I just saw the amazing North Macedonia goal vs. Italy yesterday, and learned that prior to the loss, Italy was 48-0-11 in home World Cup qualifiers. Now they are 48-1-11, which is still incredible.
It reminded me of Rafa Nadal’s French Open record of 105-3.
Any others?
Edwin Moses 400m hurdles
From this page, 153-7 including 122 wins in a row.
Gable Steveson finished his collegiate wrestling career with an astonishing NCAA record of 67-2, winning the last 34 matches of his career, including an NCAA Division I championship at Minnesota. In senior freestyle, he went 34-6, winning the last 20 matches of his career, including an Olympic gold medal.
Cheyney University is a Division II HBCU school in Pennsylvania. Over 64 years their football team has compiled an impressive record of 92-511. Of all NCAA football teams with at least 10 seasons played only Becker College (Div III) has a worse winning percentage (14-81 over 10 seasons).
Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from MMA with a ridiculous 29-0 record, including 3 title defenses. Impressive because, generally, everybody loses in MMA at some point.
The Washington Generals are like 6-17,700.
You shorted Floyd a bit, as he ended 50-0, not counting any exhibitions with YouTube stars.
I played Pop-Warner football as a kid for what seemed like forever. Never won a single game.
Whatever one might think of Mike Tyson, he was a human knockout machine in his early days, and some records still stand. Per Wiki:
Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, four months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession.
And Jim Thorpe’s accomplishments are too numerous to mention.
Dan Gable went 117-1, only losing in the championship match in his senior year.
Meanwhile, Cael Sanderson finished his NCAA career with 159 wins, 0 losses. He was an absolute machine twenty years ago. Are there just not as many matches at 285 pounds? After his freshman year, he never wrestled more than 20 matches in a season.
The New York Yacht Club won and defended the America’s Cup (Yacht Race) 24 consecutive times over a period of 132 years.
The problem with boxing records of this sort is that boxers get to choose their opponents. And this is particularly so early in their careers (before the sanctioning agencies get involved).
Morgan Wootten, who coached at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, MD, retired the winningest coach in high school basketball history with a ridiculous 1,274-192 record. He never finished a season with a losing record, and only had double-digit losses 4 times in 46 years, and 3 of them were his very first three seasons coaching. He had 9 seasons with 0 or 1 losses.
(wins record has since been bested by Robert Hughes and Leta Andrews, but Wootten’s winning percentage is still higher than either of theirs, and they both won a “Lifetime Achievement Award” that is actually named after Morgan Wootten).