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Vahrez_ t1_j2tyooh wrote

Reply to comment by carnifex2005 in The man who was born to be World Champion fulfils his destiny, as Michael Smith defeats Michael van Gerwen 7-4 to claim the biggest prize in darts and become world number one! by carnifex2005

Think its important to mention that he won the second to last major for his first ever.

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aflickering t1_j2tzwl9 wrote

yeah. many of us were saying that once he gets the first one the floodgates are gonna open, and so it's proving! in terms of natural talent he's top 2 or 3 all time IMO, now he's got his head right i'll be quite surprised if this isn't the most common WC final pairing over the next decade.

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BasTiix3 t1_j2ur8ul wrote

Im all here for the "rivalry".

I was literally screaming when that D12 hit god damn

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Nek0maniac t1_j2vsix1 wrote

I know, it's stupid to hype up some newcommer, but I truly feel like we could see an era of three dominating players actually, if Josh Rock keeps performing the way he did in the last months. At least I really hope so, because he is fucking exciting to watch

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aflickering t1_j2wsyed wrote

realistically there are several other players who have that kind of ceiling too. if we can see the version of price that won the worlds and dominated the grand slam, the world title-winning level from wright, 2020 era van den bergh (untouchable for a bit), world title-winning level from cross (seems to be slowly coming back), 2021 version of clayton, plus continued progression from other ridiculous talents like humphries, van duijvenbode, dareisay beau, etc, and we could have a golden age on our hands. i’m sure we won’t see all of those players peaking at the same time, but if even a couple of them do alongside the 3 mentioned then it’s gonna be carnage! and i haven’t even mentioned cullen, noppert, aspinall, searle, de sousa, r smith, heta etc, all of whom have a hell of an A game.

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Nek0maniac t1_j2wxa4h wrote

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. The coming years may be the best years for Darts ever. Sure, there will never be another Taylor, or Bristow, or Lowe, but those are legends for more reasons than just their talent. But the level of play will be incredible over the next few years, probably better than it ever was. I can't wait to see where the current generation of players will lead us

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Ammo89 t1_j2ymcn4 wrote

Who was the other kind of short older man that was always in the finals. Felt like any time I saw darts on sports channel there he was. This bald guy MVG, also some dude with a either braided beard or long rat tail.

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aflickering t1_j2ymzix wrote

that’d be phil taylor, the greatest ever (won 14 of the last 25 world championships). he’s from my town! and you may be thinking of simon whitlock, the aussie number 1 for many years (although overtaken recently), actually won them the darts world cup for the first time in 2022.

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Ammo89 t1_j30yqbb wrote

Just googled those names. Exactly the faces I was thinking of. Crazy how long they stayed at the top.

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aflickering t1_j31dxx1 wrote

that’s a fun thing about darts, you have guys who go into freefall in their 20s but then you have others who don’t even emerge at the top level until their 40s. there are players in the top 50 in the world who are well into their 50s in age and played their first world championships back in the 90s when i was a kid watching it on the bbc.

at the other end of the spectrum, another exciting thing about the game right now is that arguably the best teenager in the world is female. women’s darts has made some strides lately and a woman beat a couple of men at the world championship a few years back, but this kid beau greaves is a different animal, so that’s gonna be interesting to follow.

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