outside their arena. Gretzky himself was unable to talk at the press conference, such was his love for his team, as he cried in front of hundreds of journalists. The Trade has been referenced in films and on TV ever since.

‘The Trade’ did have one very positive effect. It made California, previously oblivious to ice hockey, stand up and take notice of the sport – Gretzky is often credited with being single-handedly responsible for popularizing the sport in California.

In addition to all this, Gretzky was chosen to be the final torch-bearer at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, lighting the cauldron. Nickelback had Gretzky in their video for ‘Rock Star’, and reportedly wouldn’t make the video if they couldn’t get him in it. Gretzky also appears in all the TV adverts for Visit California – a measure of how much he is loved there, that a Canadian sportsman could be an ambassador for their state.

So there it is. I hope this has opened a few people’s eyes to the greatness of Wayne Gretzky, a man who I believe truly is the Greatest Of All Time. He won everything there was to win, he broke every record there was to break, and he made the sport what it is today. There will never be another like Wayne Gretzky."

All the mods need to do is disqualify any votes belonging to accounts that havent been contributing on the sporting forums for the last 6 months or even a year. Bit like how you cant vote before the age of 18 in the real world.

I feel sorry for the Mods tho that put this together as they are pretty trusting of us.

I agree Aucks..

i have enjoyed this.. But it does truely seem like one idiot(with perhaps the help of others) is trying to mess it up

I've enjoyed it to, I ve learnt things, and bought other factors into consideration which I probably wouldnt have before.

I was think ing that that the concept could have variations like Greatest team, greatest contact sport, fastest sport, greatest coach etc etc even greatest current sportsman (Le Bron v Dan Carter) he he ..

Yep . I think i would go for a best team next up!

Would you differentiate between International teams? Company owned teams like Red Bull? teams playing in a localised competition like one of your Northern hemisphere comps like Heinekin Cup?

No - all teams..

so erm..

mclaren, red bull. ferrari as well as man u, barca, spain, germany as well as the british cycling team, the all blacks, the aus cricket team.. etc


it would create alot of debate about what is worthy or not i suppose.

yeah good one Mystir, we could have some robust debate with some of those teams as ammo.

Just to say I ultimately voted for MJ (at about 10.30 last night). I think he just edges it because of the greater number of titles won and because ultimately the NBA draws from a bigger potential talent pool than the NHL (the USA has a bigger population than Canada )

When I last checked, Gretzky was about 6 votes clear...now I log in and find Jordan picked up 20 votes overnight? Whoever is trying to rig this really does have no life whatsoever

dummy_half wrote:Just to say I ultimately voted for MJ (at about 10.30 last night). I think he just edges it because of the greater number of titles won and because ultimately the NBA draws from a bigger potential talent pool than the NHL (the USA has a bigger population than Canada )

And on this point, 24 of the 30 NHL teams are based in the USA, and 21% of all players are from the USA.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:When I last checked, Gretzky was about 6 votes clear...now I log in and find Jordan picked up 20 votes overnight? Whoever is trying to rig this really does have no life whatsoever

Gutted for your man Gretzky. Jordan, Lebron James and Spunky Hands are stinking this competition out!

Surely an enquiry is needed. Clear case if vote rigging if ever I've seen one.

If late night activity is suspicious, then why not just close the polls at 10 or 11pm?

It may exclude some voters, but they should wake up earlier, or have a more sensible time zone...

I have no problem with Gretzky losing, but only if it's a fair competition. It is abundantly clear that the late night votes for Jordan were rigged.

What is laughable is that if it is some kind of Facebook intervention to skew this, how few "friends" (even of the virtual kind) the perpetrators must actually have.

I voted Jordan yesterday, as I did versus SRR purely based on my view of the head to head each time but the overnight sweeping to victory in a similar manner again stinks, regardless of timezones.

