Yeah but we already established that rugby players suck. So I need a better one.
ohh lol ok
so your hypothesized answer to this thread is: NFL>UFC>rugby or at least NFL>UFC
Realistically, at the start of this thread I said that I think there’s a similar level of difficulty and dedication to reach the top of most sports. But heirarchies do exist. Within the outdoor sports for instance, kayakers are probably one of the lesser conditioned. They tend to focus a little more on technique and are more laid back about their lifestyle. You’ll never catch most great kayakers in the gym. At the same time, pro rock climbers are insanely fit as are pro ultra marathoners. I mean these guys are capable of 200+ miles non-stop in some cases.
I think there are combat sport athletes that are absolutely on the same level as NFL pros, no question. To say they’re more conditioned than the NFL is hard. You have guys making $6M a year to run the ball for a reason. On the whole, I think the amount of talent that is pipelined into the NFL and the amount of investment in conditioning are such that if the US turned that emphasis towards soccer we would be a top contender at the least. Particularly given the size of our popuation base.
But like I said, hierarchies exist, and within competitive sports I think it would go NFL and potentially Soccer and basketball > Rugby (due to a lower monetary and popuation base) and baseball (since baseball is more of a skill sport and less about conditioning)
Pokhim keeps talking about toughness, which really shouldn’t even be part of the conversation, but just to keep perspective - hockey players are the toughest of the bunch. Oh what’s that, you broke your leg? That’s cute. Now go back out there and score the winning goal.
You think a scrum is rough? Try throwing yourself - open-faced - in front of a slapshot from the point. And, let’s not forget, they actually bare knuckle fight in hockey. No other team sport comes close.
My point is that Jim Brown, one of the greatest football players of all time, was also fairly accomplished in a sport that requires some different aspects of althleticism. I didn’t say Jim Brown would be an elite soccer player, but lacrosse is far more similar to soccer than it is to football WRT how players move and the level of endurance required.
How do you make the jump from Jim Brown to “any 3’rd (sic) rate NFL player” though?
I can’t stop rewatching that first youtube video I posted. Some of those hits are freaking bone crushing. It makes me physically wince.
I plalyed ice hockey through varsity and into college. I used to argue that the hits were harder in hockey because of the speeds involved. Some of them absolutely are crushing. I’ve been blown up by a few open ice hits and I can still recall the shock of them. I also knocked a guy out cold once with a cheap hit into the full board divider after he slashed me one to many times (people came off the bench). I had recieved an identical hit to that in my first varsity game (sans concussion) that I still remember. The speed that everything happens in the sport feels like you’re lierally living in fast forward, between the pucks and the fact that everyone is moving at incredible rates in a confined arena on skates.
That being said, with two brothers that played college football under scholarships as a linebacker and a tailback, I just think you take more abuse in football. The hits are bigger and more regular and the strain to the joints is a factor as well. My younger brother who played tailback broke his fingers in multiple places from people hitting him helmet first to try to dislodge the ball, but never realized it until after the season when they’d healed and his hand was xrayed to examine some pain he was having. Then again in middle school he’s the same guy who broke his thumb playing goalie in a soccer game and finished the game in goal before going to the ER.
But that doesn’t detract from the athleticism of hockey. It’s a great game, and an even greater game to play.
I’m going with track. Anyone who runs knows how absurd things like 3;43 miles, 12;36 5ks, and 2 hr marathons are. These things were literally deemed physiologically impossible not all too long ago. The average joe on the street won’t even come close to running a 7 min mile, 25 min 5k, or 4 hr marathon (aka DOUBLE the records). Obviously the counter to this is that running is only a small sliver of what’s encompassed by “athleticism”, but it’s still impressive enough that I’ll stick with it. Most mainstream sports are some combination of athleticism and “skills” anyway. Hitting a baseball, shooting a 3, catching a football, and shooting a soccer ball for example are all skills imo, not shows of athleticism. A horrendous athlete can do all those things with practice.
I also think people underestimate the mental toughness required to achieve those things.
I never understood rugby.
The referee stops play. The teams line up, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, like they’re about to do the Can-Can. They butt heads for a few seconds, then collapse in a huge pile on the field.
Then, a little guy jumps up out of the pile holding the ball and starts running with it.
Makes zero sense to me. (But I’m sure a lot of people say that about NFL football, too.)
With all due respect, an (arbitrary) horrendous athlete cannot hit a 90 MPH slider merely _ with practice _.
I played baseball from age 8 through high school. (I started university at 16, so I wasn’t remotely able to play there, especially as my alma mater was a perennial contender in the College World Series.) Years later I was playing on my company’s softball team in the city league. One of our players, Bill Black, worked in the machine shop and was a certified stud, and an incredible athlete. I, on the other hand, have very little upper body strength. In our first game, in his first at bat, he hit a line drive between the left and left-center fielders (four outfielders): an easy home run. When I came to bat, I hit a fly over the left fielder’s head; he sprinted back for it, but couldn’t reach it: another easy home run.
