Is Jordan the only athlete that ever lived up to or surpassed the hype?

[CalvinH]

Lawrence Taylor you dimwits

2nd choice in the draft and changed the game.

[polychronopolous]

Lawrence Taylor you dimwits

2nd choice in the draft and changed the game.

Overcame a Boston Crab submission hold and headbutt from the top ropes to beat Bam Bam Bigelow at Wrestlemania as well.

[SuperTed]

English guys who know too much about American sports are very suspicious individuals.

I've noticed.
Army of Cum is apparently a Brit yet is alarmingly knowledgeable about American Sports.
Think we might have an undercover Yank in our mists. Possibly a spy.

Get him!!

 

[BigCyp]

I've noticed.
Army of Cum is apparently a Brit yet is alarmingly knowledgeable about American Sports.
Think we might have an undercover Yank in our mists. Possibly a spy.

Get him!!

 

Yes, he's a very suspicious individual to say the least.

When he used to post as db2341 years back, he came across as a Yank and never mentioned the U.K. at all, now he says he's from up the road to me?

Maybe he's trying to throw the authorities off the scent

[El Diablo Blanco]

Many have.

Jamarcus Russell
Greg Oden
Ryan Leaf
Samuel Dalambert

[CalvinH]

Overcame a Boston Crab submission hold and headbutt from the top ropes to beat Bam Bam Bigelow at Wrestlemania as well.

Lol

[snx]

Many have.

Jamarcus Russell
Greg Oden
Ryan Leaf
Samuel Dalambert

You can add Tony Mandarich to that illustrious list.

[tom joad]

Mike Trout is off to an incredible start.

Mike Trout is, and will continue to be, the man.

I was curious about his hype so I see that Trout was drafted 25th overall in 2009 (with the Angels' compensation pick from the Yankees for NY signing Mark Teixeira ... I hope Trout can go his whole career without wearing Yankee pinstripes haha.)

Before the 2010 season, Trout was considered the Angels' 3rd best prospect and 85th in all of baseball by Baseball America.  He climbed to the top of the prospects list months later.

[El Diablo Blanco]

Mike Trout is, and will continue to be, the man.

I was curious about his hype so I looked this up ...

Trout was drafted 25th overall in 2009 ... with the Angels' compensation pick from the Yankees for NY signing Mark Teixeira ... I hope Trout can go his whole career without wearing Yankee pinstripes haha.

Before the 2010 season, Trout was considered the Angels' 3rd best prospect and 85th in all of baseball by Baseball America.  He climbed to the top of the prospects list months later.

Yet the money given to Hamilton and Pujols who is a liar about his true age will make it hard for the Angels to give Trout what he's worth on the market.
Pujols is closer to 40 but claims to be in his early 30's.

[tom joad]

Yet the money given to Hamilton and Pujols who is a liar about his true age will make it hard for the Angels to give Trout what he's worth on the market.
Pujols is closer to 40 but claims to be in his early 30's.

also, Pujols probably went off the sauce after signing his big contract with the Angels.

[funk51]

In all sports Ive watched. I can only think of one athlete who was simply godlike in his abilities, and literally surpassed his hype, and that's Michael Jordan.Whenever his team had the equal or best record in the playoffs, they won.Jordan raised his scoring in the playoffs and took his game to next level, remaining the best u til he retired from the bulls.

bolt has been disappointing since his world record, seemingly coasting on natural abilities

Federer has lost his advantage whenever nadal , murray and dkokovic raised their game

Don't know enough about Gretzky , but from what I've read a peak Lemoiux was just as good

Babe Ruth played with stiffs, some fat dude in the twenties being the best, come on

Anyone who is being real watching football (soccer) knows its way too much of a team game for one player to dominate, sans short spells from pele, maradonna and messi

Bubka was dominant so I read,maybe someone can clarify but its a simple sport of planting a pole and launching, sure it's difficult to attain but I can see why someone can master it and be dominant

F1 is all down to the car

Ali lost too many times to make a case, same with Robinson

babe ruth, jimmy brown, wilt chamberlain,oscar robertson,barry bonds,hank aaron, willie mays, jimmy foxx,derek jeter,yogi berra,bill russell just to name a few

[SilverSpoon]

How about Federer?
Eddy Merckx?

[Yanin]

Money mayweather?

[ESFitness]

comparing kobe's era and jordans era is apples & oranges.

it's a different game now. all flash and no defense.

