The GOAT is never defined by one game, match, or season. You want to be the best ever, you have to do it over a period of time.
CP Defending SLee
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His peak was just a week before COVID put a stop to it. He was ready to breeze through NCAAs after having crush all his opponents at Senior Nationals. His peak would have been Olympic Gold.
The caveat is we may not yet have seen his peak.
That's certainly possible, but it also didn't happen. So, it your position is that his hypothetical peak should be considered.
Hypothetically, the Colts beat the Jets, Gable beat Owings, Tyson beat Douglas the Pats beat the Giants, Karelin beat Gardner, Burroughs beats Bekzod for God's sake, and, yes, Spencer wins NCAAs in 2023 (and PIAAs in 2017).
Think a perfect game, is Len Barker better than Nolan Ryan? Pat Seerey better than Hank Aaron?
Most won't know the first guys in the comparison or get why I used them aabd compared them to hall of famers.
Were freshman eligible when Gable was in college? I don't remember that they were. So only two for him because of that big upset.
His wrestling was definitely peaking at that time. That isn’t hypothetical.
What you say is true and I think for that reason that assessing Spencer's career is always going to be controversial. I agree that his peak was early in his career: arguably in 2019 when he defeated Meuller for the title (and tore his 2nd ACL after which he was never the same) and destroyed a very strong field in the US Open (teched Cruz, teched Arujau and beat Nato in the finals). For my money, Spencer's briliiance, and therefore his greatness, transcends numbers. Others will not agree. It basically comes down to the difference between peak ability demonstrated and an entire body of work. I favor the former, but that's just my opinion. Others (and they might be in the majority) will go with the latter. That's their opinion and that's ok too.
Not when a bunch of you are so determined to denigrate it.
The word you want here is not "hypothetically" but "imaginarily".
And that's not what we're talking about.
In boxing, the greatest pound for pound fighter in history is almost universially considered by trainers and boxing historians to be Sugar Ray Robinson. Robinson lost 19 times. No expert I'm aware of thinks that Floyd Mayweather is better than Robinson just because he retired undefeated. Muhammad Ali lost once (actually twice) to Ken Norton and many think of him as the greatest heavyweight ever. I could go on and on. It's more a question of who they beat, how they beat them, who they lost to, whether they were able to avenge those losses (think, for example of Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran).
In boxing, it's more than simple numbers.and I would suggest that would be appropriate for wrestling as well.
It's not denigrating him to point out that after his ncaa career ended he was extremely good but not GOAT. I'll argue that all of PSU's 3x champs have had better overall careers. Ruth was 140-3, Nolf was 86-3, two to Martinez and an injury default, Nickal was 120-3, and Retherford was 128-3.
To say these four NCAA champs had better careers isn't an insult to Lee. New one of fifty to reach this plateau in NCAA history .
Most of your listed records were off a little, but this one was off a lot. Nolf was 117-3. Heck, he had 87 wins by fall or tech fall.
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But yet you felt the need to include "breezing through NCAAs" and Olympic Gold in your peaking statement.
Weird post. First you bash Taylor and then throw out an if. Sports history has plenty of ifs, ands & buts out there yet none of them change facts.
I am so "happy" that we have all of these PSU guys preaching to us, lecturing us, teaching us, explaining things to us and telling us that Spencer Lee is a mere mortal and that PSU has many that are and were better than him If they weren't here I wouldn't know the rules nor would I know what I saw.
Actually, the word I was searching for - and used - was hypothetical/hypothetically. If the matchups I detailed never came to pass, then hypothetically those teams or individuals could have won them, just like Spencer could have won Olympic Gold in 2020 although he was a far less prohibitive favorite than any team I mentioned.
Sugar Ray Robinson retired when he was like 130-3, with a couple of those losses coming to guys who weighed in a weight class or two above him. If Spencer retires and comes back 5 years later after shooting a few movies and then loses a bunch of matches when he is 40, the losses suffered are not likely to impact either his career or peak legacy
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You are basically correct. Maxim was a light-heavyweight but Robinson did lose to LaMotta and Turpin in his prime and he was still a great boxer even when he was fighting in his mid to late 30s. The point I was making was that blemishs on an athlete's record should be viewed with an eye test and in the context of their overall record of achievement.
Secretariat lost twice. He's absolutly incomparable. Duran gave up against SRL. Many believe he was the greatest lightweight ever. Mikaela Shiffrin crashed and burned in the Olympics. She's the GOAT at what she does.
Greatness is complex and subjective and, in the end, it is always just going to be somebody's opinion.
No, you criticized his character.
