Just before bedtime last night, I came across a very good interview from Gypsy Tales with Grand Prix legend, Antonio Cairoli, which I was more than happy to run on mxlarge for the European audience. A brilliant chat with one of the greatest motocross riders of all-time and a rider many would say is the GOAT of GP racing or at least put him in that conversation.

I was disturbed though by the heading of the video (which has since been changed), which read, THE GOAT. Now, as a motocross historian, who has followed the sport for around 55 years, and having been fortunate enough to see the likes of Roger De Coster, Joel Robert, Dave Thorpe, Eric Geboers, Joel Smets, Stefan Everts, Antonio Cairoli, Jeffrey Herlings, Tim Gajser and so many of the greats of our sport and I was disappointed with the heading and the questioning of Jase Macalpines, because his knowledge of the history of GP racing seemed to be average at best. To refer to Tony as THE GOAT, well, that’s wrong, because the guy with the most world titles is Stefan Everts and Everts also has more GP wins than Tony, plus a longer time at the very top.

Now, as I said, the interview was brilliant, as many of the interviews on Gypsy Tales are. Tony is a very likeable guy, and very modest. His record is sensational and from 2005 until 2014, he was one of the best motocross racers in Europe and from 2009 until 2014, he was THE BEST. That’s six years as THE MAN.

Tony must be commended to come from a poor region in Sicily, to become a legend of the sport, that is amazing, and for that he deserves huge respect, but let’s be honest, he was picked up quickly by De Carli Yamaha, and the rest is history. So how much of a disadvantage coming from Sicily is a question mark. Clearly, he was spotted early.

Let’s look at Stefan Everts record. He won his first world title at 18 years of age, coming into the sport under huge pressure, as the son of four-time world champion, Harry Everts. I cannot even imagine what type of pressure that was, but within a couple of years, he was a world 125cc champion. Sure, Stefan was a factory rider in GP from day one and Tony had to struggle for first year or so in GP (racing for Martin Honda), but was quickly picked up by the Claudio De Carli team, which might not have been factory, but it was more than good enough to give Tony his first world title when he was 19 years old.

While Tony won his titles against the likes of Andrew McFarlane, Tommy Searle, Christophe Pourcel, Tyla Rattray, Max Nagl, David Philippaert, Gautier Paulin, Stephen Frossard, Jeremy Van Horebeek and Clement Desalle, Everts took on Donny Schmit, Trampas Parker, Bobby Moore, Greg Albertyn, Sebastien Tortelli, Mickeal Pichon, Joel Smets, Ben Townley, Fred Bolley and Josh Coppins.

Add up the championships and you might see that the Everts era was multi-time world champions, with more than 20 world champions as his rivals, Cairoli’s rivals had a handful, although he did beat Herlings and Gajser in the 2017 world MXGP championship.

Let’s also not forget the MXdN victories by Everts, not just or Team Belgium, but also his moto wins and overall wins. He has more MXoN moto wins than anyone else with 11. Everts also raced Jeff Stanton, Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart in MXdN battles, beating all but RC in those contests. Who can forget his triple GP win at Ernee, or his final MXoN performance against Bubba at Matterley Basin.

Everts retired with maybe another three or four world titles to be won, at the very top, while Tony kept racing, well past his prime and lost world titles to Herlings and Gajser in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. So, the prime of Tony went from probably 2005 until 2014, some 10 years, while Everts prime was 1991 until 2006, so 16 years, and as mentioned, he retired in his prime as a world champion, he could well have kept winning for a 20 year span.

No doubt, both Tony and Stefan are motocross gods, and both should be remembered as such, but the GOAT for now, is that Belgian, with so many incredible individual performances, also outside of MXGP or MXdN. He was a very good supercross racer, a winner of the Fastcross in Italy on two occasions, beating supercross king, McGrath around a circuit that was semi-supercross.

As I said above, as a proud historian of our sport, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, for now, there is only one GOAT. As good as Tony was, Stefan has a much wider record of victories, in so many different events. Maybe you had to be there, because you had to see it to believe it.