I guess it depends on what GOAT means, using your criteria, I totally agree. Great post bro.
Stalin is the GOAT of Russia. Putin is good, but he's got nothing on Stalin.
This is how I described my sentiment to Arrabi the other day:
'I have little to no faith in it (MotoGP) as an authentic competition because the power politics are rife (infinitely more sophisticated in the modern era). I understand my lense is particularly intense, however my perspective for GP is that it's much more susceptible to what we experience in the wider socio-economic power politics as pawns in a Game of Thrones, except the game is being played in a dictatorship tax haven island nation--(DORNA).
Frankly my dear friend, I always find it difficult to balance discussions about the proceedings wilst the Yellow Elephant in the room exists. So in essence, I feel there is a futility in discussing the finer points of Mark Maguire's swing on a home run at bat (in reference to the last race).'
....
Rossi in terms of domination of a sport is certainly the GOAT for the reason being he is the exclusive figure. But it's partly do to the modern sophistication of business. 60 years ago you could walk in a rob a bank. Now the banks are robbing the masses at alarming pace (not just customer fees, but billion dollar tax payer bailouts). And they're doing it legally thanks to their sophisticated lobbying of law makers, laws disguised as consumer protections! That's because the system is 'rigged' in their favor. JP Morgan Chase, the GOAT Finance?
In the 80's a group of executive bankers sat around a table in Texas to brainstorm how they could gain more customers. Out of that meeting they came up with the plan to offer "free checking accounts", something they had previously charged. It proliferate and banks gained customers by the millions. Were banks in the giving mood? No. Because part of that meeting they schemed to increase hidden fees, particularly NSFs checks. It was a watershed moment. Profits skyrocketed, yet they were "giving" their checking accounts out for "free". This is the world we live in, this is an example of the type of executive power meetings from 40-50 years ago, it's become more sophisticated. Who thinks these types of meets are rare in executive board meeting? Why oh why do people think Dorna and the sport, headed by a tiny group of executives with almost absolute control, operate in a bubble of authenticity and integrity?
We see it play out in front of our faces, and yet nobody is really looking around the room incredulously with the look, "did you just see that?" Wait wait, something isn't right. Oh that, no its your imagination, it's all legal you see. Oh oh, ok, then that's OK then.
We don't for a moment think there are meetings like the one by those Texas bankers in MotoGP? We saw the sport go from a Michelin tier sysyem defacto supplier to a Bridgestone one wilst at the time it was surrounded by a similar intensity of power political drama as we saw at the end of last season. Nobody looked around and thought, that's weird, Stoner dominated 07 and now seems to spend more time in the gravel year after year, oh but hey, Rossi is winning-- squirrel! If you saw the post race press conference of Jerez, it was laughable how everyone intuitively expressed a sense of an overwhelmingly uncharacteristic race proceeding; but nobody connecting dots! If Rossi/Dorna got into the real estate business as part of buying a #46 hat, specializing in beach front property in Kansas, his sales would be through the roof.
