Raymond van Barneveld
Peter Wright
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Raymond van Barneveld leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Raymond van Barneveld at #4 and Peter Wright at #10.
The case for Raymond van Barneveld
The man who turned darts into a mainstream sport in a country that had barely played it. A former postman from The Hague, Van Barneveld won four BDO world titles in 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2005, crossed to the PDC in 2006, and won the 2007 world final against Phil Taylor 7-6 in a sudden-death leg at the Circus Tavern — a match still routinely voted the greatest ever played, in which he came from 3-0 down in sets. Five world titles from six finals puts him level with Bristow and behind only Taylor among men. He added the 2012 Grand Slam of Darts and the 2014 Premier League among more than ten televised majors. His real legacy is national: Dutch television audiences for his matches ran into the millions, participation exploded, and the pipeline he opened produced Michael van Gerwen, Jelle Klaasen, Danny Noppert and a generation for whom being a professional darts player was a plausible ambition.
The case for Peter Wright
The sport's most visually extravagant champion and the outstanding example of late-career transformation. Snakebite spent two decades as a journeyman, dropped off the circuit entirely to work outside the game, and returned in his forties with dyed mohican, painted snake and a wardrobe designed by his wife. He lost the 2014 world final to Michael van Gerwen, then won the title in 2020 at 49 by beating van Gerwen 7-3, and again in 2022 against Michael Smith. Three world finals, two titles, plus the 2019 World Matchplay and the 2017 UK Open among more than eight televised majors, and a spell at world number one. He is also the sport's most restless technician, changing darts, stems and flights mid-match and carrying dozens of setups to every event — the opposite of the received wisdom that a professional should find one dart and never change it.