The GOAT Debate In 40 Sports: Who Was The Greatest Of All Time?

While arm wrestling has been around since the dawn of man (we’ve always had arms), it began to go mainstream in 1962 when two California businessmen started World’s Wristwrestling Championship, Inc.

Its big break came seven years later when ABC’s Wide World of Sports filmed the championship. From there, the WWC inked a deal with ABC that allowed the network to broadcast the finals for 16 years.

The increased attention naturally sparked GOAT debates. Dave Devoto, one of the aforementioned California businessmen, was considered the GOAT of the sport until John Brzenk entered the picture.

Now 61, Brzenk won 22 championships in his heyday and had a 22-year undefeated streak. He’s often credited as one of the biggest reasons for the growth of arm wrestling.

The first major American sport on our list, the baseball GOAT debate isn’t as binary as some other sports due to the nature of the sport. How do you compare an elite pitcher like Greg Maddux to a generational hitter like Barry Bonds? How do you compare Shohei Ohtani in 2024 to Babe Ruth in 1924?

That said, most baseball GOAT debates end up revolving around the same names: Bonds (the all-time home run leader), Willie Mays (one of the best all-around talents) and Ruth (arguably the most famous American athlete ever). Each player simultaneously has a GOAT case while also having an outstanding factor that hinders them, such as steroid use for Bonds, military service for Mays and the fact that Ruth played before the game was integrated.

Ohtani has begun nudging his way into the periphery of the GOAT conversation, but he’s only had a handful of excellent seasons and is still a long way away.

Basketball has the ultimate GOAT debate. For the last decade or so, almost every NBA fan has formed an opinion on LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan.

While James broke the NBA’s scoring record in 2023, Jordan has more championships (six compared to four) and won all of his NBA Finals appearances. James is a better passer and rebounder, but Jordan was a better scorer and had more postseason success.

Much of the debate is generational, as older fans tend to prefer Jordan while younger fans skew towards James. With James approaching 40 and unlikely to catch Jordan in rings before he retires, this debate will continue to rage for years to come.

You can’t talk about the pool table without talking about Efren “Bata” Reyes, known as “The Magician” for his incredible shots and angles.

While billiards has an illustrious history filled with larger-than-life stars, no one stands out more than Reyes, who won over 100 international titles and became the first player to win WPA World Championships in two different pool disciplines. From his “Z” shot against Earl Strickland to his 2006 8-Ball Championship win for a $500,000 purse, the Filipino star is billiards’ clear GOAT.

Not only has he tallied more than $2 million in career winnings, but he’s also built upon the foundation put forth by some of the sport’s pioneers. While Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats invented some common trick shots and techniques, Reyes has an eye for the table like no other, which is why he stands alone.

For many members of the BMX community, Dave Mirra stands alone as the GOAT. Mirra, who started his career at 13, officially went pro at 18 and ended his career with 24 X Games medals. He was just as gifted on the dirt as he was on the concrete.

That said, Mirra’s not the only biker from that era with a legitimate GOAT argument.

Mat Hoffman, who helped Mirra get his start, was one of the sport’s pioneers. His legacy was defined by inventive jumps, like when he completed the first no-hand 900-degree spin in 2002 or when he went 25 feet above a 30-foot ramp.

Mirra was considered the GOAT at the start of his career, but then riders like Hofman and Ryan Nyquist (who tallied 16 X Games medals and is the head coach for Team USA’s BMX freestyle program) came along and complicated things.

While Mirra’s legacy probably makes him the overall GOAT, all three riders had a legit shot at the crown at one point in their career.

It’s Pete Weber’s world and we’re all just living in it.

While Weber’s fourth all-time in PBA titles (37), he’s one of three bowlers to have 50-plus wins on the PBA Tour and PBA50 Tour. He’s also won the U.S. Open five times, with none bigger than his iconic win in 2012.

That said, Walter Ray Williams Jr. has an equally strong case to be bowling’s GOAT. The all-time record holder in PBA Tour titles (47), Williams won a PBA title for 17 consecutive seasons and earned more than $5 million in his career, putting him on par with Weber.

