Sport’s unpredictability is one of its most attractive attributes.
Your favourite player or team may need just one bounce of the ball to go their way, or one puzzle piece to fall into place to be successful.
Just one lucky break and it can all change.
And when it does, fans should understand that it could have been so very different.
Gwyneth Paltrow knows.
Here are some examples of those ‘what if’ moments in sport that could have been so very different and my prediction on how history would have played out in an alternate universe.
A Historic Three Peat
In 2011, jockey Craig Williams was on track to complete a treble that had never been achieved in Australian racing in the same calendar year.
He rode Southern Speed to win the Caulfield Cup and caused an upset when steering Pinker Pinker to victory in the Cox Plate during the spring and was set to ride Dunaden in the Melbourne Cup to complete the unlikely treble.
Williams was suspended on a careless riding charge in the Bendigo Cup and therefore could not ride on the first Tuesday in November at Flemington.
What Would Have Been
This one isn’t hard to imagine because Christophe Lemaire took the ride on Dunaden and of course saluted in our biggest race.
A once in a lifetime opportunity was shattered for Williams but he did partner the French galloper a year later to win the Caulfield Cup.
Notorious For The Right Reasons
A brash and enigmatic Irishman by the name of Conor McGregor took the sport of MMA, and brand of the UFC, to a level it never thought possible.
His rise through the featherweight division was quick and devastating, building a hype that was unrivalled and unparalleled before and since.
A title fight with one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time, Jose Aldo, was where his star would really shine and with one perfectly timed counter left hook, he knocked his opponent out cold in just 13 seconds.
His level of fame and fortune went to a whole other level after that, and although unprecedented, it was hard to deny him an immediate shot at the lightweight title considering his popularity, despite never defending the belt at featherweight.
He became the first UFC fighter to hold two belts simultaneously when he beat Eddie Alverez at lightweight, became one of the richest sportspeople in the world when he entered a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather, and then went off the rails due to his fame, fortune and bad habits.
What Would Have Been?
If McGregor doesn’t land that absolutely perfect shot on Jose Aldo it’s my opinion the fight goes five rounds and Aldo wins the decision.
I’m not suggesting it was a lucky punch but there are hundreds of shots like that that simply fail to separate a fighter from their consciousness like that.
Making featherweight was depleting for McGregor and he would have likely moved up a division and be forced to work through the rankings.
His two fights with Nate Diaz would have welcomed him to the division, a decision win over Rafael dos Anjos and then instead of a hiatus away from the sport to box, an eventual title fight against Eddie Alverez or Dustin Poirier in 2017/18 would have been on the cards.
This alternate universe is a very different one for Conor McGregor not only because it slowed down his rise to the very top of the sport, but the level of fame would have been more subdued which would have kept him focused on what mattered most which was MMA.
At his core, McGregor was an extremely focused, disciplined and talented athlete but his legacy has been tarnished with incidents away from the octagon which means he has just three wins since his knockout win against Aldo in 2015.
One slight adjustment to his career path and he may still be fighting and winning in 2025.
An Unclipped Pigeon Retains The Ashes Again
Heading into the 2005 Ashes series in England, Australia had dominated their biggest rival for the best part of two decades.
They were the top ranked team in the world and after a 239 run win at Lords in the first Test Match another series win was all but assured.
Just an hour before the first was to be bowled in the second test came our sliding doors moment.
While throwing a footy around during the warm ups, Australia’s greatest ever fast bowler Glen McGrath rolled his ankle standing on a stray cricket ball which hampered him throughout the entire series.
Oh and Ricky Ponting won the toss and decided to bowl.
England would win one of the greatest Test Match Series ever played and gain an enormous amount of confidence throughout the coming years to rejuvenate English cricket and the Ashes.
What Would Have Been
In such a tight series it’s really tough to predict Australia losing with a fully fit and firing Glen McGrath to partner Shane Warne who was dominant in taking 40 wickets.
Pigeon had taken nine wickets in the first test and was player of the match so when he was ruled out of the crucial second test it was a massive blow.
Australia would have won the series but in terms of an alternate universe in the future I’m not so sure.
The retirements of Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden was always going to spell a period of rebuilding for the Aussies.
The English cricket team of that time was on a different trajectory considering a young Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pieterson and James Anderson were all a part of that 2005 Ashes team.
The Bear That Would Have Been Just Right
The Memphis Grizzlies have never won an NBA championship and in the early 2000s it was certainly not looking likely.
In 2003 after a horrendous season they were given a 6.4% chance at winning the most valuable asset in sports.
The number 1 draft pick in a year that Lebron James was available.
A previous trade meant that their first round pick was going to the Detroit Pistons unless that pick was number 1.
Number 6 went to the Clippers (Chris Kaman), 5 to Miami (Dwayne Wade), 4 to Toronto (Chris Bosh), 3 to Denver (Carmelo Anthony) and then the Grizzlies were a 50/50 chance to land arguably the greatest prospect in NBA history.
It wasn’t to be as Lebron landed in Cleveland and went on to break the all time scoring record in the NBA.
Because of their previous deal with the Pistons (who took Darko Milicic), Memphis ended up with nothing.
Any of those picks in the top six would have been handy!
What Would Have Been
Memphis made the playoffs for the first time in their short history the very next season after missing out on Lebron James in the draft.
A young Pau Gasol was injected into the side from Barcelona in 2001 and made the All-Star team by 2006.
It’s safe to say he would have made a formidable partnership with James and stayed in Memphis longer than he did.
They would have likely needed a couple more pieces to the puzzle but it’s not hard to envision them winning an NBA championship in this sliding doors moment.
Tottenham Take The High Road
In 2003 Roman Abramovich was one of the wealthiest men in the entire world and wanted to buy a football team.
He met with Tottenham owner Daniel Levy to talk about owning a majority stake in the north London club.
After a tour and/or flight over Tottenham’s High Road Abramovich was reported as commenting that it looked “worse than Omsk’.
Levy would only offer him a minority share in Spurs so he bought Chelsea instead.
Since he took the helm, Chelsea has won the Premier League three times, Champions League, Europa League and many domestic Cups.
What Would Have Been
Tottenham broke through to win the Europa League in 2025, ending a trophyless era that spanned all the way back to 2009.
The arrival of Roman Abramovich to Spurs in 2003 would have made them the richest club in world football and it would have made an immediate impact.
Considering the spending spree he had upon purchasing Chelsea, reportedly 120 million euros in the first year, buying players such as Joe Cole, Damien Duff and Claude Makelele.
The Spurs squad during this period wasn’t anything to write home about, and they wouldn’t have had the immediate success that Chelsea did but, during the next decade, with the likes of Gareth Bale, Harry Kane and Luka Modric in the squad it wouldn’t have been too long.
It’s important to note that the players that came into the Spurs squad, like Bale and Modric, would have more reason to stay with the endless amount of cash available to the team because of such a high profile owner that was willing to spend the cash.
Winning the league, Champions League success and domestic cups would have filled their trophy cabinet for the 20+ years it has been since Abramovich turned his nose up at the beautiful north London area.
They wouldn’t have had as many managers either if someone took the reins off Daniel Levy.