MMA has had quite a few Olympians join their ranks. And the olympics are supposed to be the best of the best.
Hell GSP was asked to join the canadian olympic wrestling team with NO formal wrestling background. Thats and athlete. Brock walked onto a pro NFL toofball team with no credentials as well.<br type="_moz" />
Actually GSP worked out with the Canadian Olympic team, but he approached them, not the other way around. And as he himself said, he'd need to spend a year or two just dedicated to wrestling to have any shot at making the team ... if you google you can find his interviews.
The best athletes in the world are those playing the dominant sport or sports in their countries. In the US that's basketball and football, in Canada hockey, in most of the world soccer - not sure what it is in China and India. The most co-ordinated, quickest learning, best balanced, most explosive, most mentally solid athletes quickly gravitate to the most prestigious sports in their country. There are exceptions, but its pretty rare.
There's no one sport which has all the best athletes in the world, because there's no one dominant sport. Guys from Europe playing in the NBA are there because as kids they weren't the best soccer players. Guys from the US playing in the Premier league in England soccer are there because as kids they weren't the best basketball or hockey players.
Other sports can't be compared to combat sports.It is the ultimate competition. What other sports can you finish the game early by brutally knocking your opponent out? What other individual sport employs tactics to deliberatley slow you down by hurting as much as possible like leg kicks , body shots etc. There is no equivalent to getting hit and the threat of getting hit sapping your energy in non combat sports. Certainly not in team games where if you are tired your coach can pull you out. In the ring/octagon you are on your own. Comparing combat sports to non combat sports, especially team sports is idiotic.
NFL players are the gold standard athlete in America but you could not find any pro athletes with worse stamina/endurance. These are players that spend most of the game resting and still need oxygen after making a long run. Rodney Harrison from the Patriots said he could not do one round of boxing pads. The average person in the gym has much better stamina.
The top 50 athletes in the NFL are better than any athlete competing in MMA today with maybe GSP being an exception.
Anyone who actually believes that MMA (today) has the best athletes must be smoking crack.
Now - the evolution of the sport is when every guy looks like and can perform like a GSP (athletically) and then technique will be far more important than athleticism. Today - half the guys win the fights because they are more athletic...
everybody here has a different POV on this, as they should, being that the idea of athleticism is very subjective. From your responses, I have to ask, are you even a fan of MMA?
No, he's not. He says he's a fan of MMA but not of the UFC, but every thread that he comes into, he bashes MMA and not just the UFC. He's a boxing lover whose unable to have love for other combat sports, hence why he hates on wrestling on here too
EX. GSP is known for being one of the best athletes in mma, and to be honest, looks like he sucks at sports.
Take other guys, Leben, Hazelette, Bocek, mckenzie, the list goes on and on... I assume horrendous athletes but suceed at the higest levels of mma. Leben is a great example, not much skills on the dude, but all heart and chin.
People laugh at baseball as being an athletic sport, but its widely known the hardest thing in sports to do is hit a 100mph hardball. It is a great sport for the combo of hand-eye and also a wide variety of other athletic abilities.. running, throwing.. etc.
It's hard to say which is best, but I find that the best all around athletes come from baseball, basketball, and football. eg. Bo jackson and Deon Sanders.
bhealthy - reality = most MMA players look like the hoff tryin to eat a hamburger when they try to play other sports
Reality=almost every pro athlete whose never competed or trained in MMA would gas out in 30 seconds if they were in a fight. and most would never be able to compete at a high level even with training.
everybody here has a different POV on this, as they should, being that the idea of athleticism is very subjective. From your responses, I have to ask, are you even a fan of MMA?
No, he's not. He says he's a fan of MMA but not of the UFC, but every thread that he comes into, he bashes MMA and not just the UFC. He's a boxing lover whose unable to have love for other combat sports, hence why he hates on wrestling on here too
When have I hated on wrestling? The MMA comments are just for fun.
lol. I've been a fan of MMA since it was NHB.
Stupid noob.
