Ronnie O'Sullivan

Just won his 5th world title,only one behind Davis and Reardon now.Certainly one of the great talents,comparable with people like Ali,Bradman,Woods/Nicklaus,Pele,Warne,Taylor,Federer etc in other sports.Strange character though,highly unpredictable and mood swingingly complex,difficult to understand for a mere mortal like myself that someone with such ability should find it so seemingly burdensome.Saw him play a couple of times at Plymouth Pavillions-awesome.

its a pity he has had as many retirments than frank sinatra otherwise he would tie stephen hendry by now.

As much as I like O'Sullivan it is hard to put him (and Phil Taylor) in the same list as Ali, Bradman, Pele, Woods and Federer.

Damon.Lenszner wrote:

As much as I like O'Sullivan it is hard to put him (and Phil Taylor) in the same list as Ali, Bradman, Pele, Woods and Federer.

From an athletic point of view,agreed.I was drawing a comparison between people who possess rare,once in many generations talent in their particular field.I guess you could extend the scope to someone like Capablanca or Fischer in chess-sport,game,whatever you want to call it,these people had ability that stood out from anyone else.

Greenjock's quite good at Scrabble.

O'Sullivan doesn't even really like snooker but just won £250k playing it. Then again, there's plenty of footballers who don't like football.
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Ali would kick his arse, ridiculous comparison to make.

Iggy wrote:

Ali would kick his arse, ridiculous comparison to make.

He would kick his arse in the boxing ring but not on the snooker table.Ali was my all time sporting hero [still is,as a matter of fact],i'm sat here looking at a load of books and DVD's about the man and as far as i'm concerned,he was the best boxer and most iconic public figure that i've seen and am ever likely to see.The only point that i'm making is that O'Sullivan is talented enough to dominate his own particular sport in the way that Ali did his.It isn't a statement that snooker is as athletic as boxing [or any of the other sports] or that O'Sullivan is a similarly iconic world figure,that would be ridiculous.It's just a comparison of the highest level talent in comparative sports/games [not a comparison of the sports themselves] and O'Sullivan is the most talented snooker player that i've ever seen,in the same way that Warne was the most talented spin bowler i've ever seen,Nicklaus/Woods the most talented golfers.

Really talented player, almost certainly the best ever.

Whether he beats Hendry's records or not it's obvious he has more talent and Hendry just applied himself more professionally and was more dedicated.

O'Sullivan gets on my tits though. He wants to either retire or play instead of all this attention seeking shit. It wouldn't surprise me if Barry Hearn wasn't in on this last sabbatical. Ronnie says he's a bit bored with it all and might miss a few tournaments and Barry Hearn says why not take the whole year off and just come back to defend your title, what a great story that will make the headlines.

Barry Hearn is such a cocky, irritating cnut, closely followed by his cocky, irritating cnut of a son. If Terry Marsh is still around, do us a favour Tel.

Iggy wrote:

I do believe i was right royally whooshed there,Iggy.