The GOAT debate in boxing spans generations and features an abundance of fighters.

For many, the late Muhammad Ali stands alone at the top of the mountain. Ali, who was named the Sportsman of the Century in the 1990s by Sports Illustrated, fought in some of the greatest fights in the history of the sport during his dominant run in the 1960s and 1970s, when his larger-than-life presence helped rejuvenate the sport.

Some other names in the GOAT conversation are Mike Tyson (won his first 19 fights by knockout and was the youngest boxer to win a title), Manny Pacquiao (won a championship in four different decades) and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (50-0 lifetime record). However, none of them had the impact or cultural significance of Ali.

The chess GOAT debate is an interesting one.

At face value, Magnus Carlsen looks like the GOAT. He’s a prodigy who holds the sport’s record for longest unbeaten streak and has been the No. 1 player in the World Chess Rankings since 2011.

But once you take a look under the hood, the debate gets a little more interesting.

While Bobby Fischer never had the sustained success of Carlsen, he won eight U.S. Championships by 14 and beat Boris Spassky in 1972 in an epic showdown with serious political ramifications. Additionally, he had a FIDE rating of 2785 in July 1972, which was a full 125 points ahead of Spassky.

Throw them in with Garry Kasparov, a former World Chess Champion who was the World No. 1 for 255 months overall, and you’ve got a GOAT debate unlike any other.

In the world of competitive eating, it’s tough to top Joey Chestnut. Chestnut holds numerous records and has won Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest 16 times through 2023.

Chestnut was recently ranked first in the world by Major League Eating and has shown no signs of slowing down, so he’s clearly the best ever.

Chestnut dethroned the previous GOAT, Takeru Kobayashi. Described as “the godfather of competitive eating,” Kobayashi won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest six times before Chestnut’s reign and helped popularize competitive eating.

Kobayashi failed to sign a contract with Major League Eating in 2010 and has since held out of the Nathan’s Hot Dog contest, allowing Chestnut to keep adding to his GOAT case.

The cricket GOAT debate begins and ends with Sachin Tendulkar, who is widely known as the “God of cricket.” The 50-year-old scored 34,357 runs for India across all formats in his career and tallied a record 15,921 runs in Tests.

That doesn’t mean Tendulkar’s alone at the top, however. There’s Sir Don Bradman, who has been called the greatest sportsman ever thanks to his Test batting average of 99.94. There’s also Sir Vivian Richards, who scored 1,281 runs in his World Series Cricket career.

All three cricketers have GOAT cases, but Tendulkar’s legacy is the main reason why he’s No. 1 in this debate.

For many, Marit Bjørgen is the GOAT of cross-country skiing. The Norwegian racked up 114 individual victories in her career and earned 15 Olympic medals – the most by any athlete in Winter Olympics history.

That said, her legacy has been tarnished by doping scandals, diminishing her accomplishments in some people’s eyes.

While there isn’t another cross-country skier with a resume like Bjørgen’s, fellow Norwegian Bjørn Dæhlie recorded 12 Olympic medals in his career and equaled Bjørgen’s tally of eight gold medals. His career still didn’t reach the heights of Bjørgen’s, however.

The GOAT debate in curling revolves around two Canadian contemporaries in Jennifer Jones and Kevin Martin – both generational talents who changed curling in their native country.

Jones, who announced her retirement from curling in February 2024, won six World Championships in her career and was the skip (captain) of Canada’s gold medal team at the Olympics in 2024. She went undefeated in Canada’s run, becoming the first female skip to make it through the Olympics undefeated.

Martin, the only male skip to make it through the Olympics undefeated, notched two Olympic medals in his career and was voted best male curler by TSN in 2019. Still, Jones has the leg up on Martin due to her utter dominance of the women’s game, which was due in large part to her improving with age.

