I remember reading a thread a while back that got me thinking.... It said that the best athletes in the world are in "Main Stream" sports. Like foot ball, basket ball, and ummm baseball..... Makes sense being that they have such a large talent pool to choose from..... can you imagine if Jordan dedicated his training to mma.... or Shaq on top of you GnP....... Therefore "Professional Sports Athletes" are the best of the best right?
Then I started to think again...... I remember back in high school days.... Who were the "Bad Asses" on campus..... hmmm wasn't the football players.... not the skinny ass basket ball players...... It was the tennis stars.... J/K haha.... no they were the Wrestlers.... Respected due to their training and self disipline....... Noone wanted to fuck with the wrestlers...... So do you guys think the "Todays MMA Stars" are really the best athletes the world has to offer or are they just the best of the "rejects" of other sports....
Jim Rome would say that 95 percent of the best athlete's on the planet play in the NBA. I agree but not with the percentage, NFL defensive backs and linebackers even some of those D Line guys like Sapp. Big Strong and can move very quickly, not to mention the time and effort that those player's devote to staying in the League. Those Athlete's channeling all that in MMA is like YIIIKs IMO. They are not wrestlers, but they can tackle Goldberg style. Cool thread but brother you gotta change that screen name.
I will pose a question first. If you were to set up a decathalon of sorts, with 10 events, and selected 5 athletes from each sport to compose a team representing each sport, which team of athletes do you think would win this decathalon?
Another variation. If you suited up a team of athletes representing each major sport, and had them compete for an overall championship based upon the results of competition from each sport (i.e. a game in basketball, a game of baseball, a game of football, etc., which group of athletes do you think would win the overall title?
Sometimes they have those obstacle course made-for-TV athlete challenge shows. Bode Miller, the skier who drinks too much, won once. Jason Seehorn, former CB for the NY Giants, has also won in the past.
Personally, I would say NFL defensive backs are the best athletes on the planet. They have to be fast, react to a WR who knows the play when they don't, strong enough to tackle guys bigger than them and able to jump high enough to break up a pass to a WR who is usually taller than them. I am biased, because I was a shoddy DB in high school.
the problem with those "cross competition" events is that there are different athletic attributes that are important in different sports. mark hunts chin is a tremendous edge in fighting, but wuldn't really help him in any other sport.
I would say DBs are the best athletes in the world in a running/jumping sense. They pull off just as much as other athletes and do it in full pads. But I'd never trained with someone who was both head and shoulders faster and stronger than me (in an MMA sense, I'm sure I could beat him in the 100m but not when it comes to shooting) until we got a wrestler in the gym.
Perhaps I should of rephrased the question..... There is no doubt that professional athletes are the best at what they do.... Each sport is a "competition" The ultimate sport has to be MMA... Hand to hand combat is the best way to determine "survival of the fittest" utilizing Strenth, Speed, Stamina, and Skill..... In caveman times being able to catch a ball and run would do you no good except if you were stealing dinosaur eggs...... but anyways..... It would be interesting to see the level of competition coming to MMA as it becomes more "mainstream" and more people are willing to dedicate towards the intense training involved..... first the money has to be there......
Bob Sapp ko'd Ernesto Hoost twice in K1 and almost murdered Big Nog in MMA with very little fight training. End of thread... Just kidding
Quick twitch muscle fibers are the key to explosiveness and football players have a high concentration those.
DB Jason Seahorn won that jeep superstars competition several times against world class athetes and it wasn't even close. Bode Miller has won it, and Gold Medal Olympic sking mogels champion was always the next closest athlete to Jason Seahorn. Jeremy Bloom is going straight from Olympic mogels to the NFL. Skiers and football players have one thing in common. Quick twitch muscle fibers.
Going back to high school... I have never seen a star football player who wasn't good at every sport they tried.
In the end though, you really can't say. Football players are football players and fighters are fighters. Each has years experience at there chosen profession.
I don't know, but faster than a lot of folks. This was mainly a case by case basis, my point was that in a grappling/MMA type speed he is faster than me, but in a football/basketball type speed I'm pretty confident that I'm faster than him. It all depends on the type of speed that you mean when you're talking about athleticism.
My overall point is that when it comes to running and jumping and lifting weights, you aren't going to do much better than a good defensive back. When it comes to that 1-2 step explosive speed and pushing/pulling another human type strength, I think wrestlers are probably tops, at least in my limited experience with football players and wrestlers.
You know who's a dark horse though? Soccer players. Those dudes are very athletic and put up surprisingly good numbers in the weigh room, again just based on my personal experience.
What do people do to solve things all through history... they fight. the best athlete will be strong agile and have endurance. nothing tests everything like a fight does. Have all the athletes fight rather then throw a ball around.
It depends on your definition of best athlete. I was a state champion sprinter in HS, and first dunked when I was 14 (about 6'0 tall) - Yet, I don't think at any point in my life have I been able to do more than say.. 30 push ups at once, am fairly uncoordinated at dribbling, have poor stamina/lungs, terrible at any kind of weight lifting, etc.
Who is to say that Shaq would make a good football/MMA guy just because he was a dominant basketball player. Same with Jordan, etc.
"The battle of sports superstars", which people are making reference to Jason Sehoern winning, was also won by Shawn Palmer. He toasted everyone in it, including Sehorn, beat him in a foot race also. If I were to say the best all around athlete was a man who was mostly known for his snowboarding, most people would laugh. Point is you cant tell who is the most athletic just from the sports they play. Stratergy plays a huge part in any team sport, and some people can't work with others correctly. Guy could have a mllion dollar body and a ten cent head.