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You should look into Brian Foster he dominated not only dirt bmx he’s also a bmx racing champion.. Rodney was mostly influenced by 1 style of riding and I’m a big fan but i think it’s a close debate.
I'm almost in agreement Rodney is a hero of mine for 30/40 year's. But another hero of mine is TONI BOU a Spanish trials rider who never been beaten in 17 years. He's a 34 times world champion 2 championships a year indoor and outdoor what Toni can do on a motorbike will blow your mind
better yet, in the 80s he was winning freestyle competitions with "no mistake" not failing a single trick, while street champions were learning kickflips. And most of his tricks were invented for freestyle competitions.
@@mikeschmidt4800 was that the PlanB video? .. way ahead of his time. When skating stood still and the industry went silent.., Rodney continued progressing skating.
As a skateboarder let me tell you: This man created basically everything we do. I can’t think of a single other sport or activity like that. He needs more credit tbh.
Its not a new invention its NBD. They used Rodneys trick (ollie) and combined it with other tricks (grind or slide not really assigned to a person but Rodney is also credited with some) on a bigger obstacle.
Yeah, THE worst thing to ever happen to skating. And most today are realizing how bland they are. Shaped decks are selling like hotcakes. Catch up. Get an egg, or a Beamer off Gonz. Climb out of that tiny pen.
I think the fact that no one has a bad story about Rodney, on top of everything else about Rodney is what really elevates his status. He is a loner by nature so he skates at 2-4am when no one can watch him. I've seen videos of him at a random park tho and little kids were running up to him for trick tips. Rodney never would turn down offering someone help. What did Michael, Gretzky, Brady, Ali, etc have in common? They all had that play to win, at all costs, mentality. I think Rodney has that drive too, but also Rodney isn't trying to "gatekeep" anything. He isn't trying to squash his competition. He's trying to make his competition better so he has better people to compete with. Rodney could have completely isolated himself. Stayed an introvert his whole life. Guarded his secrets with the board. But he actively teaches anyone willing to learn and I think that alone is what makes Rodney so special.
That's why he is creative. To be creative you need to be humble and not afraid. I start skating thanks to Rodney.. the way he create the evolution of skateboarding can be transformed in everyday life. You work many skills of your body that make you stronger. He deserves a biography and a movie for the evolution of biomechanics of motions with the board and body.
In one of his Ted talks, he's quoted with saying "...There's an intrinsic value in creating something for the sake of creating it, and better than that ... there is this beauty in dropping it into a community of your own making, and seeing it dispersed, and seeing younger, more talented, just different talent, take it to levels you can never imagine, because that lives on."
At least based on daewons documentary he was just randomly sharing at the same park as rodney and he loved his style and wanted to give him props and liked up to just skate n chill. Rodney was already one of the goats and daewon was in hs
I'm a skater and people ALWAYS yell out "do a kickflip!" But when I'm at the courts playing basketball with my friends no strangers ever yell out asking us to dunk from the free throw line 😂
I think that this is true, but it’s important to note there are NO rules to skateboarding. Traditional sports have a set of rules and a “winner” Skateboarding is more of an art, as well as a sport.
Good point. But it would still be equivalent to if Michael Jordan created the step back, crossover, layup, dunk, and ball dimensions. He would also have to start in street ball and convert to basketball. And go from predominantly right handed to left. That's what I would consider the equivalent of Mullen creating the ollie, kickflip and heelflip, designing the modern board shape, converting from freestyle to street and switching from regular to goofy
Well I was born in 72 so the 80s and 90s were you know my Elementary and high school years Rodney Mullen was just a freak. He probably did more for Street skating did anyone else on the planet. He was doing stuff that was so nuts that all of the ramp guys would come over and watch him do his thing. I would definitely say that keep probably fall somewhere on that Spectrum level of genius and OCD. That's how committed he was to what he was doing. Even today he's probably still crushing anyone in a game of SKATE. RLTW 3/75
I remember watching Rodney Mullen as a teenager on a VHS imported from the USA to Norway, and I was obsessed with him. His relaxed style on the board combined with the craziest tricks - he was by far my biggest idol ever. As this video shows, he’s most likely the best performer of all time
I'd say dribbling a basketball is akin to riding a board, so a more apt comparison would be if Jordan invented the dunk or dribble in-between your legs. It's also not really fair since basketball had been around for decades and skateboarding just started. That said, Rodney Mullen saved my teenage years. As someone on the spectrum, I really identified with the guy, and my skateboard was an invaluable tool to navigate through social anxiety and be able to make friends.
I do agree that the number of contributions that Mullen gave to the world of skateboarding makes him probably the most influential in his particular sport, one of my favourite Wayne Gretzky facts is: Wayne and Brent Gretzky hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers - 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent.
As much as I love Mullen, I’d almost argue Tony is just as influential. To me the GOAT of GOATs has to be Gretzky due to the sheer dominance. I’ll also admit I’m biased as a huge fan of both Hockey and skating.
Fascinating video, and I love the execution and the idea for the video… However, I think it’s very unfair to compare solo sports to team sports Team sports require more regulation, more institutionalized, rulemaking, and it’s much harder for players to innovate within those confines. I think Rodney definitely is one of the most incredible athletes on the face of the planet for sure. I personally think this video would be more fair and a more accurate hypothesis to defend would be something like : “the greatest solo athlete of all time”… and Compared him to other athletes in a sports such as surfing, gymnastics, rock, climbing, BMX biking, etc.… Still a great video, and it is always a treat watching Rodney Mullins do his thing. back in the 80s He was better than most modern skaters will ever be. A GOAT in many respects.
Otto Grahm, Jim Brown, Bo Jackson, Dion Sanders. Ty Cobb, Pete Rose, Kobie Bryant, Wilt Chamberllain, Greg Louganis, Jerry Rice, Tom Brady, Lawerence Taylor......... We should have them all settle this with a DANCE OFF.
He was world champion for a very long time as well in freestyle, so he has the "championship credentials" that most would consider a deciding factor in the GOAT conversation. He dominated freestyle, and paved the path for street skating unknowingly, then transitioned into it and did it in a way that almost no one else was doing. Easily the most innovative athlete I've seen since Rene Lacoste in tennis who helped change the wardrobe of tennis to polo's for the first time, led the change from wooden to modern rackets, innovations and improvements to ball machines, etc.
Imagine a decent street skateboarder being blown away & loving Mullen's part in "Questionable" after seeing it on VHS in 1993. This was a couple of years after coming back to skating after rarely doing it for a few years largely because a 13 or so year old kid named Muska from his neighborhood progressed so rapidly & did so much better than him at the only in-person skate contest he ever entered. It made him feel down because he wanted to impress a young woman working the contest. He got back into it by making skater friends at his university, but he injured his knee on a bad 360-flip landing in 1994 and almost completely stopped skating. Now he's been back into it for a few years & it's wild to see how things turned out for skateboarding. Missed Muska's career almost entirely by no longer following skating those years. I agree that Mullen is #1.