Someone's mom [sic] and dad must have switched the parental control on the home PC preventing the perpetrator(s) from logging on to stupidcartoonporn.com or equivalent.

.... and that's me out, this process has been rendered utterly pointless.

If Auckland Laurie is correct, which I trust he is, SH has to be banned and Gretzky put through to the next round.

I voted Gretzky this morning (about 3am UK time) and that made it even. Very surprised to come back and find MJ wins again.

Whole thing is a fix.

For the record, I voted Jordan late last night without commenting - I'll be honest I know nothing about basketball or hockey - I think it's just what more casual posters (me included) do - vote for the bigger name without necesarilly justifying it. You can see it in today's poll - Pele is miles ahead of Phelps already, but the vast majority of posters have bigged up Phelps. Conspiracy? I doubt it.

To be honest if the tournament can survive the utter debacle of opening up with Gavin Hastings in the very first poll then it should be able to handle a guy making the last 8 who is a clear all time great in a massive sport.

Humbert-Hench wrote:For the record, I voted Jordan late last night without commenting - I'll be honest I know nothing about basketball or hockey - I think it's just what more casual posters (me included) do - vote for the bigger name without necesarilly justifying it. You can see it in today's poll - Pele is miles ahead of Phelps already, but the vast majority of posters have bigged up Phelps. Conspiracy? I doubt it.

It's the sudden influx of votes for Jordan after everyone in the UK had gone to bed that's in question, not the reason for the votes. Every single time Jordan's been on a vote, there's been a slew of late-night votes that have turned the result on its head.

And as one of our colleagues says, at 3am the scores were level. Who votes after 3am on a poll on a forum?

That's me well and truly out now, gone beyond a joke. Khan, Robinson and now Gretzky have all been ahead by a good few votes only to be overhauled in the middle of the night. In the case of Robinson and Gretzky they would both be fairly well known in America so would be naive to think they would receive no votes across the pond.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:

Humbert-Hench wrote:For the record, I voted Jordan late last night without commenting - I'll be honest I know nothing about basketball or hockey - I think it's just what more casual posters (me included) do - vote for the bigger name without necesarilly justifying it. You can see it in today's poll - Pele is miles ahead of Phelps already, but the vast majority of posters have bigged up Phelps. Conspiracy? I doubt it.

It's the sudden influx of votes for Jordan after everyone in the UK had gone to bed that's in question, not the reason for the votes. Every single time Jordan's been on a vote, there's been a slew of late-night votes that have turned the result on its head.

And as one of our colleagues says, at 3am the scores were level. Who votes after 3am on a poll on a forum?

Surely the admin can check where those votes were registered?

If they happen to be from geographically distinct areas then we'll just have to accept they were from different individuals. I can't imagine one person going through all the hassle of recruiting friends from different parts of the country/globe just to vote on this

But of course.. if they have certain powers then anything is possible..

I must not say anymore.



emancipator

i voted at 10pm to put gretzky 20-18 ahead if i remember rightly.

since, there have been around 22 more votes overnight and this morning,14-8 in jordan's favour - is that really so unbelievable???!!

personally i think this vote has close call written all over it.

additionally, the poll was not globalised yesteday, and therefore many regular voters were not aware it was even up. there are still about 20 more voters yet to post if we are going to get up to the 80 vote total that most polls are getting close to.

getting a bit carried away with the rumour making imo... can't help thinking you all love a bit of controversy

Yes Oh Barragan I agree..

Some people are just butt hurt

Barragan

I voted a little later, and I think it was 22-21 to Gretsky after my vote.

I think a few people are seeing conspiracy where none exists here (perhaps understandably after the earlier manipulation by Hans) - this was always going to be a tight vote, and I don't think there was more than a couple of votes in it for most of the day.

You'd have to be incredibly naive to not see the obvious here.

This is what I said yesterday after Hans came out supporting Jordan:

It Must Be Love wrote:Expecting him to get around 15 votes in the night then....