Any of your posts I've ever seen involving any sort of ground work= comments about it being gay
and yes, I'm the stupid noob. Good call. At least I'm not one of the most disliked people on here, and referred to as "jizzpack"
bhealthy - reality = most MMA players look like the hoff tryin to eat a hamburger when they try to play other sports
Reality=almost every pro athlete whose never competed or trained in MMA would gas out in 30 seconds if they were in a fight. and most would never be able to compete at a high level even with training.
no pro athlete is going to gas in 30 seconds. even a women's pro basketball player doing nonstop takedowns would last longer than that.
there are some drills that might have some athletes gassed in 3 minutes, but during an actual mma match even an nfl Offensive lineman is going to beat the 30 sec mark.. and might score the KO with a jab
bhealthy - no pro athlete is going to gas in 30 seconds. even a women's pro basketball player doing nonstop takedowns would last longer than that.
there are some drills that might have some athletes gassed in 3 minutes, but during an actual mma match even an nfl Offensive lineman is going to beat the 30 sec mark.. and might score the KO with a jab
were your other 10k posts as troll heavy as this one?
everybody here has a different POV on this, as they should, being that the idea of athleticism is very subjective. From your responses, I have to ask, are you even a fan of MMA?
No, he's not. He says he's a fan of MMA but not of the UFC, but every thread that he comes into, he bashes MMA and not just the UFC. He's a boxing lover whose unable to have love for other combat sports, hence why he hates on wrestling on here too
When have I hated on wrestling? The MMA comments are just for fun.
lol. I've been a fan of MMA since it was NHB.
Stupid noob.
Any of your posts I've ever seen involving any sort of ground work= comments about it being gay
and yes, I'm the stupid noob. Good call. At least I'm not one of the most disliked people on here, and referred to as "jizzpack"
Yes uneducated fanboys opinions of me really matter.
You do understand counter trolling dont you? of course you dont.
I wrestled and did BJJ.
And yes when people say stupid shit about striking they will get dry humping comments right back.
Except you make comments about people humping each other without the subject of striking ever coming up...and you always post stuff like "Boxing is dead- The UG", in threads where no one has done anything but say complimentary stuff about boxers or boxing. You bring on the trolling, it would be counter trolling if you were actually responding to something
Where are all of these comments coming from about how horrible mixed martial artists would be at other sports? Are there tapes out there of them trying to compete in football, basketball, etc.?? How the hell do you think a guy in the NBA, NFL, or MLB would look trying to perform some sort of kicking, punching, trip takedown combination as a guy like Machida does it? This shit is ridiculous. And baseball players being top athletes because they can hit a 100mph fastball? Give me a break! How do you think a guy like Jim Thome would look on a basketball court?
I don't think most people here are trying to say they are the best athletes in the world, but to act as if they are all uncoordinated nerds who could not even play at a high level in high school or college athletics is ridiculous.
bhealthy - reality = most MMA players look like the hoff tryin to eat a hamburger when they try to play other sports
Reality=almost every pro athlete whose never competed or trained in MMA would gas out in 30 seconds if they were in a fight. and most would never be able to compete at a high level even with training.
This is a stupid question because the guy in MMA usually just picked a sport not thinking about how much money he was going to make at the end. Most MMA fighters usually took an MA up because they were interested, not for money.... money comes along after you have develops a level of skill where you think you can make money from it. I don’t think there are any sports people that wake up one morning and say hey I want to be the next Pele... I think they are usually having a kick about with there mates and then decide to get serious over time. So the best athlete is the one who is best at there sport... so in that case I pick Fedor!!!
Truemanc3 - This is a stupid question because the guy in MMA usually just picked a sport not thinking about how much money he was going to make at the end. Most MMA fighters usually took an MA up because they were interested, not for money.... money comes along after you have develops a level of skill where you think you can make money from it. I don’t think there are any sports people that wake up one morning and say hey I want to be the next Pele... I think they are usually having a kick about with there mates and then decide to get serious over time. So the best athlete is the one who is best at there sport... so in that case I pick Fedor!!!
Most great athletes start playing their sport as kids, and most kids want to play the dominant sport in their country - their heroes are the stars of that sport, all their friends want to play that sport, their dad wants them to play that sport ... well, you get the idea.
Anyone who's athletic enough to be good at that sport will be playing it. There are exceptions, but they're uncommon. In come countries like the US there are more than one main sport (football, basketball and baseball), but in most countries there's just one 'big' sport.
yea im Canadian, so you think hockey would be the sport I would be into most. Although I have played hockey in leauges( 3 years) The sports I got into most were baseball(my whole life) and basketball( at age 12)