With Rodney Mullen's Chemical Engineering Degree, He made the Polyurethane Wheels that had the right durability at the time, and learned the range of durometers at the time. He changed the way Skateboards were shaped, and sized. (double Kicks, popsicle) He had to overcome Hip Scar Tissue and rework his entire body to allow him full range of motion for his tricks and rehabilitated himself with his own intuition over his lifetime. With just knowledge alone he won countless competitions. Made people turn heads when Freestyle was a Nerd's Passtime, Made it cool, and has also solidified Skateboarding's Existence in the Olympics by how people bring Athleticism and Art both into a Physics Equation that even AI can't figure out how to replicate, Actuated with our Physical Bodies to do things in ways that are functional, aesthetic, and expressive. He has truly become ambidextrous because of physical problems with his body, and has overcome the problems all by himself. He has done tricks people in their lives have only done once; And yet he may have done it a thousand times; Like a painter. Each one different, because he paints with Physics and Science, with one of the last Ninja Arts that is Commended and frowned upon by numerous people of all types
@14:41 I'm really into football (soccer) and think skateboarding is a good comparison. Best player to compare to Mullen IMO is Johann Cruyff. Both have originality, genius and are elegant to watch. The Cruyff turn is kinda foundational now, like an Ollie of kickflip..
I grew up skating and doing very well in Freestyle skateboarding contests from 1986 through 1993, while getting paid to skate in demos and Hollywood gigs from 1989 through 1991. I met and spoke with Rodney at a 1990 Pro/Am Freestyle skateboard contest in Anaheim California. He's a pretty humble guy and would agree with what I'm about to say. Rodney is great on a skateboard, but can he surf? Can he dunk a basketball? Hit a home run? Win a boxing match? Win a 10k race or triatholon? You get where this is going. There's all kinds of amazing athletes of different genres that take very specific dedication and specialized focus that can't be matched with one another.
But that's not the point he was making. I agree, in pure athletic ability, there are many others who exceed Rodney. Micheal Jordan was a basketball player who hit a home run in pro baseball. Bo Jackson was...well...Bo freaking Jackson! But the video isn't about the "most freakishly talented in every possible sport" athlete. It's about the greatest athlete of all time, meaning the athlete who did for their sport what no other athlete did for any other sport. The title is, I'll admit, kinda misleading and could've been titled more accurately, but did what the guy was actually trying to get across, I think he's spot on. Rodney Mullen took the sport of skateboarding and MORE THAN revolutionized it. He didn't come up with street skating, but he completely created it. No other athlete has done anything close to what he did, for any other sport. That impact is what he meant my greatest athlete, not athletic ability.
@johnlonkert7187 Rodney contributed a lot of tech tricks to skateboarding while developing the flat ground ollie, essential for doing other tricks. However, he admitted to being afraid to skate on obstacles when he first started street skating. He can do an amazing ollie stalefish, but I never once saw him ollie a fire hydrant. We should be giving obstacle street skating credit to skaters like Mark Gonzalez and Natas Kaupas, who laid the foundation for obstacle street skating. While Rodney invented a lot of tricks that we as a skateboarding community are grateful for, he certainly didn't invent all of them and their variations. For instance, there's a multi-trick variation I discovered and invented between late 1988 and early 1989 that no one else was doing back then, except two others who were doing something somewhat similar but different. The original name of the trick had such a long name that I decided to rename it to Trim-Flip. That's part and due to right of passage and patent for recognition of inventing the trick, like many other professionals who named their tricks after their last name or abbreviated it, just like the Half-Cab. It consists of 3 different tricks combined into one, the (Frontside 180 No-comply Pressure flip). I published a couple of videos on the history of it, while demonstrating how it's done. it's a pretty unique trick, Andy Anderson does them once in a while, and I've seen other skaters doing it as well or similar variations of it. Just about every serious skater of the early days, up on through the 1990s, has invented and contributed something different and unique. There are quite a few other Freestylers of the 1980s who invented a good amount of Flatland Freestyle tricks as well. It's important that every contributor is acknowledged and not forgotten through all the noise and attention certain individuals receive often. We, as a whole, need to branch out further and learn more about other skaters who contributed a lot as well. Thanks to the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, they are a good place to learn much history from many contributors of all kinds.
Nicely laid out statement…& done with class. So I salute you. But…you kinda missed the point of the whole video tho😮. Dude is saying that out of all athletes…in all sports across the world/history…Rodney had by far, the most positive impact & forward evolution that any athlete (before or after him)…has ever had on his sport. Think about it this way…Rodney’s impact on the sport would be the equivalent to one basketball player from back in the day being credited with being the first to ever invent the slam dunk, the jump shot, the cross over…& the alley-oop. All of which were game changers to the sport…& continue to be VITAL aspects of the game to this day. For Rodney…let’s just say the flat-ground Ollie is equivalent to the jump-shot, the kick flip is equivalent to the slam-dunk, the shuv-it is equivalent to the cross-over dribble…& the Ollie impossible is equivalent to the alley-oop. (And with Rodney…that list goes on & on). All of which are HIGHLY VITAL to both sports to this day. Make more sense now?
@simonbrightman79 you probably were born during the mid to late 1980s or later, just repeating what many others have said who weren't skating during that time. You forget that I skated during the same era and watched it all unfold with many other talented contributing skaters. Rodney was great, but not the only one who made an impact, and he didn't receive credit for everything, nor should he like many want to believe. Also, everything you said, even your beginning compliment, doesn't make up for your condescending remark toward the end.
I always think of it this way. Being the fastest race car driver in the world is impressive. Now imagine that driver also designed the car, invented the internal combustion engine, and came up with the concept of racing. That is Rodney Mullen. He created and mastered an entire art form on his own.
Imagine the millions or skaters rodney has inspired he's the man he truly is the goat watching his work motivates me to skate better..I currently need new set up thanks rodney hats off😊
If I could have any one person's ability for one day, I would chose Rodney Mullen's skating ability over anything else. One day where I can do any trick known to man because Rodney Mullen is basically responsible for everything trick created on a skateboard. I would spend the entire 24 hours skating through a major city, just having a blast. This is definitely something I have discussed with friends over a beer many times in the past. We all have our person identified, and Rodney is my #1.
From the early 90s to the early 2ks I used to skate at the Ibirapuera park (in São Paulo-Brazil) and there were some older dudes that practiced the (what was conceived of, at the time) "old art" of freestyle skateboarding... I learnt a lot from those guys... good times =D... And then Rodney Mullen was not much known from outside people that skated freestyle, but he was always like "the secret character" (in that time there the internet was in its infancy, so, especially in the 3rd world, only the most hardcore skateboarding people would buy some skate magazine VHS tapes and stuff like that...and even then people were more interested in the "street style" or "skate rapper" kind of thing...) haha.. the right thing for a game would be to have Rodney Mullen as a secret character that the player would have to perform some cryptic behavior at the game in order to unlock him for 1 play (1 one level, etc... of the game...) and he would just never miss any tricks, would be like an 'Akuma' in the game and all, and when the map (stage) is finished it would pop up a message (like those old street fighter 2) like "I trained those tricks decades ago, at 3am." hehe... I would say much more, but perhaps in another video =D..