When I came into the dugout, Bill said, “You know, you are allowed to hit it between the outfielders! You don’t have to hit it _ over their heads _.”
The point is that I hadn’t nearly the strength that Bill had, but I had (long ago) developed the skill of hitting a baseball long and hard. I suspect that that’s more innate skill than learned technique.
^very true, it is insane the level that track sprinters are on.
^ Even the most accomplished hitters in MLB can’t hit a well thrown slider.
Damn near ruined Pedro Cerrano’s career.
WWE wrestlers…
^Now which athletes have the best abs? That’s the real question?
Becoming POTUS is a pretty good recovery.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWatxWBnKVw]
During a game on March 22, 1989, between the visiting St. Louis Blues and Malarchuk’s Buffalo Sabres, Steve Tuttle of the Blues and Uwe Krupp of the Sabres became entangled while chasing the puck and crashed hard into the Buffalo goal, taking Malarchuk down with them. As Tuttle and Krupp came down on him, Tuttle’s skate blade hit Malarchuk’s neck and severed his carotid artery.[2]
With blood spurting from Malarchuk’s throat onto the ice, he was able to leave the ice on his own feet with the assistance of his team’s athletic trainer, Jim Pizzutelli.[3] Many spectators were physically sickened by the sight.[4] There were reports that eleven fans fainted, two more suffered heart attacks and three players vomited on the ice.[5][6] Local television cameras covering the game cut away from the sight of Malarchuk bleeding after noticing what had happened, and Sabres announcers Ted Darling and Mike Robitaille were audibly shaken. At the production room of the national cable sports highlight show, a producer scrolled his tape back to show the event to two other producers, who both started screaming.[7]
Malarchuk, meanwhile, believed he was going to die. “All I wanted to do was get off the ice”, said Malarchuk. "My mother was watching the game on TV, and I didn’t want her to see me die."[8] Aware that his mother had been watching the game on TV, he had an equipment manager call and tell her he loved her. Then he asked for a priest.[9]
Malarchuk’s life was saved due to quick action by the team’s athletic trainer, Jim Pizzutelli, a former Army medic who served in Vietnam. He reached into Malarchuk’s neck and pinched off the blood vessel, not letting go until doctors arrived to begin stabilizing the wound. The team doctor then applied extreme pressure by kneeling on his collarbone—a procedure designed to produce a low breathing rate and low metabolic state, which is preferable to exsanguination. Previous reports have suggested doctors worked for hours to save Malarchuk’s life, however this is an overestimate. He was conscious and talking on the way to the hospital. (He asked paramedics if they could bring him back in time for the third period [1]). The game resumed when league personnel received word that the player was in stable condition.
Malarchuk lost 1.5 liters of blood.[2] It took doctors a total of 300 stitches to close the wound.[9][10]
Okay, fair enough. It doesn’t alter the broader argument much with the key word being ‘fairly accomplished’ especially when it is clear that the level of the pro’s is significantly higher than college level.The second part was general and '“3’rd rate” was added for emphasis.
It is simple, you cannot build a liner relation and expect it to be valid in this case. Breaking it down into simpler terms and comparing soccer players (only forwards or attackers) itself assume you say the dependent variable is number of goals scored and independents are speed,acceleration and strength like before. Now compare the Welshman Gareth Bale, Argentine Leo Messi and Portugese Chrisitano Ronaldo. Gareth Bale trumps the other two - he is taller, faster, stronger, comes from a wealthier background with access to more robust training facilites yet the numbers are as follows :
Bale - 75 in 244
Messi - 297 in 347
Ronaldo - 312 in 421
He completely overshadowed by the other two even after accounting for him being younger with lesser games played. This is why if you make an assertion that if NFL athletes turn their attention to soccer they will dominate you will generally be met with howls of laughter from a soccer fan. [I’d make a bet you can interchange soccer with rugby here]
Could the USA actually turn it around? Of course - if anyone really puts 100% they are in with a chance but it is telling that despite a massive influx of latinos for whom soccer is a staple of life, increasing revenues and the MLS going from strength to strength the USSF has been completed overshadowed by the Japanese Football Federation who’se local league was est. around the same time and hosted a world cup 8 years later but whose players have graced Europe’s finest (Nakata, Honda, Kagawa etc). The USSF management is in good hands - Sunil Gulati and Jurgen Klinsmann are talented men but as long as people hold on to the old ways their hands are tied.
EDIT 1 : Please do not point out the woman’s game. It reflects a lack of understanding. ( Not addressed at you Higgimond)
EDIT 2 : Population size has no correlation viz-a-viz how succesful a nation is for soccer.