Just reading all of the PSU Trolls trying to explain how a 3 time Natty Champ and 2 time Hodge winner isn't really that good is a great reminder of why I've always loved the Hawkeyes despite living in PA. its been at least 40 years as a Hawkeye fan for me and before Carl came to State with Uncle Ira's slush fund you could go to a PSU match almost any day and get a mat side seat for about 6 bucks cause they were MEH Average at best .... a good guy now and then but they wrestled a crap schedule besides the Big Ten and there was little to no interest in the program. They would get the Big time recruits in PA but most sort of fizzled out and faded away. They had some individual success but it was really a lackluster program... but then Carl INVENTED the sport of wrestling and Uncle Ira opened his wallet and the spending spree began and the team still operates the same way. The current team is akin to the Hated New York Yankees... Buying championships with free agents ,,, but winning at all costs suits all of those arrogant mask wearing liberal jagoffs from State College so well ! The wealthiest person in State College Could be a Proctologist because there is an OVERWHELMING supply of A$$holes to deal with on a daily basis.
C’mon, Boo. I made one comment about his character, and it was a compliment. My other comments were about circumstances that I believe led to a certain reaction from fans about an outcome. I didn’t even offer an opinion on the reaction, just an opinion that the reaction is human nature (among a subset of sports fans, that is) and not tied directly to any one team (and certainly not to any individual). Don’t tell me that nuance is lost on you, too.
If you want to insist I criticized his character, please show me which words I used to describe his character.
Hmm… so now wearing a mask in public settings to avoid a virus that, at best causes several days of discomfort to, at worst, causes long term ailments or hospitalization/death makes one a “jagoff?”
think no matter the team, the narrative would have been the same if the circumstances were the same — e.g., his head coach publicly naming him the GOAT before Nationals even arrived, Spencer profiting financially from his Excuses catch-phrase for a couple of years before forfeiting out of Nationals when he was physically able to compete, and the amount and type of publicity this forum and other media had going for him.
Be honest with yourself. You were chiding him for his “no excuses” comment (even mentioning his financial gain with a sneer) and criticizing him forfeiting out at Nationals. You were absolutely denigrating his character.
And btw, Brands’ comment that Spencer Lee was the best wrestler he’s ever seen was not an announcement that Spence is the GOAT, or that he had the greatest career. It can be inferred that Brands - like many of us - felt Spencer could have been the GOAT if not for unfortunate circumstances. He can be the best wrestler we’ve ever seen without having the best career.
I stopped at your first sentence! I have practiced wrestled and played ball banged up many of times with not to much drop in levels. I had a dislocated shoulder and was not the same athlete! Banged up and serious injury are two entirely different things.
COVID THREAD ROUND TWO! GO!
I tend to discount arguments when they include characterizing protecting one’s health as a political statement.
He's been backpedaling and gaslighting ever since he posted that.
No, that's not a character issue, it's a mild criticism. Look at the quote, excuses are for wussies. Pointing out the irony is a slam on his character unless you're too sensitive and believe no criticism for him is ever warranted.
At the end of the day it's just something to talk about, not any attack on a person's character. No one is entirely consistent between all thoughts , actions, and beliefs and when it crops up and they're in the public high people will speak their mind.
Here's the thing though - why is it ironic? Spencer has not made any excuses for his semis loss and in fact has gone out of his way to say that he lost not due to injury but due to Matt Ramos simply wrestling a better match. He has given 100% of the credit to Ramos (and also to Glory for winning the whole thing) and still gets shat on by opposing fans as if he's making excuses for his loss. Spencer has always been a high character guy and yet there's so many people out there that take great happiness in his loss and feel like it was due to karma, and acting like Spencer has been doing nothing but make excuses and deflect since he lost that match.
He never made excuses.
Claiming he did is not a reference to irony, it is labeling him a hypocrite.
I could jump all over this one, but I will leave it alone, for now, but it definitely sounds like you are a jagoff.
To his great credit Spencer has said that. But, being as wrestling is his whole life, there was no reason from him to withdraw from the Open other than the fact that he was physically unable to perform at the level necessary to win. If that was true in April, it was also true in March.
There is only one reason that he has been criticized for withdrawing from those tournaments: people enjoyed seeing him lose. They wanted more of it and they felt cheated when they didn't get it.
I’m older and have some health issues including lung issues. So I’m a jagoff for wanting to protect myself? I suppose it would be fine if I wanted to carry a gun to protect myself, but god forbid I carry a mask.
Got news for ya, HawkeyePA.
Mr. Carver afforded the same opportunities to Iowa back in the day, once Kurdelmeir and Gable got it rockin. Not so much bringing free agents in but the facilities were A-1, the Club was A-1 ( well, except Wisconsin DID win a couple of USWF National Freestyle titles in the early 80s, maybe NYAC got in there too, along with Sunkist), and the opportunities were endless. They hosted the Soviets, the Jr Nationals- which was a huge draw, and were generally The Dark Side. If you don't think theirs rosters were packed, think again. Nothing really different between then and now, just the names have changed.
Before that it was Okie State, Ok, and ISU.
You mean the political statements you don't agree with, hmm?
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