At the start I was like maybe some over-hype, but after watching it I agree. Im a skater and I know what he's done fore us but by framing it as overall impact makes it clear. Well done, great vid!
Incredible talent, creativity, skill and heart. To me part of what elevates him to legendary status is is obvious kindness and humility. I could not agree more with your posit. he is the greatest there ever was. inspirational
I agree with your opinions on rodney there is one person who actually fundamentally changed a major sport steph Kerry he totally changed basketball but he can not be considered the greatest ever
i love rodney mullen. i was born in 81 and i skated in my teens into my 20s so i came up during prime mullen. he was a legend i also played football, linebacker. involved with muay thai for nearly my entire life. had other sport hobbies but these were my main ones i'm saying i love mullen and i have an athletic history. mullen, as much as i adore him, isn't remotely close to being the greatest athlete of all time. that goes to someone like bo jackson who was incredibly well rounded and could do anything. in general, linebackers are the epitome of athleticism. you have to be explosive and powerful enough to break the offensive line and agile enough to keep up with ball carriers. you need to be both a lineman and a running back. you need to compete with both receivers and centers lol. it's an incredibly diverse position that requires every aspect of athleticism. i appreciate mullen getting the love, i really do. but this is objectively wrong on every level. mullen has an argument for being the most creative athlete, but not the greatest
Very interesting topic! I ve got to admit, his contribution for the sport is outstanding... So many tricks, that even to this day, is very hard to replicate. Absolute legend! Now, if you ask me who is the GOAT in competitive sports, I am going to say Kelly Slater, who coincidentally retired yesterday at the young age of 52! Eleven world titles in a demanding physical sport, competing with guys in their 20's. Absolutely unreal. Thanks for entertaining us all those years Kelly!
Another argument that I bring up is skateboarding being the hardest thing you can learn as a ‘sport’… you aren’t strapped in, nothing to hold onto, you’re relying on eye to foot coordination and reaction time as opposed to just eye hand coordination. All while balancing on three axis while moving and jumping (like standing on a ball while moving). The amount of brain power that takes is a lot. Snowboarding you don’t have to worry about foot placement, bmx you have handle bars and pedals to set place. Basketball you hold with walking and running being basic human skills really. Hockey is eye hand coordination and strapped onto skates. Aside from surfing, in skateboarding you’re relying on full balance, foot placements, reaction times, as well as jump and landing on objects where surface area is just millimeter’s of contact. So for someone to be great at skateboarding it’s really something else. Let alone 10 years of being the literal best at it, all while inventing the tricks themselves and changing what a physical skateboard is so he can improve and invent more tricks ie popsicle decks, and concave. On top of ALL of that, we’re eating shit on concrete, and trying again right after.
It’s difficult to compare team sports with stricter rules to individual sports with relatively open interpretation of rules. Call me a Messi fanboy but I think players like him and Gretzky are still in the running when you consider how an opposing player/team must reconsider their understanding of the game entirely in order to negate the influence of that player.
As a skater I will say Mullen is the most influential person to a one particular sport. The sheer number of tricks and elements of skateboarding he's responsible for and /or influenced is insane . BUT Don Bradmans batting records haven't been neared by anyone in 80 years. Bradmans career batting average is 99.94 the next best career batting average is 61.87 . Bradman played on bad grounds for 20 years without a helmet or arm guards . He was a run scoring machine . I'd rather watch Rodney skate but Bradmans achievement can't be ignored .
There were many players that revolutionized their respective sports, but only Rodney directly impacted the very framework in which it was done. I think the few that come close outside of action sports are Roger Federer and Tiger Woods, who were x-factor players that elevated the level of play for tennis and golf. They helped raise the bar with inventing new shots, unprecedented conditioning, and strategies that did force their respective tours to elevate their game, the way equipment was produced, and in Tiger’s case, the way golf courses were laid out.
People miss the actual point to your video - most overall impact on a sport - from tricks , to business , to hardware dynamics… every little detail and the business end as well Great video mate regardless of the negative people
Great video. Very valid. Rodney is absolutely the G.O.A.T.... However you omitted arguably the greatest athlete of all time as a comparison. Don Bradman. Australian Cricketer, averaged an entire one third better batting average than the next best batsman in history. That would be like, well, any of the most prolific scorers in any sport scoring an entire one third more than the next prolific scorer over their career. That's insane. The incredible folklore tells how he only needed to make 4 runs (points) in his very last innings to finish with a perfect 100 run batting average across his entire career, and painfully got out for zero.
I think my fav Rodney Mullen story is when Jason Lee thought he landed the first tre flip and someone was like hate to break it to you but Mullen landed in a video part months ago. Great video but would have like to see more about his flatland dominance in the early days (I think that was when he went 34/36) and how he was more focused and worked harder than any other skater. He would go to a concrete slab and practice for 12+ hours every single day. I know I messaged you about this on fb already but I def think Mat Hoffman is the GOAT of BMX. The amount of tricks he invented, his influence on the mega ramp, the abuse he put his body through. Plus he got his highest air Guinness record robbed by Dave Mirra. And like Mullen he was a super sweet guy and just a genuinely good human
Rodney is undeniable as the goat with everything he had done with tricks to the design of the skateboard . I can’t think of any sport that an athlete had an impact . The only person who comes close would have to be Eddie hall with the 500kg deadlift in strongman or ed coan in powerlifting totaling 2400 pounds in the 242 Bw but Rodney did so much in skateboarding that it’s crazy
A key point is that, the skateboarding version of Ali, Jordan, Tiger Woods, Ronaldo Is Tony Hawk. Tony’s impact was and still is massive. But in the same way that Ali’s was, Jordan’s was. Mullen’s impact is only measurable by looking at a universe where he doesn’t exist.
I’ve spoken to Rodney about this and he says he doesn’t really consider himself an athlete but rather an artist. He said it doesn’t seem fair to compare his artistry on a skateboard with the athleticism of professional athletes because they’re just apples and oranges at the end of the day.
A cricketer from Australia in the 1930's named Don Bradman was so dominant in his era that he is still regarded as the greatest batsmen to have played, his career average of 99.94 is still the highest with the next best being 61, the influence of Mullen on skating is profound you would have to invent the sport to be as impactful as he is, but the Don dominated his sport far more than Pele, Jordan, Ali or any of the other athletes . Great Video thanks and Take care
I started skating because I got a Tony hawk board 3 years ago, today I skate almost and tensors lo , I like mullen and Daewon styles I even came up with a silly trick from practicing they're styles ( Andy Anderson too)
I know. When he mentioned Ronaldo I got a little mad. Just yesterday Messi had 5 assists and a goal. Now don’t get me started on no Larry bird even mentioned.
Good analysis. I get what you mean when you say that the others were great individual talents but never really contributed much to the sport itself. I remember Rodney saying in an interview one time that he never wanted to be some celebrity skateboarder who won all these trophies and was driven by money/fame. His real trophy is seeing skateboarders everywhere doing HIS tricks that HE invented since it all started. You really can't beat that tbh.
