Pro athletes don’t always have their game faces on. After all, they’re still people with a lighter side to their personalities, which they are all too happy to show off. However, some have been better at bringing the fun side to sports – either through their words or their actions – than others.
Let’s take a look at those top 10 funniest athletes of all-time and find out exactly what made/makes them so great at putting a smile on people’s faces.
Not too many of Djokovic’s opponents leave with a smile on their face after finishing a match with the awesome Serb, but there’s a reason he’s got the nickname “Djoker” (apart from the fact that his actual name has, like, the first four letters). Just watch the tennis great and men’s World No. 1 doing his classic impersonations and see if you don’t get a nice big smile on your face.
9. Brandon McCarthy
If you could follow only one athlete on Twitter, it better be MLB pitcher Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32), who has arguably the strongest Twitter game of any athlete out there.
Like the three-point shot, Bosh mastered the art of photobombing once he got together with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in Miami. Go ahead and see his best works for yourself. However, that viral video where he played a used car salesman campaigning to get to the 2008 All-Star Game shows that Bosh is far from a one-trick pony in the humor department.
7. Marshawn Lynch
We just put Marshawn here so we won’t get fined.
Seriously, though, Beast Mode isn’t just that guy who says nothing of substance to reporters on Super Bowl media day. He’s also capable of showing his more playful side, as shown in his outstanding commercials for XBox and Skittles. Put those two together and you get a uniquely awesome and funny sports personality that will surely be missed.
6. Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson may look intimidating as hell at first glance because of his bad-ass beard, but he’s genuinely as funny as they come. The major league reliever was an awesome interview in late night shows during his heyday with the Giants, starred in some outrageous commercials, and has even been dubbed the real-life Kenny Powers, which is very high praise indeed. His next door neighbor, The Machine, is very proud.
5. Peyton Manning
Whenever Peyton Manning decides to end his first-ballot Hall of Fame career – which should be coming pretty soon – he should try his hand at some comedic acting. The two-time Super Bowl champ killed it that time he hosted Saturday Night Live (he was so good Rolling Stone ranked him the No. 1 SNL athlete host ever), and displayed a humorous side football fans who watched him for years hardly knew existed.
Of course, those fans were treated to years of laughter with the classic “Manning Face,” which consistently scored a perfect 10 in the unintentional comedy scale.
4. Yogi Berra
If you’re too young to know who Yogi Berra was, and what made him one of the funniest athletes to walk this earth, Google him NOW. You’ll probably discover that the Yankee great’s razor sharp wit was responsible for some of the most famous and hilarious sayings ever quipped by an athlete. If only Twitter had existed in the 1950’s…
3. Charles Barkley
Sir Charles was a pretty big (hard)court jester during his playing days, but it’s been his work in his second career as an analyst in Inside the NBA that has catapulted him into the upper echelon of history’s most hilarious athletes.
The light-hearted basketball banter and crazy antics he’s shared with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and more recently Shaquille O’Neal through the years have produced some incredibly laugh-out-loud moments (see the best of those moments here), with the Round Mound of Rebound almost always right in the middle of all the fun.
2. Muhammad Ali
He is the greatest, and one of the funniest as well. He is Muhammad Ali, who could fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee and tickle a funny bone in his prime.
Not only could Ali talk the talk – he would crack a lot of very clever jokes with a dash of social commentary (as he himself said, “My way of joking is to tell the truth. That’s the funniest joke in the world”) – but he also walked the walk, making grown men look like fools in the ring. His opponents probably didn’t find it all too amusing, though.
1. Shaquille O’Neal
Even though you can barely understand half the things he’s saying, Shaq has been non-stop comedy since coming into the NBA. Whether it’s taking part in a dance-off with LeBron or the Jabbawockeez during All-Star weekend, making an enormous shoe phone or coming up with a million crazy nicknames for himself, Shaq just hast that special gift of putting a smile on people’s faces with seemingly anything he says or does.
Shaq’s addition to Inside the NBA with Kenny, Ernie, and Chuck has formed quite the Dream Team, but his body of work prior to that gig is still more than enough to earn him the crown as the clown prince of sports.
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