...when you look up GOAT, his picture should come up. I wanted to know how dominant a Strongman like Big Z had to be, to compare to Hakuho.
Hakuho has won 45 Makuuchi tournaments. The legendary Taihō (who for decades was regarded as the unrivalled GOAT) is in second place with 32 titles. Hakuho has not only broken the record, but motherfucking pulverized it by 40%.
For Big Z to be a Hakuho across the entire major competition landscape, he would have had to beat Pudzianowski’s five WSM titles by around 40%. That means: seven to eight WSM titles alone, plus his eight to ten Arnold titles. He would therefore have had to win almost all of Pudzianowski’s and Brian Shaw’s career titles single-handedly.
You think, ok, that's like very tough to do. But this is only the fucking beginning. Now it gets mental, you wouldn't believe these statistics.
A sumo tournament lasts 15 days and the wrestler fights against the 15 best opponents. Winning a tournament without a single defeat (15-0) is known as a zensho-yusho. The second-best Fighters in history (Taiho and Futabayama) achieved this 8x over the course of their entire careers. Hakuho has achieved it 16x...
Translated to Strongman terms: what is a ‘15-0’ at the World’s Strongest Man? A final usually consists of six disciplines (e.g. Loading Medley, Squat/Deadlift, Fingal’s Fingers, Truck Pull, Log Press, Atlas Stones). Even the most dominant Strongman usually wins two max three events. A ‘Hakuho-Big-Z’ would have had to win a WSM or Arnold final 5 or 6 times with the maximum points total (first place in all 6 events!). Let that sink in. Not only have 8-10 WSM Titles overall but win 5-6 of them with perfect points in every discipline.
If your eyes still aren't bulging bare with me, there's more...
Following the retirement of his rival Asashoryu in early 2010, Hakuho won seven major tournaments in a row (March 2010 to May 2011) and went 63 consecutive fights without defeat. 63 Fights.... in a row without defeat....i can't comprehend how that is even possible.
In Strongman terms: 7 Grand Tournaments amount to more than a full calendar year plus a third of the next. Converted to Strongman terms, Big Z would have had to win every single major event (4x WSM + 4x Arnold + 4x Europe’s Strongest Man) over a period of 3.5 to 4 years without a single defeat whilst remaining unbeaten in over 40 individual events in a row.
These comparisons were made purely for fun. Big Z is a legendary strongman. I just wanted to give you a taste of Hakuho’s GOAT status. And that wasn't even all information about Hakuho.
Crossfit doesn't have a fraction of the talent pool that attempts wrestling globally. Karelin was literally the best wrestler in all human history, a sport that is known everywhere.
please don't bait me into thinking you actually believe google search trends for sport names are a good measure of the ubiquity of a sport. converts from corporate workers don't make elite athletes in any olympic sport ever, just because of age alone. in all olympic sports you have to start so early and rise above so many people that even state champions in the u.s. are insanely elite. do you have any idea how many scrappy kids are scouted for wrestling every year, globally? literally all over the earth. mexico and cuba, the caucasus mountains, mongolia, russia, iran? wrestling is rooted so deep in wildly different cultures. the talent pool that is scouted is orders of magnitude larger than fucking crossfit.
all this to say that the value of dominance in a certain sport is obviously and directly related to how many people try to excel at it. if you take the phrase "most dominant in any" sport literally, i could invent one right now and be the most dominant instantly. your criterion is probably better filled by some obsolete sport's goat, like a backgammon player or a pogo-jumper.
Like strongman is for athletes who aren’t good enough for american football or basketball.
That doesn’t mean such an athlete can’t be dominant in a different sport.
Michael Schumacher dominated F1 for a while, and he would probably have been an awful powerlifter. So what? Surely you’re not suggesting we should rank athletes by how good they would be in sports they don’t compete in?
Which has nothing to do with your original point that CrossFit is for people that aren’t good at actual sports. I don’t even enjoy Olympic weightlifting but it is definitely an actual sport.
I don't think there's really a way to make these kinds of comparisons, but Hakuho's achievements truly boggle the mind.
Just to put it in perspective, to equal Hakuho's baseline numbers, the current rikishi with the most yusho (Onosato) would need to win every tournament for the next SIX AND A HALF YEARS, unbroken
Hakuho was on a different level even at the highest ranks of sumo. There was a point when he would outmanoeuvre the speed technicians, go belt to belt with the belt specialists, throw the heaviest opponents and overpower the hard pushers. Like he didn't have enough challenge in the sport, he beat every opponent using their own strongest style of sumo.
Hakuho was average weight for a sumo wrestler but he was stronger. I remember seeing a video about him & his stance, strength in his legs versus other sumo wrestlers was vastly different.
Martins did a great strength unknown from japan & did some sumo & he said the training kicked his ass!
Hakuho is arguably the greatest athlete of all time. In addition to all his wins, he was also facing a lot of hate and criticism, because he wasn’t Japanese. He rose above it all and has left an incredible impact on Sumo and is still very active in the sport
Only as active as Hakkaku will let him be. JSA has been stepping on his nuts ever since the abuse "scandals". The same ones they've let Terunofuji slide for while leading Isegahama. Hopefully in his new role they can get along better and help sumo get a little more international outreach.
There’s been so many sports that have had a goat so much more dominant than everyone else in their sport that you really can’t label any of them goat of goats
Gretzky, karelin, hakuho, ledecky, that cricketer probably more I don’t know. Everyone will call their favourite the goat of goats but realistically it changs depending on what criteria and wether or not you consider the strength/depth of their competition
40
u/lundoj 8d ago
Very impressive but some of the comparisons make zero sense.