You can argue pretty easily that Michael Jordan was the catalyst for every major change that happened after him. Michael Jordan might not have invented dribling, but he's single handedly revolutionized the shooting guard position and, in turn, changed roster construction in a way that has affected everything since. I think that's even more fundamental than dribbling. Everyone at every position now plays like a shooting guard because of him. The rules have changed to favor offense because players kept beating the shit out of him because they couldn't stop him any other way. One of the greatest players of all time literally studied under him. I can go on and on. Him being respectful to the prior generation doesn't mean anything.
Some sports should be renamed. Let's grab our Gretzky sticks, Mullen boards, Tiger clubs and Ali gloves.The goal line was moved back because of Gretzky. Mullen invented almost every trick all skaters use. The courses were made longer because of Tiger. Every professional athlete changed the way they dealt with the media because of Ali. Great vid! Stay Happy and Healthy
I really enjoyed the presentation of this whole piece. And your delivery js really well done. But as a note, I found this music really distracting. It's too simple, repetitive, and high in your mix.
This is a great video man 😃 I’m genuinely staggered that you don’t even have 1k subs! 🤯 I’ve totally subbed and would love to see a Tony Hawk retrospective as well as you mentioned in the vid. Really great content man 👊🏻
Thanks for watching and well, maybe I'll get to 1k subs at some point! But, totally, I'm going to work on my Tony Hawk video after the next one I'm putting together.
thank you, this was cool! =) I dunno, to me freestyle skating looks pretty weird (started skating after THSB or THPS2 came out), but if Rodney does it, it becomes magical!
It’s not fair to compare Rodney’s innovation in skateboarding to athletes like Jordan. The reason for this is that, in other sports, the basic “tricks” like dribbling had already been invented and developed over the course of decades when the all-time greats came along. When Rodney started skateboarding, the modern incarnation of the sport was brand new, and all the tricks were waiting to be discovered. I am not taking anything away from Rodney’s brilliance. I’m just saying it’s not fair to compare him to modern basketball players, soccer players, hockey players, or boxers. A fair comparison would be to compare Rodney with other athletes in the first decade of the modern versions of these sports. And, unfortunately, we don’t really have the means to do so because the history of the development of these sports was not documented on camera (and other forms of modern media) the way Rodney had the benefit of having his innovations captured on.
I admit that Rodney probably is the GOAT. However, I think that Chris Sharma should be in contention. Rock climbing is both physically, and mentally extreme and to develop the sport in terms of creating climbs, opening access to new climbing areas and bringing attention to, and being an ambassador for the sport in general, while consistently pushing the difficulty to a new level every year for nearly two decades is something special.
Skateboarding also wins the award for greatest sport of all time due to the combination of its constraints and lack of rules leading to constant evolution and flexibility in the context of extreme difficulty and its punishing nature. It is an art form on a level no other physical “sport” is, more akin to dancing
Seems like Rodney in basketball would be like a combination of MJ+Bill Russel+George Mikan. MJ is the GOAT, no player had the combination of raw athleticism, finesse, fundamental skill, and competitive drive before or since. Plus he is by far the most culturally impactful player in NBA history in terms of branding. Bill Russell is the winningest player of all time but he also one of the first true freak atheletes to play in the NBA and made vertical play (jumping, blocking, dunking) more popular. Now we have George Mikan, he is the one to make everyone realize that being very tall is an advantage in basketball. At 6'10 he towered over everyone, he could block anyshot to the point the "goaltending rule" was invented, he invented the jump hookshot, the Mikan drill to be able to make layups with each hand. He was so good that one time a team held on to the ball an entire game so he wouldnt touch it, forcing the nba to invent the shotclock. And Rodeny is all of that in one for skateboarding
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You should look into Brian Foster he dominated not only dirt bmx he’s also a bmx racing champion.. Rodney was mostly influenced by 1 style of riding and I’m a big fan but i think it’s a close debate.
I'm almost in agreement Rodney is a hero of mine for 30/40 year's. But another hero of mine is TONI BOU a Spanish trials rider who never been beaten in 17 years. He's a 34 times world champion 2 championships a year indoor and outdoor what Toni can do on a motorbike will blow your mind
The bacground music is super annoying and absolutely needles.
Bro did a nollie three shuv late flip on flat in '92. That is unreal.
My favorite flat trick from him in Questionable is the nollie back 3 front foot flip. I can’t recall seeing another person do one since.
@@ashleybrown4754 nobody wants to because that shit is UGLY.
better yet, in the 80s he was winning freestyle competitions with "no mistake" not failing a single trick, while street champions were learning kickflips. And most of his tricks were invented for freestyle competitions.
@@mikeschmidt4800 was that the PlanB video? .. way ahead of his time. When skating stood still and the industry went silent.., Rodney continued progressing skating.
@@ashleybrown4754"I can't recall seeing anybody do it since..."
Doesn't this apply to a number of his tricks??
As a skateboarder let me tell you: This man created basically everything we do. I can’t think of a single other sport or activity like that. He needs more credit tbh.
Skating handrails was invented by Gonz or Natas
@@robfromvan Flatground ollies to get onto handrails were invented by Rodney Mullen.
@@robfromvantheres no point trying to argue with these idiots. Let them play with their fingerboards in ignorance.
Its not a new invention its NBD. They used Rodneys trick (ollie) and combined it with other tricks (grind or slide not really assigned to a person but Rodney is also credited with some) on a bigger obstacle.
@@tbug5737 I commented this exact thing which is now gone but yes. Without Rodney we would not be where we are now.
Let's not forget Rodney helped design the modern "popsicle" skateboard shape! ;-)
Also designed trucks and shoes 🤙🏻
him and I believe Vallely (the Barn board), or did I misunderstood this?
No, you are absolutely correct! The World Industries Mike Vallely Barnyard board from 1989 :-)
He didn't help, he literally designed it :)
Yeah, THE worst thing to ever happen to skating. And most today are realizing how bland they are. Shaped decks are selling like hotcakes. Catch up. Get an egg, or a Beamer off Gonz. Climb out of that tiny pen.
"Dont let anyone poison your individuality. Be the way, break away. Look in not out"
Rodney Mullen-
"if you are ever temped to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. if you need a witness, be your own." epictetus
I say be inspired not influenced
Genius alert ⚠️ 📢
I think the fact that no one has a bad story about Rodney, on top of everything else about Rodney is what really elevates his status. He is a loner by nature so he skates at 2-4am when no one can watch him. I've seen videos of him at a random park tho and little kids were running up to him for trick tips. Rodney never would turn down offering someone help. What did Michael, Gretzky, Brady, Ali, etc have in common? They all had that play to win, at all costs, mentality. I think Rodney has that drive too, but also Rodney isn't trying to "gatekeep" anything. He isn't trying to squash his competition. He's trying to make his competition better so he has better people to compete with. Rodney could have completely isolated himself. Stayed an introvert his whole life. Guarded his secrets with the board. But he actively teaches anyone willing to learn and I think that alone is what makes Rodney so special.