While there are plenty of cyclists who have put together successful careers on the bike, they’re all looking up to Eddy Merckx. The first cyclist to complete the sport’s Triple Crown, Merckx finished his career with 11 Grand Tour wins and three World Championships, among other accomplishments.

Marianne Vos is the closest to Merckx in the GOAT discussion thanks to her 12 World Championships and two Olympic gold medals, but she doesn’t have the resume of Merckx. That said, her career is still active, so she can still add to her legacy.

Lance Armstong had a chance to enter the GOAT conversation with his seven consecutive Tour de France wins, but he was stripped of those titles after his PED scandal.

Like Jordan vs. LeBron, the darts GOAT debate features two greats from different eras.

On one side there’s Phil Taylor, who won 214 professional tournaments and held the World No. 1 Ranking for 13 years in his career.

On the other side is Michael van Gerwen, who was the No. 1 darter in the world from 2014 to 2021 and is the most successful player in darts history behind Taylor.

Van Gerwan is still active, so he still has a chance to add to his resume. Taylor, on the other hand, retired in 2023. Still, it will be tough for van Gerwan to top Taylor, as the latter is regarded as one of Europe’s greatest athletes.

In most Olympic sports, legacies are defined by the amount of Olympic medals an athlete earns. In that case, Wu Minxia – who has seven Olympic medals (five golds), eight World Championships and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame – should be the GOAT, right?

Yes and no. While Minxia is one of the best divers in history, American Greg Louganis put together a GOAT-worthy career with five Olympic medals (four golds), putting America on the map in the pool during the 1980s. He is the only man to sweep the diving events in back-to-back Olympics.

China has long dominated in diving, but so much of its success is built around its system rather than individual divers. Louganis changed that and is credited with helping grow the sport.

Fencing is broken down into three disciplines (the foil, the épée, and the sabre) that have their own rules, which makes it tough to declare any fencer the definitive GOAT. That said, Aladár Gerevich carries the distinction of being the “greatest swordsman ever,” having won seven Olympic medals in sabre across seven Olympics.

When it comes to the épée, Pavel Kolobkov stands at the top with his record six Olympic medals in the 1990s and 2000s. Italy’s Valentina Vezzali is the gold standard in the foil as the first woman to win five Olympic gold medals in fencing.

In 2022, the figure skating GOAT skated off into the sunset with the retirement of Yuzuru Hanyu, who announced his retirement from competitive skating to focus on ice shows. A two-time Olympic champion who won six national championships and became the first figure skater to win a Grand Slam (winning every major junior and senior competition once), Hanyu changed the game on the ice.

There’s an argument that skaters like Michelle Kwan (a five-time world champion) or Richard Button (a two-time Olympic champion) deserve the top spot, but Hanyu’s case is stronger.

For most of the 2010s, the GOAT debate in football was between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Then Brady won three Super Bowls after his 39th birthday, finishing with an NFL record seven championships. At this point, even the biggest Manning or Jerry Rice defender has to admit that Brady’s at the top of the mountain.

That said, Rice and Lawrence Taylor have the best GOAT case of non-quarterbacks, while Manning has the argument that he won more MVPs and was a better statistical quarterback. Brady went 11-6 against Manning, however, and won seven rings to Manning’s two.

Patrick Mahomes is starting to build a GOAT case after winning three of the last five Super Bowls, but he’s only 28 and still has a long way to go to catch Brady.

Even if you aren’t a golf fan, chances are you’ve heard of the key members of golf’s GOAT debate. There’s Jack Nicklaus – who won a record 18 major championships – and Tiger Woods, who has won 15 major tournaments and helped grow the game.

If you’re looking only at stats, then Nicklaus has GOAT status locked down (he leads Woods in every category but wins). However, Woods’ impact on the sport and culture can’t be discounted, as evidenced by the $660 million he made in endorsements with Nike.

In the end, this GOAT debate comes down to the same factor as so many others: who did you grow up watching?

There are two different layers to Simone Biles’ case as the gymnastics GOAT.