It Must Be Love wrote:The poll should be stopped at midnight today.

Check the location of the new posters who have voted.
Bet they all happen to be close to Hans.

dummy_half wrote:Barragan

I voted a little later, and I think it was 22-21 to Gretsky after my vote.

I think a few people are seeing conspiracy where none exists here (perhaps understandably after the earlier manipulation by Hans) - this was always going to be a tight vote, and I don't think there was more than a couple of votes in it for most of the day.

I refer you to Auckland's posts earlier in the thread to see the sudden discrepancy in the voting.

p.s. I'm not seeing a conspiracy, I'm seeing the actions of a spunk covered bell-end.

superflyweight wrote:p.s. I'm not seeing a conspiracy, I'm seeing the actions of a spunk covered bell-end.

aucklandlaurie wrote: And make that Jordan 7 to Greztky's one over two and a half hours.

You referring to this superfly? Call me naive but if this is the actions of one individual then is he really going to do this meticulously over the course of 2 and a half hours in the dead of night before a work/school day? I don't know this Hans fella, he sounds a bit of a twerp even if his post earlier was actually brilliantly written but is he actually that dedicated to this con? Seems a bit of a stretch to me.

This is a man who pretends to be several men on here for reasons beyond any sensible comprehension and has already admitted to creating duplicate accounts solely to vote for people on this thread. I think when it comes to what is plausible or more hassle than a normal person would go to sensible norms have to be suspended to some degree.

right, :hesaystryingtotakeamassivestepoverhisincrediblelevelsofnaivetyshownthismorninginhisearlierpost: so what you're saying is the 14 votes for jordan between 10pm last night and 11am this morning are all from imposters, and the other 8 for gretzky are all genuine? we've seen bigger swings than 6 from 22 votes in many of the polls - are you saying they have all been rigged, even those where the swings that happened during the morning, afternoon, evening, as well as overnight...anyway, rest assured that the admins are on the case and will report if any suspicious actions are found. in the meantime, we eagerly await the final 20 or so voters to cast their deciding votes...

Seems to only be when a basketball player is involved that there's an influx of late night votes.

has anyone thought that it may be jordan himself!!!

ok maybe not!!

Woods got KO'd when only a few votes behind around 10pm and ended about a dozen or so back the next morning. Can't even remember who beat him it was by such a nobody, certainly a far greater upset than jordan/gretzky or jordan/robinson!

Baldy Nine Chins was knocked out by the great Michael Johnson.

Jordan over Robinson was a far greater upset than Johnson over Woods imo.

barragan wrote:Woods got KO'd when only a few votes behind around 10pm and ended about a dozen or so back the next morning. Can't even remember who beat him it was by such a nobody, certainly a far greater upset than jordan/gretzky or jordan/robinson!

Jordan himself!!!!

thanks for reminding me s_r - johnson's name totally slipped my mind!

azzy - fair enough. personally i though jordan would cruise against robinson 75-25 ish. very surprised woods went out to johnson after KOing Bolt though. similarly thought 75-25 in woods favour would be about right, but hey ho!

How would Jordan cruise it when there's such a large boxing contingent on here?

Just because there is a lot of activity on a board doesnt mean the members are voting. Looking at the numbers each time it seems we get anywhere between 60 and 90 for each poll, Id guess thats the same people most days by and large and really isnt a very large percentage of the forum membership.
The tennis board is very active but few seem interested in this debate as they are too busy with the usual madness on their own board presumably, same for the Rugby Board though far less mad on there.
Also you could love boxing like me and still be rationally and objectively minded enough to know its just a minority sport.....

dummy_half wrote:Barragan

I voted a little later, and I think it was 22-21 to Gretsky after my vote.

I think a few people are seeing conspiracy where none exists here (perhaps understandably after the earlier manipulation by Hans) - this was always going to be a tight vote, and I don't think there was more than a couple of votes in it for most of the day.

the score never was 22-21....