This may be the most important take in the comments.
That's why he is creative. To be creative you need to be humble and not afraid. I start skating thanks to Rodney.. the way he create the evolution of skateboarding can be transformed in everyday life. You work many skills of your body that make you stronger. He deserves a biography and a movie for the evolution of biomechanics of motions with the board and body.
In one of his Ted talks, he's quoted with saying "...There's an intrinsic value in creating something for the sake of creating it, and better than that ... there is this beauty in dropping it into a community of your own making, and seeing it dispersed, and seeing younger, more talented, just different talent, take it to levels you can never imagine, because that lives on."
At least based on daewons documentary he was just randomly sharing at the same park as rodney and he loved his style and wanted to give him props and liked up to just skate n chill. Rodney was already one of the goats and daewon was in hs
I'm a simple man. I see Rodney Mullen's name and I click
They did him dirty in thps. He had the worst stats out of almost everyone and no manuals. It wasn't until thps4 I realized he was that guy
Same
Exactly what I did.
@@scourgemeltface I was killing it with Mullen on THPS2. Jamie Thomas was my go to on the first THPS.
You are right
He is more of an artist than an athlete in my book. Sports have constraints, skating is total freedom - pure art.
100% I've got immense respect for Rodney, but this video is comparing apples and oranges.
I'm a skater and people ALWAYS yell out "do a kickflip!"
But when I'm at the courts playing basketball with my friends no strangers ever yell out asking us to dunk from the free throw line 😂
i dont care if you're a big time youtuber or not, i see rodney mullen's name i click it, i watch it, im happy, everyones happy.
I think that this is true, but it’s important to note there are NO rules to skateboarding. Traditional sports have a set of rules and a “winner”
Skateboarding is more of an art, as well as a sport.
Well there are rules in contests and criteria for scoring. He dominated in his contests
Good point.
But it would still be equivalent to if Michael Jordan created the step back, crossover, layup, dunk, and ball dimensions.
He would also have to start in street ball and convert to basketball. And go from predominantly right handed to left.
That's what I would consider the equivalent of Mullen creating the ollie, kickflip and heelflip, designing the modern board shape, converting from freestyle to street and switching from regular to goofy
You forgot the most important point of skateboard history, the urethane wheel. 1972 Cadillac Wheels
Those clay wheels.... dangerous
Someone watched lords of dog town 😂
Well I was born in 72 so the 80s and 90s were you know my Elementary and high school years Rodney Mullen was just a freak. He probably did more for Street skating did anyone else on the planet. He was doing stuff that was so nuts that all of the ramp guys would come over and watch him do his thing. I would definitely say that keep probably fall somewhere on that Spectrum level of genius and OCD. That's how committed he was to what he was doing. Even today he's probably still crushing anyone in a game of SKATE. RLTW 3/75
rodney mullen may not have invented skateboarding but he sure as hell made it what it is today
Like the wright Brothers. They succeeded but many have tried before
"saved to watch later"
Thank you for being my bedtime story later
Haha, no problem!
Travis Pastrana NEEDS to be in the discussion. He reinvented not 1, but 2 sports. FMX, and rallycross are completely different because of TP
I absolutely agree that there's a spot in the conversation for him!
Kelly Slater aswell, I think its a lot fairer to compare newer sports
It’s about overall changes to a sport …
He may be the greatest of all time in extreme sports as a whole. Dude did everything
Travis Pastrana holds 11 world records. His achievements span various motorsport disciplines, showcasing his incredible versatility and daring spirit.
I remember watching Rodney Mullen as a teenager on a VHS imported from the USA to Norway, and I was obsessed with him. His relaxed style on the board combined with the craziest tricks - he was by far my biggest idol ever. As this video shows, he’s most likely the best performer of all time
Travis pastrana and ricky Carmichael, James stewart all deserve a mention as GOATS
I'd say dribbling a basketball is akin to riding a board, so a more apt comparison would be if Jordan invented the dunk or dribble in-between your legs. It's also not really fair since basketball had been around for decades and skateboarding just started.
That said, Rodney Mullen saved my teenage years. As someone on the spectrum, I really identified with the guy, and my skateboard was an invaluable tool to navigate through social anxiety and be able to make friends.
I do agree that the number of contributions that Mullen gave to the world of skateboarding makes him probably the most influential in his particular sport, one of my favourite Wayne Gretzky facts is: Wayne and Brent Gretzky hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers - 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent.
As much as I love Mullen, I’d almost argue Tony is just as influential. To me the GOAT of GOATs has to be Gretzky due to the sheer dominance. I’ll also admit I’m biased as a huge fan of both Hockey and skating.
Dude. Only 6 minutes in so far but very impressed
That 1978 picture of Mullen and Caballero is legendary. Baby cab haha
Rodney Mullets foundational developments have branched into other sports. Ex. Surfing has a Kickflip now. G.O.A.T is an understatement.
Fascinating video, and I love the execution and the idea for the video…
However, I think it’s very unfair to compare solo sports to team sports
Team sports require more regulation, more institutionalized, rulemaking, and it’s much harder for players to innovate within those confines.
I think Rodney definitely is one of the most incredible athletes on the face of the planet for sure.
I personally think this video would be more fair and a more accurate hypothesis to defend would be something like : “the greatest solo athlete of all time”… and Compared him to other athletes in a sports such as surfing, gymnastics, rock, climbing, BMX biking, etc.…
Still a great video, and it is always a treat watching Rodney Mullins do his thing. back in the 80s He was better than most modern skaters will ever be. A GOAT in many respects.
Otto Grahm, Jim Brown, Bo Jackson, Dion Sanders. Ty Cobb, Pete Rose, Kobie Bryant, Wilt Chamberllain, Greg Louganis, Jerry Rice, Tom Brady, Lawerence Taylor......... We should have them all settle this with a DANCE OFF.
He was world champion for a very long time as well in freestyle, so he has the "championship credentials" that most would consider a deciding factor in the GOAT conversation. He dominated freestyle, and paved the path for street skating unknowingly, then transitioned into it and did it in a way that almost no one else was doing. Easily the most innovative athlete I've seen since Rene Lacoste in tennis who helped change the wardrobe of tennis to polo's for the first time, led the change from wooden to modern rackets, innovations and improvements to ball machines, etc.
Imagine a decent street skateboarder being blown away & loving Mullen's part in "Questionable" after seeing it on VHS in 1993. This was a couple of years after coming back to skating after rarely doing it for a few years largely because a 13 or so year old kid named Muska from his neighborhood progressed so rapidly & did so much better than him at the only in-person skate contest he ever entered. It made him feel down because he wanted to impress a young woman working the contest. He got back into it by making skater friends at his university, but he injured his knee on a bad 360-flip landing in 1994 and almost completely stopped skating.
Now he's been back into it for a few years & it's wild to see how things turned out for skateboarding. Missed Muska's career almost entirely by no longer following skating those years. I agree that Mullen is #1.