For starters, there are her accolades on the mat, which include seven Olympic medals (tied for the record by an American gymnast) and a record 25 World Championships. There’s also her impact off the mat, which includes her earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom and stepping away in the middle of the Olympics to focus on her mental health.

She was called the GOAT after her first Olympics and hasn’t done anything since then to change that perception.

The GOAT debate in handball will get a little more interesting this summer, as Nikola Karabatić (who is regarded as one of the best modern players) announced he’ll retire after the 2024 Olympics. A three-time Olympic champion with 21 national titles in club play, he’s one of the sport’s most decorated players.

There’s also Ivano Balić, who reinvented the game with a fearless play style the sport had never seen before. In 2010, he was voted the best handball player in history in an International Handball Federation online poll.

Regarded as one of the best female handball players of all time, Anja Andersen deserves consideration as well. When you see this highlight reel, you’ll understand why.

This GOAT debate is a fun one, as it involves three amazing players who each impacted the game differently. Do you value Karabatić’s individual awards, Balić’s trailblazing skills or Andersen’s combination of both?

Any GOAT debate in hockey is about who’s in second place, as Wayne Gretzky is head and shoulders above everyone else. With more than 2,800 points and four Stanley Cups in his 21-year career, Gretzky proved that he was the most gifted skater in the sport’s history.

Nicknamed “The Great One,” Gretzky is the sport’s all-time leader in both goals and assists. In fact, he has more assists than any other player has total points (goals plus assists).

If that wasn’t enough, he also helped grow the sport stateside. In 1988, Gretzky was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, immediately shooting them into cup contention while also bringing more attention to hockey in California.

While there’s the Premier Lacrosse League, most lacrosse legacies are made based on a player’s accomplishments in college. That adds another level to this GOAT debate, as some members of the lacrosse community place significant value on what happened in college, while others value professional stats more.

For some, legendary Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown sits at the top of the lacrosse GOAT rankings despite not playing professionally. He scored 43 goals in just 10 games during his senior year at Syracuse. He also said multiple times that he was better at lacrosse than football.

For others, there are players like Gary Gait, who won two Division I Player of the Year awards before racking up six National Lacrosse League MVPs. There’s also John Grant Jr., who won two MVPs apiece in the NLL and MLL.

Still, it’s hard for either of them to compete against Brown, even if his lacrosse career ended after college. He was a vocal proponent for the sport and was a physical talent unlike any other.

While it’s a sport with an illustrious Olympic history, Germany’s Natalie Geisenberger stands alone at the top. A seven-time gold medalist who was the first woman to win three Olympic singles luge titles, she is the only woman to enter at least seven Winter Olympic events in any sport and win a medal in all of them.

It will take a long time for another luger to reach her heights.

With different weight classes and eras, there are plenty of fighters who can claim to be the MAA GOAT.

In the lightweight division, Khabib Nurmagomedov stands alone as the GOAT with a 29-0 career record. He also held the championship belt for nearly three years.

It’s the heavyweight division that has all the fun. While Jon Jones is the best fighter in the sport’s history (and has won a light heavyweight and heavyweight championship), Stipe Miocic is the GOAT in some people’s minds.

The two were set to fight in November 2023 (which could have settled the debate), but it was canceled after Jones had to withdraw due to injury. There’s still a chance they could fight in 2024, but both fighters are older (Jones is 36 and Miocic is 41), so we’re running out of time to see them at the height of their powers.

So much of MMA is based on fighters’ media personalities and personas, which also impacts this debate. If you didn’t like Nurmagomedov’s introverted style, you’re probably more inclined to name a brash fighter like Jones the GOAT.

Some sports have two athletes in the GOAT conversation. Some have three. But NASCAR? “It’s a toss-up between five guys,” Kyle Busch told The Athletic in 2023. And honestly? He’s not wrong.

There’s Jeff Gordon, who won four championships. His protege, Jimmie Johnson, has 83 Cup Series wins – all with the same crew chief (Chad Knaus).

There’s also Dale Earnhardt Sr., who won seven championships but died in a crash in 2001 that cut his career short. Richard Petty holds the NASCAR record for most wins (200).

