Olympics and other sports--why are the winners less popular???

[jediofthefeet]

Just so you know, I am not a sports fan. Therefore, I cannot speak on a large number of athletes or wide variety of sports or events.

But this is a question I have, and perhaps some of you can shed light on it.

Yesterday, I watched the 2011 World Championship of Olympic Lifting for the 105kg class.

There were two really popular lifters on there; they are all over YouTube, and have their own channels, and such: Dmitry Klokov and Aleksey Torokhtiy.
They placed silver and bronze, respectively. The winner was Khadzhimurat Akkayev, yet he is almost nowhere on Youtube or the Internet.

Remember the guy who defeated Brock Lesner in an MMA match by putting him down early? How about the replacement MMA fighter who defeated Kimbo Slice?

James "Buster" Douglas was the first guy to beat Mike Tyson, yet Tyson is a big as ever, even starring in "The Hangover".

Why are many of the winners less popular?

People say nobody remembers who came in second, or who was the runner up in a pageant, cooking competition, etc.
But apparently, that is not true because many winners fade into obscurity while those they beat shine bright as the sun.

 

[TheGerbilSystem]

Well, to start with, the examples that you brought up are small fractions of these guys' careers. Like, I won't pretend to know a ton about boxing, but just because Douglas beat Tyson doesn't necessarily mean he was 1/20th of the boxer Tyson was. So that's one reason, I think. To analogize it to another sport, if the Cubs end up winning the World Series this year, no one's gonna care that the Cardinals swept them in June.

Also! Can't speak much on the weightlifting example, but Tyson, Slice, and Lesnar came into those fights with huge followings and media attention. They were obviously the main attraction. But with Slice and Lesnar, you're talking about their professional debuts (I think Lesnar had one fight before, then, but nothing on the scale of a UFC debut). So beating them, at that time, wasn't necessarily a huge accomplishment (although Lesnar has obviously had a great career since then). Douglas beating Tyson was different, to the extent that was a bona fide amazing accomplishment at the time. But, again: that one fight is a small part of Tyson's total career, and additionally, I think it's fair to say that of the two, Tyson has a more interesting, attention-grabbing public persona.

So tl;dr: losers are more well-remembered sometimes because they're more interesting than the winners, and because losing one single event doesn't wipe out all of their past accomplishments.

 

[jediofthefeet]

@TheGerbilSystem

Hey everyone, no need for further replies for this thread. That was the most concise explanation I think could be written in terms of my question.

Thank you! And you explanation also translates to other professions, e.g. architecture, culinary arts, music artists, actors/actresses, retail and corporate, etc.

 

[TheGerbilSystem]

No problem! Glad that it helped.