With Rodney Mullen's Chemical Engineering Degree, He made the Polyurethane Wheels that had the right durability at the time, and learned the range of durometers at the time. He changed the way Skateboards were shaped, and sized. (double Kicks, popsicle) He had to overcome Hip Scar Tissue and rework his entire body to allow him full range of motion for his tricks and rehabilitated himself with his own intuition over his lifetime. With just knowledge alone he won countless competitions. Made people turn heads when Freestyle was a Nerd's Passtime, Made it cool, and has also solidified Skateboarding's Existence in the Olympics by how people bring Athleticism and Art both into a Physics Equation that even AI can't figure out how to replicate, Actuated with our Physical Bodies to do things in ways that are functional, aesthetic, and expressive. He has truly become ambidextrous because of physical problems with his body, and has overcome the problems all by himself. He has done tricks people in their lives have only done once; And yet he may have done it a thousand times; Like a painter. Each one different, because he paints with Physics and Science, with one of the last Ninja Arts that is Commended and frowned upon by numerous people of all types
I agree with this video before watching it
@14:41 I'm really into football (soccer) and think skateboarding is a good comparison. Best player to compare to Mullen IMO is Johann Cruyff. Both have originality, genius and are elegant to watch. The Cruyff turn is kinda foundational now, like an Ollie of kickflip..
I grew up skating and doing very well in Freestyle skateboarding contests from 1986 through 1993, while getting paid to skate in demos and Hollywood gigs from 1989 through 1991.
I met and spoke with Rodney at a 1990 Pro/Am Freestyle skateboard contest in Anaheim California. He's a pretty humble guy and would agree with what I'm about to say.
Rodney is great on a skateboard, but can he surf? Can he dunk a basketball? Hit a home run? Win a boxing match? Win a 10k race or triatholon?
You get where this is going. There's all kinds of amazing athletes of different genres that take very specific dedication and specialized focus that can't be matched with one another.
But that's not the point he was making. I agree, in pure athletic ability, there are many others who exceed Rodney. Micheal Jordan was a basketball player who hit a home run in pro baseball. Bo Jackson was...well...Bo freaking Jackson! But the video isn't about the "most freakishly talented in every possible sport" athlete. It's about the greatest athlete of all time, meaning the athlete who did for their sport what no other athlete did for any other sport. The title is, I'll admit, kinda misleading and could've been titled more accurately, but did what the guy was actually trying to get across, I think he's spot on. Rodney Mullen took the sport of skateboarding and MORE THAN revolutionized it. He didn't come up with street skating, but he completely created it. No other athlete has done anything close to what he did, for any other sport. That impact is what he meant my greatest athlete, not athletic ability.
@johnlonkert7187 Rodney contributed a lot of tech tricks to skateboarding while developing the flat ground ollie, essential for doing other tricks. However, he admitted to being afraid to skate on obstacles when he first started street skating. He can do an amazing ollie stalefish, but I never once saw him ollie a fire hydrant.
We should be giving obstacle street skating credit to skaters like Mark Gonzalez and Natas Kaupas, who laid the foundation for obstacle street skating.
While Rodney invented a lot of tricks that we as a skateboarding community are grateful for, he certainly didn't invent all of them and their variations.
For instance, there's a multi-trick variation I discovered and invented between late 1988 and early 1989 that no one else was doing back then, except two others who were doing something somewhat similar but different.
The original name of the trick had such a long name that I decided to rename it to Trim-Flip. That's part and due to right of passage and patent for recognition of inventing the trick, like many other professionals who named their tricks after their last name or abbreviated it, just like the Half-Cab.
It consists of 3 different tricks combined into one, the (Frontside 180 No-comply Pressure flip). I published a couple of videos on the history of it, while demonstrating how it's done. it's a pretty unique trick, Andy Anderson does them once in a while, and I've seen other skaters doing it as well or similar variations of it.
Just about every serious skater of the early days, up on through the 1990s, has invented and contributed something different and unique.
There are quite a few other Freestylers of the 1980s who invented a good amount of Flatland Freestyle tricks as well.
It's important that every contributor is acknowledged and not forgotten through all the noise and attention certain individuals receive often. We, as a whole, need to branch out further and learn more about other skaters who contributed a lot as well. Thanks to the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, they are a good place to learn much history from many contributors of all kinds.
Nicely laid out statement…& done with class. So I salute you. But…you kinda missed the point of the whole video tho😮. Dude is saying that out of all athletes…in all sports across the world/history…Rodney had by far, the most positive impact & forward evolution that any athlete (before or after him)…has ever had on his sport. Think about it this way…Rodney’s impact on the sport would be the equivalent to one basketball player from back in the day being credited with being the first to ever invent the slam dunk, the jump shot, the cross over…& the alley-oop. All of which were game changers to the sport…& continue to be VITAL aspects of the game to this day. For Rodney…let’s just say the flat-ground Ollie is equivalent to the jump-shot, the kick flip is equivalent to the slam-dunk, the shuv-it is equivalent to the cross-over dribble…& the Ollie impossible is equivalent to the alley-oop. (And with Rodney…that list goes on & on). All of which are HIGHLY VITAL to both sports to this day. Make more sense now?
@simonbrightman79 you probably were born during the mid to late 1980s or later, just repeating what many others have said who weren't skating during that time. You forget that I skated during the same era and watched it all unfold with many other talented contributing skaters. Rodney was great, but not the only one who made an impact, and he didn't receive credit for everything, nor should he like many want to believe. Also, everything you said, even your beginning compliment, doesn't make up for your condescending remark toward the end.
I always think of it this way. Being the fastest race car driver in the world is impressive. Now imagine that driver also designed the car, invented the internal combustion engine, and came up with the concept of racing. That is Rodney Mullen. He created and mastered an entire art form on his own.
Yep. My exact thoughts, basically.
Imagine the millions or skaters rodney has inspired he's the man he truly is the goat watching his work motivates me to skate better..I currently need new set up thanks rodney hats off😊
Verry nice video dude, thank you for your hard work.
If I could have any one person's ability for one day, I would chose Rodney Mullen's skating ability over anything else.
One day where I can do any trick known to man because Rodney Mullen is basically responsible for everything trick created on a skateboard.
I would spend the entire 24 hours skating through a major city, just having a blast.
This is definitely something I have discussed with friends over a beer many times in the past. We all have our person identified, and Rodney is my #1.
From the early 90s to the early 2ks I used to skate at the Ibirapuera park (in São Paulo-Brazil) and there were some older dudes that practiced the (what was conceived of, at the time) "old art" of freestyle skateboarding... I learnt a lot from those guys... good times =D... And then Rodney Mullen was not much known from outside people that skated freestyle, but he was always like "the secret character" (in that time there the internet was in its infancy, so, especially in the 3rd world, only the most hardcore skateboarding people would buy some skate magazine VHS tapes and stuff like that...and even then people were more interested in the "street style" or "skate rapper" kind of thing...) haha.. the right thing for a game would be to have Rodney Mullen as a secret character that the player would have to perform some cryptic behavior at the game in order to unlock him for 1 play (1 one level, etc... of the game...) and he would just never miss any tricks, would be like an 'Akuma' in the game and all, and when the map (stage) is finished it would pop up a message (like those old street fighter 2) like "I trained those tricks decades ago, at 3am." hehe...