Last but not least, there’s David Pearson, who won three Cup Series championships and was comparable to Petty.

All five drivers have strong cases to be considered the best ever, which makes this debate a lot of fun.

In rugby, most GOAT debates are between Richie McCaw and Thierry Dusautoir, two legendary players who faced off against each other for most of their respective careers.

In 2011, the two battled in the Rugby World Cup between New Zealand (McCaw’s squad) and France (Dusautoir’s team). While New Zealand picked up the win, Dusautoir won man of the match, adding a fun little tentacle to their GOAT debate.

McCaw won World Rugby Player of the Year three times and was the most capped test rugby player at one point in his career, but he also acknowledged Dusautoir as one of his toughest opponents.

Regardless of which side you fall on in this GOAT debate, it’s clear there’s mutual respect between the two players.

We’ve all run at some point, which just shows how gifted you have to be to be the world’s best at it.

Finland’s Paavo Nurmi practically rewrote the distance record book in the 1920s when he set 22 world records in various distance running events, but his times have since been surpassed by modern runners like Eliud Kipchoge, who came a minute away from running a sub-two-hour marathon in 2022.

The difference in generations comes into play here as well, as Kipchoge has the advantage of modern medicine and training practices.

When it comes to sprinting, it’s tough to say anyone other than Usain Bolt is the GOAT. The aptly named Jamaican sprinter holds world records in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 4×100 meter relay. He’s also the only sprinter to win the 100-meter and 200-meter in three consecutive Olympics.

There are other sprinters with strong resumes like Jesse Owens and Michael Johnson, but neither can hold a candle to Bolt.

For the longest time, skateboarding was viewed more as a nuisance than a sport.

Then Tony Hawk stepped into the limelight. He completed the first documented 900 at the X Games, had a line of skateboarding video games named after him and became a household name before retiring in 2003.

While much of the skateboarding community still views Hawk as the GOAT, Rodney Mullen also has a strong GOAT case due to his major impact on the sport. Mullen invented classic moves like the ollie, kickflip and heel flip, among others.

Skateboarding, like chess, is a dependent sport that’s always evolving as more information comes out, which has influenced the GOAT debate. Still, there’s no denying what Hawk did to help grow skateboarding into the cultural mainstay that it is today.

Like skateboarding, snowboarding blew into the national zeitgeist in the mid-2000s, thanks in large part to Shaun White. White, who retired from snowboarding after the 2022 Olympics, is a five-time Olympian and 13-time X Games medalist who quickly became the poster boy for the sport.

There have been some new waves churning under the surface of this GOAT debate thanks to Ayumu Hirano, who landed the first-ever successful triple cork at the 2022 Olympics, denying White a medal in his final Olympics.

Some sports have GOAT debates that will rage on forever, but skiing isn’t one of them. American skier Mikaela Shiffrin was gifted a literal goat to celebrate her becoming the winningest alpine skier of all time.

In March 2023, Shiffrin picked up her 87th victory on the slopes, breaking Ingemar Stenmark’s record for World Cup victories. She’s only 28 but already has five World Cup titles, three Olympic medals and 14 World Championship medals. There’s no competition here.

It’s no surprise that the most popular sport in the world has a GOAT debate that spans different languages, continents and cultures.

For a long time, the debate was between Diego Maradona and Pelé, two generational players who changed the game 20 years apart from each other.

But that changed in the 2010s when Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo burst onto the scene. Messi’s a tiny magician who can make something out of nothing, while the chiseled Ronaldo boasts a brash right foot and an even brasher personality.

The two faced off countless times in Spain as La Liga rivals, adding more fuel to the fire. Messi has a leg up after leading Argentina to a World Cup win in 2022 – the first time either footballer won soccer’s greatest prize.

Softball has a weird GOAT debate, as the sport was dropped by the International Olympic Committee after the 2008 Olympics.

In the time before that, however, the U.S. dominated, allowing players like Jennie Finch and Lisa Fernandez to become household names.

