Old Head: Was OJ Simpson a star like Lebron is now?

[Dave24]

Nah.

First off, Jordan's not "polarizing". He's the most beloved basketball player of all-time and the 2nd most idolized athlete in the world after Muhammad Ali. Jordan's Bulls used to come into towns and the other teams fans would be rooting for The Bulls. The Air Jordans are shoes that people kill for all over America.

Whereas with LeBron, everybody acknowledges his talent, but even other players see him as a bytch. Fans see him as a bytch and a primadonna. He's trying to be Jordan, but he's not coming close. He's definitely not as beloved as O..J. was, who was as beloved as anybody in the country at the time.

Also, The Rock wasn't even playing for the U when they won the title. He was on the bench. He wasn't a star at all. O.J. was the best football player of all-time in college up to that point. Then, he went to the NFL and broke Jim Brown's rushing record. Dude was transcendent and a movie star on TOP of that.

There is no O.J. of today.

Would Arnold Schwarzenegger be a white equivalent of O.J.?

 

[Dave24]

I'm not an old head but it's not even close. Seems like a difficult thing to really put into context but OJ was a crossover cultural phenomenon before social media, before ESPN, before 24 hour news networks, and before the internet. Fame on another level.

Dude was basically colorless and loved by both blacks and whites. He was a transcendent figure who played America's most popular sport. He was handsome, charismatic, witty, photogenic, all that.

Lebron basically a lame try hard who can dunk that ball good and makes solid business decisions.

Yea, it's not even close.

OJ taking over this David Letterman interview, dude basically made Letterman into a fukking fanboy:


Six and half hour documentary on him:


Andy Warhol Photo

O.J. wasn't loved by blacks, he was a c00n to many of them. Have you watched ESPN's Documentary on him?

 

[ISO]

Nah.

First off, Jordan's not "polarizing". He's the most beloved basketball player of all-time and the 2nd most idolized athlete in the world after Muhammad Ali. Jordan's Bulls used to come into towns and the other teams fans would be rooting for The Bulls. The Air Jordans are shoes that people kill for all over America.

Whereas with LeBron, everybody acknowledges his talent, but even other players see him as a bytch. Fans see him as a bytch and a primadonna. He's trying to be Jordan, but he's not coming close. He's definitely not as beloved as O..J. was, who was as beloved as anybody in the country at the time.

Also, The Rock wasn't even playing for the U when they won the title. He was on the bench. He wasn't a star at all. O.J. was the best football player of all-time in college up to that point. Then, he went to the NFL and broke Jim Brown's rushing record. Dude was transcendent and a movie star on TOP of that.

There is no O.J. of today.

LeBron's not tryna be Jordan, he's trying to be LeBron. For all his detractors he has plenty of fans he is held to a standard of excellence and is praised and scrutinized, made a hero and villainized. He has people that think he's a bytch and people who don't, players who like him and players who don't. Do you know how much money LeBron has generated the NBA and the city of Cleveland, how much and for how long the media has followed him and made him the center of attention? Since high school. Maybe LeBron isn't as good as Michael Jordan (so what?) but he is an absolute sports icon and one of the greatest and most marketable players to grace the court.

The point of the thread is to find who the closest person to OJ is. Of course there's no OJ but who is the closest thing we have today.

 

[ISO]

This ain't no hate on my side but the guy is corny.

He's a try hard when it comes to personality, fashion, charisma, humor, leadership, and everything else (most of these dudes are).

Jesus...

Call an 18 year old high school senior riding through his city in a at the time brand new Hummer bumping Jay-Z corny brehs

 

[Thegospel]

Transcendent. He was almost cast as the Terminator.



Man go ahead with this. Not even close. OJ was a smooth, funny, charismatic, and handsome dude who made fans of pretty much everyone who was around him. Dude legitimately had that aura on and off the field. There really aren't any year 2000+ athletes who folks are in awe of like that.

Goofy, gap-toothed Michael Strahan can't even piece together one or two coherent sentences without sounding like Sylvester from the tweety bird cartoons. There is nothing smooth about that doofball.



Look at this shyt...



Dude can't stop with the goofy smiling, he can't sit still, he's in awe of everyone he meets. There is nothing smooth or charismatic about his body language.

He's a fun-loving goofball and that works for him, but he ain't on the level.



Exactly. Matter fact, I was going to post this...

It really is lost on cats how naturally poised, confident, and charismatic that generation of black men were.





This ain't no hate on my side but the guy is corny.

He's a try hard when it comes to personality, fashion, charisma, humor, leadership, and everything else (most of these dudes are).

Jesus...

How you gonna compare a 21 year old lebron to seasoned oj. That nikka wasn't oj at 18 years old.

 

[Skeletor666]

Oj was the first to do it all and be accepted into the majority white middle class family/lower socio economic and upper class.

The murders was something that shocked the world .

Can't compare him to anyone modern day, everything about that time fif.

 

[Vandelay]

It's Michael Strahan.

He had football/sports success. Generally a safe, likeable, talkative goofball, who's beloved by white people and black people go 'meh' ...this thread is proof we go 'meh'


You have to success in multiple fields, and the mainstream public has to like you. That's not Jordan, Lebron, Tiger...

Only other people that might comparable is the Rock or Schwarzenegger, but their athletic success wasn't in a sport persay...

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

Would Arnold Schwarzenegger be a white equivalent of O.J.?

Nah, because Schwarzenegger wasn't a mainstream athlete. He wasn't a football or baseball player, he was a bodybuilder, which is okay, but O.J. was the best football player in the world for a while. Dude is still legit top 5 all-time running back.

LeBron's not tryna be Jordan, he's trying to be LeBron. For all his detractors he has plenty of fans he is held to a standard of excellence and is praised and scrutinized, made a hero and villainized. He has people that think he's a bytch and people who don't, players who like him and players who don't. Do you know how much money LeBron has generated the NBA and the city of Cleveland, how much and for how long the media has followed him and made him the center of attention? Since high school. Maybe LeBron isn't as good as Michael Jordan (so what?) but he is an absolute sports icon and one of the greatest and most marketable players to grace the court.

The point of the thread is to find who the closest person to OJ is. Of course there's no OJ but who is the closest thing we have today.

Nobody's saying LeBron aint generating money and isn't popular, but the type of popularity of OJ means that you can't have people hating you the way they do LeBron. Like I said, even other players talk mad greasy about him ALL OF THE TIME. Nobody's getting killed over LeBron's shoes. He's been in some movies recently, which is a good step in that direction, but that OJ and MJ fame is a whole nother level man. Like seriously. Those dudes were fashion icons, cultural icons. The way people dressed, acted, lived were affected by those dudes.

I just don't think there can be anybody from today who could be the type of famous that OJ was in the '70s or Jordan in the '90s;.

I mean, OJ was in "Roots", the highest rated TV event in Amerikkkan history.

I mean, if you look at the highest rated TV shows in history. Like episodes of "Roots" make up like 5 of the top 10 in history.

That's how big OJ was in his time.