[Hulkotron]

Jordan didn't have a huge amount of hype actually.

He was a really good player in college but he wasn't "Michael Jordan" yet.  Nobody was predicting he would go on to be the best player in the history of the game. 

[MORTALCOIL]

comparing kobe's era and jordans era is apples & oranges.

it's a different game now. all flash and no defense.

It actually started with Jordan's era and only got worst. Actually, it was the league's desire to protect Jordan and promote a more offense oriented approach that led them to  have refs whistling for nothing. They got tired of the Pistons winning the way they did. The pussification of the NBA started then.

[Melkor]

Messi hasn't surpassed the hype somehow. He's been contending for "the best player ever title" for a few years now. Yet, he has underperformed with the Argentina team for now.
If he doesn't win a world cup before he retires, this will stick.

Yeah that's a good point I never really think of Messi and Argentina, he should've just played for Spain...

But at the same time, I've found that international football has become very strange in the last ten years or so. Not sure what it is but players just don't seem to perform for their countries like they do their club (could be the ridiculous wages). There have been no stand out players at the last few major tournaments - not since Ronaldo in 2002 anyway. Messi like you mentioned is an example but also Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho when he was on form years ago never played well at world cups. Teams like France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil have just disappeared.

[UPINTHEMGUTS]

Jordan didn't have a huge amount of hype actually.

He was a really good player in college but he wasn't "Michael Jordan" yet.  Nobody was predicting he would go on to be the best player in the history of the game. 

Nobody can predict that while a player is in college. But make no mistake, Jordan had a lot of hype. He was the 3rd pick in the draft. After a handful of games, he was the most popular player in the NBA as a rookie. He was so good and popular that many NBA veterans were jealous of him. A lot of players phased him out during his first all star game and refused to pass him the ball.

[kh300]

Bo Jackson. Jordan was given a gift to play single A baseball. He sucked dick.

[Hulkotron]

Nobody can predict that while a player is in college. But make no mistake, Jordan had a lot of hype. He was the 3rd pick in the draft. After a handful of games, he was the most popular player in the NBA as a rookie. He was so good and popular that many NBA veterans were jealous of him. A lot of players phased him out during his first all star game and refused to pass him the ball.

You can't say "after a handful of games, he was the most popular player in the NBA as a rookie" and call it hype. He was popular early on because it was quite evident he was the most exciting and maybe already most talented player in the league.  That's not hype, that's just playing good.  He had no more hype coming into the league than any other high draft pick gets every year, outside of LeBron and perhaps Wilt Chamberlain (I wasn't alive back then).

[YngiweRhoads]

[Skeletor]

Ayrton Senna
Sebastien Loeb

[UPINTHEMGUTS]

You can't say "after a handful of games, he was the most popular player in the NBA as a rookie" and call it hype. He was popular early on because it was quite evident he was the most exciting and maybe already most talented player in the league.  That's not hype, that's just playing good.  He had no more hype coming into the league than any other high draft pick gets every year, outside of LeBron and perhaps Wilt Chamberlain (I wasn't alive back then).

I just meant that it only took a small amount of games during his first year played before the mega hype began to build. I disagree about Jordan not having a lot of hype before he came to the NBA. There were expectations of his ability to translate well on the NBA level. He played three years at North Carolina and it was pretty apparent that he was special. Which makes drafting Sam Bowie ahead of him all the more laughable. But those two teams wanted big men instead of drafting a guard.

[SilverSpoon]

I just meant that it only took a small amount of games during his first year played before the mega hype began to build. I disagree about Jordan not having a lot of hype before he came to the NBA. He played three years at North Carolina and it was pretty apparent that he was special. Which makes drafting Sam Bowie ahead of him all the more laughable.

The only person able to keep Michael Jordan under 20 points a game was Dean Smith.

[UPINTHEMGUTS]

The only person able to keep Michael Jordan under 20 points a game was Dean Smith.

My feelings exactly. When he was a rookie in the NBA he was a one man show. He averaged over 42 minutes a game and put up crazy numbers. At NC he played on a stacked team with Worthy and Perkins and didn't play as many minutes. But it was apparent that when he played, he had special talent. If Dean Smith would've allowed Jordan to play outside of his scheme and create his own shot more, his hype would've exploded even more before the draft. And if the Bulls were drafting #1 that year, they still would've taken Jordan.

Just my opinion.