In the 2004 Olympics, the U.S. went 9-0 en route to gold. Fernandez was the star of that run and finished her Olympic career with a .303 average at the plate and a 0.38 ERA on the mound. While she never reached the cultural highs of Finch (who retired in 2010 to help grow the game as a commentator), her dominance puts her alone at the top.

Softball will return for the 2028 Olympics, which could lead to a new generation of GOAT candidates.

In 2022, Ireen Wüst became the first Olympian to capture gold in five straight Olympic Games, putting her squarely in the GOAT conversation with 13 total medals (six gold).

But, like most GOAT debates, the speed skating GOAT debate is a matter of peak vs. longevity. While Wüst was consistently strong throughout her career, she never had the peak of Apolo Ohno, who won eight World Championships and is the most decorated American at the Winter Olympics with eight Olympic medals.

Like other sports, the surfing GOAT debate involves an athlete who was an architect of the sport and a modern athlete who built upon that foundation.

First, there was Duke Kahanamoku, a native Hawaiian who helped popularize the sport in the 1910s and won three Olympic medals. And then there’s Kelly Slater, perhaps the most well-known surfer in the world, who has a record 11 World Surf League Championships.

Both have GOAT cases but in completely different ways. Slater rose to heights that no surfer had reached before, but he wouldn’t have been able to do it without Kahanamoku paving the way.

This one’s a no-brainer – Michael Phelps. Phelps, who competed in five Olympics and was the most decorated athlete in four of them, is the most successful Olympian of all time with 28 medals (23 gold). He set a record with eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics and is a former world record-holder in five different events.

To put his career in perspective, he has more Olympic medals than 161 different countries. That’s pure domination.

In 2012, Zhang Jike became the fastest player to ever win a Grand Slam in table tennis with his gold medal at the Olympics.

At the time, it looked like Jike was on track to become the sport’s GOAT. And for some, he is.

However, many table tennis fans believe Ma Long is the best player to ever pick up a paddle. Nicknamed “The Dragon,” he is the first and only player to complete a double Grand Slam at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, accounting for two of his five career gold medals.

Jike raised the bar, but Long arguably surpassed it.

For most of the 2010s, there were two players at the center of the GOAT debate in tennis: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. As Federer and Nadal began to age, however, Novak Djokovic entered the conversation and ended up leapfrogging them.

Federer won 103 singles titles on the ATP and has 20 major singles titles, but he was the first of the three to retire. Nadal built a dominant career on the clay (he has a record 14 French Open wins), but dealt with a spate of injuries at the end of his career.

That leaves Djokovic, the current No. 1. He has won a record 24 Grand Slam men’s singles championships and is the only man in tennis history to be the reigning champion of all four majors at once.

On the women’s side, Serena Williams is the clear-cut GOAT. From the time she made an improbable run to a U.S. Open Championship at 19, it was clear that Williams was different. She finished her career with 23 Grand Slam singles wins – second-most in the Open era.

A lot of volleyball GOAT conversations are subjective due to the sport’s changes over time, which vary from forms of competitions to the rules themselves.

One of the main names most volleyball fans point to is Karch Kiraly – the only player in the world to win an Olympic gold medal in indoor and beach volleyball.

There’s also Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor, both of whom were dominant on the sand in the late 2000s and 2010s. But how do you separate one from the other?

It’s hard to talk about Olympic wrestling without talking about Aleksandr Karelin. “Alexander The Great” dominated the heavyweight wrestling division in the 1990s thanks to a dominant, overpowering style that usually resulted in him throwing his opponent down on the mat in a violent blow.

The GOAT debate also features Chechen wrestler Buvaisar Saitiev, who won nine world gold medals and is widely considered the greatest freestyle wrestler of all time. There’s also Jordan Burroughs, a six-time world champion.

For many fans, their choice boils down to the wrestling style they prefer. In terms of sheer strength, Karelin was tough to beat. If fans like more creativity and a variety of moves, they may side with Saitiev.

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