I would say much more, but perhaps in another video =D..
At the start I was like maybe some over-hype, but after watching it I agree. Im a skater and I know what he's done fore us but by framing it as overall impact makes it clear. Well done, great vid!
Incredible talent, creativity, skill and heart. To me part of what elevates him to legendary status is is obvious kindness and humility. I could not agree more with your posit. he is the greatest there ever was.
inspirational
I agree with your opinions on rodney there is one person who actually fundamentally changed a major sport steph Kerry he totally changed basketball but he can not be considered the greatest ever
Great video Riggs looking forward to more.
FANTASTIC video.. my only wish is that Ricky Carmichael and Kelly Slater had made the honorable mentions.
You know, they absolutely should have. It was hard for me to pick.
Sir Donald Bradman was the greatest for a while, Kelly slater probably is the greatest athlete in one of the hardest sports to learn
i love rodney mullen. i was born in 81 and i skated in my teens into my 20s so i came up during prime mullen. he was a legend
i also played football, linebacker. involved with muay thai for nearly my entire life. had other sport hobbies but these were my main ones
i'm saying i love mullen and i have an athletic history. mullen, as much as i adore him, isn't remotely close to being the greatest athlete of all time. that goes to someone like bo jackson who was incredibly well rounded and could do anything.
in general, linebackers are the epitome of athleticism. you have to be explosive and powerful enough to break the offensive line and agile enough to keep up with ball carriers. you need to be both a lineman and a running back. you need to compete with both receivers and centers lol. it's an incredibly diverse position that requires every aspect of athleticism.
i appreciate mullen getting the love, i really do. but this is objectively wrong on every level. mullen has an argument for being the most creative athlete, but not the greatest
Very interesting topic! I ve got to admit, his contribution for the sport is outstanding... So many tricks, that even to this day, is very hard to replicate. Absolute legend! Now, if you ask me who is the GOAT in competitive sports, I am going to say Kelly Slater, who coincidentally retired yesterday at the young age of 52! Eleven world titles in a demanding physical sport, competing with guys in their 20's. Absolutely unreal. Thanks for entertaining us all those years Kelly!
mentioning Royce Gracie is appreciated since it really made MMA.. mix martial arts w/ BJJ. at the time they did't expect BJJ
Another argument that I bring up is skateboarding being the hardest thing you can learn as a ‘sport’… you aren’t strapped in, nothing to hold onto, you’re relying on eye to foot coordination and reaction time as opposed to just eye hand coordination. All while balancing on three axis while moving and jumping (like standing on a ball while moving). The amount of brain power that takes is a lot. Snowboarding you don’t have to worry about foot placement, bmx you have handle bars and pedals to set place. Basketball you hold with walking and running being basic human skills really. Hockey is eye hand coordination and strapped onto skates. Aside from surfing, in skateboarding you’re relying on full balance, foot placements, reaction times, as well as jump and landing on objects where surface area is just millimeter’s of contact.
So for someone to be great at skateboarding it’s really something else. Let alone 10 years of being the literal best at it, all while inventing the tricks themselves and changing what a physical skateboard is so he can improve and invent more tricks ie popsicle decks, and concave.
On top of ALL of that, we’re eating shit on concrete, and trying again right after.
Skateboarding is the most aggravating sport I have ever done.
It’s difficult to compare team sports with stricter rules to individual sports with relatively open interpretation of rules. Call me a Messi fanboy but I think players like him and Gretzky are still in the running when you consider how an opposing player/team must reconsider their understanding of the game entirely in order to negate the influence of that player.
As a skater I will say Mullen is the most influential person to a one particular sport. The sheer number of tricks and elements of skateboarding he's responsible for and /or influenced is insane .
BUT Don Bradmans batting records haven't been neared by anyone in 80 years. Bradmans career batting average is 99.94 the next best career batting average is 61.87 . Bradman played on bad grounds for 20 years without a helmet or arm guards . He was a run scoring machine .
I'd rather watch Rodney skate but Bradmans achievement can't be ignored .
There were many players that revolutionized their respective sports, but only Rodney directly impacted the very framework in which it was done. I think the few that come close outside of action sports are Roger Federer and Tiger Woods, who were x-factor players that elevated the level of play for tennis and golf. They helped raise the bar with inventing new shots, unprecedented conditioning, and strategies that did force their respective tours to elevate their game, the way equipment was produced, and in Tiger’s case, the way golf courses were laid out.
People miss the actual point to your video - most overall impact on a sport - from tricks , to business , to hardware dynamics… every little detail and the business end as well
Great video mate regardless of the negative people
Ive said this for a long time. He has the wins, the dominance, the impact and the records.
most innovative and creative ever that is for sure
You said “1 goal for every 70 minutes of play” on beat. Hard af
Great argument for the greatness of Rodney
Great video. Very valid. Rodney is absolutely the G.O.A.T.... However you omitted arguably the greatest athlete of all time as a comparison. Don Bradman. Australian Cricketer, averaged an entire one third better batting average than the next best batsman in history. That would be like, well, any of the most prolific scorers in any sport scoring an entire one third more than the next prolific scorer over their career. That's insane. The incredible folklore tells how he only needed to make 4 runs (points) in his very last innings to finish with a perfect 100 run batting average across his entire career, and painfully got out for zero.
I think my fav Rodney Mullen story is when Jason Lee thought he landed the first tre flip and someone was like hate to break it to you but Mullen landed in a video part months ago. Great video but would have like to see more about his flatland dominance in the early days (I think that was when he went 34/36) and how he was more focused and worked harder than any other skater. He would go to a concrete slab and practice for 12+ hours every single day. I know I messaged you about this on fb already but I def think Mat Hoffman is the GOAT of BMX. The amount of tricks he invented, his influence on the mega ramp, the abuse he put his body through. Plus he got his highest air Guinness record robbed by Dave Mirra. And like Mullen he was a super sweet guy and just a genuinely good human
Rodney is undeniable as the goat with everything he had done with tricks to the design of the skateboard . I can’t think of any sport that an athlete had an impact . The only person who comes close would have to be Eddie hall with the 500kg deadlift in strongman or ed coan in powerlifting totaling 2400 pounds in the 242 Bw but Rodney did so much in skateboarding that it’s crazy
A key point is that, the skateboarding version of Ali, Jordan, Tiger Woods, Ronaldo Is Tony Hawk. Tony’s impact was and still is massive. But in the same way that Ali’s was, Jordan’s was. Mullen’s impact is only measurable by looking at a universe where he doesn’t exist.
I’ve spoken to Rodney about this and he says he doesn’t really consider himself an athlete but rather an artist. He said it doesn’t seem fair to compare his artistry on a skateboard with the athleticism of professional athletes because they’re just apples and oranges at the end of the day.
