Best players of a era !

badtemperedcyril wrote:

chengdufan wrote:

badtemperedcyril wrote:Between late 1980 and losing at the Crucible to Knowles in 82, Davis absolutely obliterated everyone. I’d make that single period his single most dominant of his career. He was winning so emphatically against the best of his competitors - the Coral UK for instance, where he beat Griffiths 9-0 and 16-3 in 80 and 81 respectively; 9-0 against White; 16-6 v Higgins; 9-0 in the Jameson final v Taylor... just examples I pick from the top of my head but very typical of the overwhelming landslide of his taking over from, not just the old guard (Reardon, Spencer, Higgins, Thorburn) but also those coming through with him (White, Griffiths, Meo, Stevens etc).

Davis was clearly the best player at that time, but I dispute that he obliterated everyone. You may be reading too much into his Wikipedia article.
Between late 80 and the 82 WC he lost to:
Perrie Mans
John Virgo
Jimmy White twice
Ray Reardon 0-6
and Terry Griffiths no fewer than 4 times, including a 9-2 thrashing.

I don't think it's fair to Reardon and Griffiths to say that Davis' taking over was an overwhelming landslide when Reardon whitewashed him in that period and Griffiths was his match most of the time.

And this was when there weren't that many tournaments.

I just think he was more clearly dominant from 84 on, and that the group of players challenging him earlier in the decade was a different bunch from those later on, and so the classification could perhaps be different.

I honestly don't think I've ever looked at Steve's wiki page - too many errors on wiki. I watch documentaries, read books and all the Snooker Scene magazines. From from the late 70's when Steve first starts to appear in Pro-Ams and challenge matches at the Luciana club in Romford, he becomes more and more prominent. You get a sense of the wave of Davis-ism sweeping over the snooker world. All the players knew, here was a machine, that on top form, nobody could live with. You are right, he did lose a few but he was more aggressive then - perhaps giving away too many chances when things weren't going his way?


I know a lot of people will not agree but I honestly think Steve was a better player during that period I mentioned. His cue action was more natural and free flowing. By 1983 it had become very wooden. He tended to be ultra cautious, taking very few risks and usually employing a game plan whereby he'd literally screw his opponent into the floor with long bouts of safety and then counterpunching at the end. So many of his frames became scrappy affairs with the balls awkwardly placed. The problem with playing to that strategy is that it can become very tiring, mentally and physically and I think that is where he got caught out in some of his long frame matches... The 83 UK Final (v Higgins), 84 World Final (v White) and 85 World Final (v Taylor). Having built up such a huge lead he found his reserves of concentration dwindling and therefore, his opponent was able to get back into the match. I'm absolutely certain that the free flowing Davis of the 1980/81/82 period would never have let those big leads slip, in fact he'd have gone on to win at a canter.