Nicknamed "God", Ablett is widely regarded as one of Australian football's greatest players,[3] and was especially renowned for his high-flying spectacular marks and his prolific goalkicking.

[1] After playing for several country teams in and around his hometown of Drouin, Victoria, Ablett was recruited by Hawthorn and made his Victorian Football League (VFL) debut in 1982.

[4] At the beginning of the 1991 season, Ablett shocked the football world by abruptly announcing his retirement from the game, but he made a comeback midway through the year.

He returned to Hawthorn in 1982 and made his senior VFL debut versus Geelong in Round 2, kicking 1 goal and helping the Hawks defeat the Cats by 19 points.

Ablett claimed difficulty coping with city life in Melbourne and his continual absenteeism from training sessions forced Hawthorn coach, Allan Jeans into parting ways with the talented, but wayward young half forward.

[2] He played 15 games and kicked 33 goals in the 1984 season, and was awarded the Carji Greeves Medal as the Geelong Football Club's "best and fairest" player of the year.

[2] Although Ablett had developed a reputation for his laconic, lazy attitude to training under coach John Devine, this did not prevent him from earning top three placings in the best and fairest awards from 1985 to 1987.

After a "cooling-off" period, however, Ablett opted to remain with Geelong by agreeing to a lucrative five-year contract that tied him to the club for the long-term.

Although he missed out on State honours and failed to place within the top three in the club best and fairest award, Ablett finished with 82 goals during the season for the second time in his career.

[7] Against the reigning premiers Hawthorn in the 1989 VFL Grand Final, Ablett asserted himself from the opening bounce, leading out from full forward, marking the first centre clearance kick and slotting through the game's first goal.

However, the Cats fell short, and Hawthorn held on to defeat Geelong in one of the toughest grand finals of the modern era, winning by 6 points.

On 1 February 1991, Ablett, aged 29, stunned most football fans when he announced his retirement, citing personal reasons and a loss of enjoyment for the game.

A consistent first half of the year helped the Cats achieve an 11–3 record, eventually earning them a spot in the grand final—this time against the West Coast Eagles.

Before the 1993 season, Ablett was encouraged by his coach, Malcolm Blight, to move from his customary roaming half-forward position to full-forward, in an effort to prolong his career.

The move up forward proved to be a master-stroke, with Ablett thriving in his goal-kicking role, reaching the 50-goal mark in just six games, equalling the sixty-year record of South Melbourne legend Bob Pratt.

Although the Cats did not make the Finals, Ablett's new-found dominance up forward was highlighted during the season with his bags of ten or more goals on five occasions, including a 14-goal performance against Essendon in Round 6.

In 1996, Ablett joined Gordon Coventry, Doug Wade, Jason Dunstall, and Tony Lockett as the only players in league history to kick 1000 VFL/AFL goals.

According to Flanagan, Wills and Ablett polarised opinion in similar ways, and displayed a lack of insight into their actions—they simply did what came naturally to them, "like a lot of artists".

[citation needed] In 1996, Ablett was named in the AFL Team of the Century on the interchange bench, alongside Jack Dyer and Greg Williams.

[21] Ablett did not attend the induction ceremony and instead released a statement through his then-manager, Michael Baker:[22] "Due to my current battle with depression I am not in a position to be able to accept this award in person.

[2] In 1986, Ablett became a born-again Christian and has been said to be slightly aggrieved at constantly being referred to as "God" by fans, a nickname based on his supreme football abilities.

[2] Ablett's faith was often highlighted in several tribunal appearances, in one case confessing and pleading guilty to striking Garry Lyon in a 1989 incident, declaring he "wasn't prepared to lie about it or compromise the truth in [his] relationship with God".

[7] Ablett's public acknowledgement of his faith, in particular the influence of God in his life, during his acceptance speech for the Norm Smith Medal in the 1989 Grand Final, was also much publicised.

However, he was reported to have committed suicide on 10 July 2006 by jumping from a Melbourne high-rise apartment block the day before he was due to appear before the Geelong Magistrates court to defend the assault charges.

[24] In December 2007, Ablett hit back at media claims that his son Nathan had walked away from his football career because of the publicity surrounding the release of a new book about his father.

In this video, he declared that the COVID-19 pandemic had been manufactured and released by the Illuminati and Freemasons in order to depopulate Earth, create a cashless society and "put Lucifer on the throne of the world".

In 1990, Ablett was placed on a $10,000 good behaviour bond after he pleaded guilty to repeatedly hitting a man he found sitting in a car with his estranged wife.

[30] In April 2023, Ablett commenced legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of Victoria against the AFL and the Geelong and Hawthorn football clubs claiming breach of duty and negligence over AFL-related brain injuries that he suffered during his playing career.

[31] [32] In 2019, a sharp-eyed "footy history enthusiast" by the name of Stephen Wade noticed a statistical discrepancy while watching a YouTube video of a 1982 game that had been uploaded in 2017.

Wade brought his discovery to the attention of Col Hutchinson, the AFL's statistics and history consultant, who updated the official records.