As a parent, your goal is to provide the best opportunities in life for your children. Whether that opportunity is through education or sport. Parents, like most individuals, have their trials and tribulations throughout parenthood. To have a child succeed as a student or an athlete is a testament to the lessons provided to them at home. Parents sacrifice food, social life, mental stability, and financial freedom to help improve the lives of their children. At times, the sacrifices seem incomprehensible. Siblings of athletes tend to be the ones that continue to have successful careers. Perhaps caused by “The Little Sibling Effect”, or maybe it’s simply genes. However, more often than not only one of the siblings excels at the highest level.
In hockey, Wayne Gretzky is arguably the greatest to ever lace on a pair of skates. With nearly 2,000 NHL points, his record for most points has been untouched since his retirement in 1999. His brothers Brent and Keith combined for a total of 4 NHL points in their careers. In soccer, Toni Kroos is one of the greatest midfielders in the sport today. The World Cup winner has also won several Champions Leagues throughout his career. His brother Felix on the other hand has yet to make a first-team appearance for the German national team and has spent most of his career in the 2nd and 3rd division.
Very rarely do we see success for siblings at the highest of levels. In basketball, Spain’s Pau and Marc Gasol have both won Olympic medals and NBA Championships. In tennis, the Williams’ sisters have dominated the sport for the better part of two decades. In boxing, the Klitschko brothers ruled over the heavyweight division for nearly a decade between 2006 and 2015.
Although this feat has been done in other sports, it rarely happens in MMA. In mixed martial arts, the highest level of competition is within the UFC. The likelihood of athletes reaching the organization is very slim. To have two siblings achieve the feat is almost impossible. Over the next month, we will look at some of the siblings that have walked through the octagon doors. We will look at whether they have found an equal amount of success or if one sibling did the majority of the lifting.
