2nd most talented. The only thing that pisses me off about Casey Stoner is his choice to dodge Marc Marquez. A true competitor a true goat would never do that. He's fast but not great. You could never convince me otherwise.
What did I say about Stoner here? I questioned his ability to beat Marc head to head. I question if his record lives up to his talent. But I made no references to him personally. I did mention that his fans would go on the attack for this and well here we are. Hold all riders to the same standard. In the future I don't expect to see you say a bad word about anyone then.
You also questioned whether Stoner was a great rider and a true competitor.
We must have differing opinions of what constitutes a rider being great.
You pretty much accused him of not being a GOAT rider because he chose to retire in 2012 for reasons that had nothing to do with Marquez. While to this day I really wish he did not retire, when I remove the fandom aspect of him out of it, his decision while seemingly incomprehensible to you/others, was the correct decision for him. You can think it had to do with Marquez all you would like, but Stoner never feared any competitor as I thought was obvious to all.
The trouble with your comment aside from how ill-founded it is, is that you are making an assessment based on what you personally feel he should have done because then it would make you feel better. If racing was not making him happy, should he have continued?
Not really.
Take Wayne Rainey. He became progressively more miserable as a person after that 1990 title because it gave him only the slightest bit of satisfaction before he was left with no sense of joy over the title. He kept pushing in 1991 because he did not want to lose, and then he did the same thing in 1992, albeit he was helped in part by Doohan's crash at Assen. 1993 was more of the same where it was defend the title at all costs because he couldn't bear the thought of losing....if it wasn't for that fear of losing, he probably doesn't find himself pushing at Misano and ultimately winding up in a gravel trap with a severed spinal cord. Maybe you would prefer to see riders pushing in spite of not enjoying the racing anymore till they wind up either injured or dead to satisfy whatever standards it is you have to consider someone a GOAT.
You say Stoner was fast, but not great.
Okay.
We clearly have differing views as to what constitutes a great rider. Anyone who did what he did on the Ducati 800 in that first year on the bike is a great rider. It's already been discussed how difficult of a bike he was given to ride, and even in the subsequent years at Ducati. He won 2 titles and a slew of grands prix from 2007 thru 2012 before retiring. Would he have gone on to do even more? Possibly, we will never know. It would have been great to see him race against Marquez and I suspect you would have gotten that wish had that tire vote in April 2012 never happened. But the tire vote happened and he announced retirement within a month.
Would you or would you not consider Freddie Spencer a GOAT even though he only won races for an even shorter period than Stoner did? He won his first race in 1982, and his last race in 1985. 4 seasons worth of wins with two 500cc titles and the 250cc title. He had a number of comeback efforts that never panned out for various reasons. Freddie may never have done anything again after 1985, but no one would question how great he was for those 4 years.
Barry Sheene only won two 500cc world titles, and won races in only 6 of the 9 seasons he competed as a full-time rider in the championship. No one would question his greatness.
Applying your lofty standards for Stoner to those two, we could say they were fast but not great riders even though most with a pulse would say the two latter examples were great as was the former.
