Which athlete had the greatest comeback?

[HUNTERMANIA]

Muhammad Ali after his banishment bc of the draft for his prime years.

 

[Basil**]

^I was going to say Ali. I mean shit, the guy spent what, four years, five years out of competition? Sssssshhhhhiiiiiiitttttttt.

 

[meshuggah]

derek rose

 

[LEWIS540]

Blagoi Ivanov. World Sambo champion, beat Fedor in Sambo, went into MMA and was a rising prospect until he got into a bar fight and was stabbed in the heart. Doctors barely saved his life and he only survived in a coma. He woke up like 2 years later and resumed his MMA career, picking up some wins in Bellator.

Nowhere near 2 years.

 

[TeTe]

derek rose

He'll be back just in time for playoffs..

 

[Tsar]

Michael Jordan

this. but foreman had an interesting and successful comeback in his own right.

 

[Bobby Boulders]

I'd agree with Jordan, Ali, or Foreman.

Jordan did it twice, and the third time he was in the league he was old and on a terrible team, and still led the team and put up good numbers for a guy his age.

Ali lost several years of his prime, and then came back during a pretty solid era of heavyweight boxing and still won titles.

Foreman, as others already stated, was gone a fucking decade, and still was able to win a title again. And at his age, even if it was against a "weaker" HW division, doing what he did was still a very impressive feat.

I vote all three. True greats.

 

[TeTe]

Adrian Peterson?

Don't try to switch things up here...

 

[Seano]

I'm thinking George Foreman. Didn't he retire for a long period of time and came back to win a championship in his 50's? That's pretty impressive. Michael Jordan's first retirement was impressive as well. He came back to threepeat.

He was in his 40's.

His comeback was pretty weak really. He was a big walking punching bag who managed to beat one of the weakest HW champs in history at that time.

 

[Dick]

Honorable mention to Belfort but I think PED's had a huge part in that. Do you remember in 2005-2006? Belfort was done around here and should have retired.

 

[edco76]

Foreman won a weak championship and did nothing to hold it.
Michael Jordan didn't come back from injury

Josh Hamilton, Frank Mir, James Braddock, Nicki Lauda, and Greg Lemond all had very difficult combacks.

Lauda was pretty fucking impressive.

 

[HARRISON_3]

Jordan all day.

 

[7437]

Honorable mention to Belfort but I think PED's had a huge part in that. Do you remember in 2005-2006? Belfort was done around here and should have retired.

Belforts is similar to Armstrong. They both came back more steroid than man.

 

[Heisenberg]

Don't try to switch things up here...

9 yards shy of the record after an acl tear

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

^I was going to say Ali. I mean shit, the guy spent what, four years, five years out of competition? Sssssshhhhhiiiiiiitttttttt.

Ted Williams missed three prime years due to war. Turned out to be the greatest left-handed hitter of all time.


http://boston.sportsthenandnow.com/2009/08/22/the-lost-years-of-ted-williams/

Williams finished his career with a .344 average, 2,654 hits, 521 home runs and 1,839 RBI. Because he missed time during two different periods of his career, I compiled the numbers for the six years before and after the time he missed from 1942-1945 and then did the same thing for the six years around his absence in 1952 and 1953. Because Williams did play briefly during the 1952 and 1953 seasons, I did include those numbers when figuring his projected numbers for those years.

Even with missing nearly five full baseball seasons, Ted Williams is still ranked among the greatest hitters of all-time.

If the totals for the five seasons he missed were added to his ledger, Williams would have hit .342 with 3,452 hits, 663 home runs and 2,380 RBI. Those numbers would have lifted him from 69th to sixth in career hits; from 18th to fourth in home runs; and from 13th to first in runs batter in.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/willite01.shtml

 

[llperez22]

hard to pick jordan since he was 30 when he first retired and returned at 31 17 months later. He was healthy and still in his clear cut prime. almost any athlete could probably take a year and a half off in the middle of their prime and then come back at full strngth.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Nowhere near 2 years.

The story of Blagoi and Kill Bill may have merged in my mind lol

 

[armbarforhire]

Kurt Warner ended his career in a pretty high note after having a bunch of bad middle years.

 

[DaleBoca]

Jordan and it's not even close. 3 more titles, 2 more MVP's, 3 more scoring titles.

 

[spannered]

Mark Hunt.

Nowhere near the accolades of the legends mentioned around here, but he deserves mention just for the sheer insanity of his resurgence.

He crossed over to MMA and rattled off some great wins in Pride including Cro Cop and Wanderlei, and still put on good performances against Fedor and Barnett in losses. He came out of nowhere to be one of the most dangerous HW's in the world. Then he got horridly exposed...his complete lack of a ground game and grappling gas tank rattled him off six losses and sent him back to kickboxing. Even low level guys could sub him.

Then the UFC were forced to put him in a fight or two due top purchasing his contract from the Pride amalgamation...after getting exposed in his first fight again with no ground game, he got his shit together.

At 37, after two decades in the fight game and a 6-6 record, he learned some serious TD defense and grappling ability. He went on a KO tear through the heavyweight division in the top tier organisation against the most dangerous opponents.

He just recently fought for the interim belt at 41 years old with one of the most most illogical records in the sport's history (he was 10-8 going into that fight). That would have been the world's worst joke 5 years ago. War Hunt.