Today, we all tip our caps to the long-running, and much-respected magazine, Sports Illustrated, as they celebrate the 59th anniversary of their very first issue. Since we haven't been around for quite that long, though, we decided that it might be fun to take a look in the SI Vault and flip through their archives to see what's good. Or rather, to see what's badass.Â
In all the years that SI has been around, they've burned some images into our minds that are absolutely iconic for the sporting world. The covers for events like the announcement of Jordan's return to basketball, this year's bombing at the Boston Marathon, and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa winning "Sportsmen of the Year" will always serve as visual bookmarks for the sporting public, taking us right back to those moments in time, as they happened.
But what about the covers that are just plain badass? What about those pictures that show off guys like Hulk Hogan, George Foreman, or Allen Iverson being the absolute craziest, hardest or most intimidating figures in their respective sports? To give these images their due, we put together a list of the 25 Most Badass Sport Illustrated Covers of All Time. Ranging from the awe-inspiring to the terrifying, these are the covers that you definitely won't want to (or, in some cases, be able to) forget any time soon.
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