A cricketer from Australia in the 1930's named Don Bradman was so dominant in his era that he is still regarded as the greatest batsmen to have played, his career average of 99.94 is still the highest with the next best being 61, the influence of Mullen on skating is profound you would have to invent the sport to be as impactful as he is, but the Don dominated his sport far more than Pele, Jordan, Ali or any of the other athletes . Great Video thanks and Take care
I started skating because I got a Tony hawk board 3 years ago, today I skate almost and tensors lo , I like mullen and Daewon styles I even came up with a silly trick from practicing they're styles ( Andy Anderson too)
fantastic video! I offer for your consideration, Jim Thorpe, the finest multi-sport athlete in modern history.
There were so many athletes I wanted to talk about without making it an hour long
@@andrewriggscomedy you did well!
Kelly Slater, George Best,Hurricane Higgins,etc etc
Messi is so clear of Ronaldo it isn't even funny. That being said, Messi and Rodney are both the GOATS. Crazy seeing them mentioned in the same video.
I know. When he mentioned Ronaldo I got a little mad. Just yesterday Messi had 5 assists and a goal. Now don’t get me started on no Larry bird even mentioned.
@@brendantheprettygood messi put on a clinic last night.
Serge Bubka is the best pole vaulter of all time. He had crazy athleticism and changed the form entirely while breaking every record.
Good analysis. I get what you mean when you say that the others were great individual talents but never really contributed much to the sport itself. I remember Rodney saying in an interview one time that he never wanted to be some celebrity skateboarder who won all these trophies and was driven by money/fame. His real trophy is seeing skateboarders everywhere doing HIS tricks that HE invented since it all started. You really can't beat that tbh.
goated take
Dang this is some good production value 👑
You can argue pretty easily that Michael Jordan was the catalyst for every major change that happened after him.
Michael Jordan might not have invented dribling, but he's single handedly revolutionized the shooting guard position and, in turn, changed roster construction in a way that has affected everything since. I think that's even more fundamental than dribbling.
Everyone at every position now plays like a shooting guard because of him. The rules have changed to favor offense because players kept beating the shit out of him because they couldn't stop him any other way. One of the greatest players of all time literally studied under him. I can go on and on.
Him being respectful to the prior generation doesn't mean anything.
Some sports should be renamed. Let's grab our Gretzky sticks, Mullen boards, Tiger clubs and Ali gloves.The goal line was moved back because of Gretzky. Mullen invented almost every trick all skaters use. The courses were made longer because of Tiger. Every professional athlete changed the way they dealt with the media because of Ali. Great vid! Stay Happy and Healthy
I really enjoyed the presentation of this whole piece. And your delivery js really well done. But as a note, I found this music really distracting. It's too simple, repetitive, and high in your mix.
I really appreciate the feedback.
This is a great video man 😃
I’m genuinely staggered that you don’t even have 1k subs! 🤯
I’ve totally subbed and would love to see a Tony Hawk retrospective as well as you mentioned in the vid.
Really great content man 👊🏻
Thanks for watching and well, maybe I'll get to 1k subs at some point!
But, totally, I'm going to work on my Tony Hawk video after the next one I'm putting together.
@@andrewriggscomedy yeah go for it man! 😃
Decent number of views on the Mullen video, so capitalise on it buddy! 👊🏻
Very I interesting how the half pipe and vert ollie came before the Rodney Mullen created the flat ground Ollie. 🤯
He IS and will be the GOAT in Skateboarding; He pushed the sport for lightyears.
Rodney thought me how progressive skateboarding is due to how collective the skate scene is.
Walter Lindum, so good at billiards the rules were changed, he gave his opponents a head start and was so dominant he killed the game
Andy Anderson is carrying the torch
My favourite skater.
Great video. You convinced me.
You speak to truth. Great video.
Actual, factual, and accurate. Great vid
Amazing content as always
thank you, this was cool! =)
I dunno, to me freestyle skating looks pretty weird (started skating after THSB or THPS2 came out), but if Rodney does it, it becomes magical!
Kelly Slater and surfing is definitely in the discussion
It’s not fair to compare Rodney’s innovation in skateboarding to athletes like Jordan. The reason for this is that, in other sports, the basic “tricks” like dribbling had already been invented and developed over the course of decades when the all-time greats came along.
When Rodney started skateboarding, the modern incarnation of the sport was brand new, and all the tricks were waiting to be discovered.
I am not taking anything away from Rodney’s brilliance. I’m just saying it’s not fair to compare him to modern basketball players, soccer players, hockey players, or boxers.
A fair comparison would be to compare Rodney with other athletes in the first decade of the modern versions of these sports. And, unfortunately, we don’t really have the means to do so because the history of the development of these sports was not documented on camera (and other forms of modern media) the way Rodney had the benefit of having his innovations captured on.
My vote is for Kelly Slater
I admit that Rodney probably is the GOAT. However, I think that Chris Sharma should be in contention. Rock climbing is both physically, and mentally extreme and to develop the sport in terms of creating climbs, opening access to new climbing areas and bringing attention to, and being an ambassador for the sport in general, while consistently pushing the difficulty to a new level every year for nearly two decades is something special.
Skateboarding also wins the award for greatest sport of all time due to the combination of its constraints and lack of rules leading to constant evolution and flexibility in the context of extreme difficulty and its punishing nature. It is an art form on a level no other physical “sport” is, more akin to dancing
got my sub on this one,great stuff
Your editing is funny. Thx for the history
Shaun Palmer is the greatest athlete of all time. snowboarder,skier,elite Downhill MTB and duel slalom MTB and motocross.
Abbey Wambach is a contender for all time, all sport GOAT. Jim Brown is also up there for dominating both Lacrosse and Football.
He´s like the One that was send Here to help Us see and understand World differently.. :)
100%.The goat totally in skateboarding(freestyle and street). Hawk totally in vert and transition.
Love it!
agreed. only other athlete i can think of who comes even remotely close would be royce gracie of mma fame.
....Just imagine that little square of concrete he grew up on skating and how many tricks went unseen on it.
I think Deion should be in consideration for the GOAT overall athlete but you can't deny that Rodney had the biggest singular impact on his domain.
Seems like Rodney in basketball would be like a combination of MJ+Bill Russel+George Mikan.
MJ is the GOAT, no player had the combination of raw athleticism, finesse, fundamental skill, and competitive drive before or since. Plus he is by far the most culturally impactful player in NBA history in terms of branding. Bill Russell is the winningest player of all time but he also one of the first true freak atheletes to play in the NBA and made vertical play (jumping, blocking, dunking) more popular.
Now we have George Mikan, he is the one to make everyone realize that being very tall is an advantage in basketball. At 6'10 he towered over everyone, he could block anyshot to the point the "goaltending rule" was invented, he invented the jump hookshot, the Mikan drill to be able to make layups with each hand. He was so good that one time a team held on to the ball an entire game so he wouldnt touch it, forcing the nba to invent the shotclock.
And Rodeny is all of that in one for skateboarding
Rodney looks like Lorenzo de’Medici from Assassins Creed 2 in the thumbnail.