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Jumkie, imo people are quite entitled to not like Stoner's personality, criticise his behaviour off track, and some of his behaviour on track (in practice but hardly ever in actual races). I also think he could have backed up his Honda championship with a second one but didn't; the Indy crash may have happened any way of course but he was a long shot for the title before that.
I don't think Stoner wanted to be loved like Rossi is either. What rankled him and fans of his such as me was the attribution of his championships purely to bike advantage, and accusations that he had faked illness or injury, despite overwhelming evidence against these things, or with bike advantage in regard to the Ducati at least.
You would know better than me, but my impression with Brady is that he is disliked/disparaged, manifestly unjustly, because he is/was a golden child with the good looks, the women that come with that and his success etc etc, rather than his superbowl wins being called illegitimate, and I am definitely unaware of any accusation that he has faked illness or injury. He definitely handlles himself in public speaking terms with far more grace, style, wit and intelligence than Stoner does (or did).
I think what Stoner copped in relation to his illness in 2009 is unprecedented in any sport I can think of in regard to a competitor with his level of success within a sport. There are precedents in gp bike racing for success such as he has had being discounted as you are well aware, cf the similar lack of acknowledgement of Nicky Hayden's championship. There is of course now questioning of Rossi's far greater success which is ridiculous imo, but from my biased perspective I see some causal link between Rossi's disparagement and the disparagement of Stoner and Hayden, and don't recall anything but universal acclaim for him prior to attempts by his fans to discredit Stoner and Hayden.
Your friend Johnny is obviously entitled to dislike Stoner's personality, but his arguments against his character (particularly in regard to his bravery) and achievements are almost always peurile imo, and I enjoy taking them apart, particularly since they not infrequently seem to be motivated by malice rather than him trolling just for the fun of it.
I don't have much problem with Lorenzo's attitude in the incidents which were mentioned, but like Gaz I think his reactions were fairly similar to those of Stoner to the 2 incidents for which he was mainly (and much more trenchantly) criticised, with the Corkscrew 2008 being similar to the Marquez-Lorenzo incident this year (other than Marquez actually staying on the track and Stoner avoiding what would have been a rather more severe collision), and Jerez 2011 bearing similarities to the other 2 Lorenzo incidents.
