Well, there was that whole NFL career thing getting in the way of him playing professional lacrosse (assuming there even was professional lacrosse then).
I don’t know what his reason is, but here would be my reasons:
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The fact that it’s 1v1 means you can’t lean on any superior teammates. If you look at other games and sports, you will notice the best players shine in 1v1 settings because their results wont be distorted by others. Not to get nerdy here but you if you looked at 1v1, 2v2, and 5v5 Starcraft players, you can see that the smaller the team, the higher the APM (actions per minute)
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In MMA, you don’t have the breaks to stop and breath like you do in football. Championship matches are 5 rounds of 5 minutes. Fighting or wrestling for 5 minutes is a LOT harder than running on a track or on a soccer field for 5 minutes.
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In MMA or something like that, you have to control your weight. You will be paired up against someone of equal size the focus will be on skill and fitness, not on sheer size.
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The punishment for losing in a game of basketball or football is just that…a loss. If you are “losing” in MMA, you are getting choked out, kicked, punched in the face, or someone is threatening one of your joints.
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MMA is a combination of 4 martials arts at the same time. This isn’t 1993 UFC #1 anymore. A modern day MMA fighter needs To be good at BJJ, traditional wrestling, boxing, and Muy Thai, you need to be competent at all 4 or you will be soon exposed. This creates a complexity that few other sports have (think of a Triathalon).
I wrestled throughout high school in California. Was a middle of the road varsity wrestler. I wrestled in a Maryland DIII program in college my freshman year, but didnt really make the magic happen as I was underweight and totally out of my league.
Afterwards, I trained BJJ casually for 11 years (5 of which were true training years) in places from Northern VA up to NJ. Probably have about…2000 hours on the mat? I was never good enough to do a national tournament, but you’d see me place at local tournaments.
That’s exactly what I would expect from a hockey player.
Are we talking about the sport or the athletes? If the question is which sport relies on the highest degree of excellence on an individual level, then yes, MMA > football. If we are talking about which sport organization pushes the limits of human potential for an athletic function, it would probably be NFL, due to the broad selection process and countless millions of dollars invested in winning teams.
As far s the breaks thing that keeps coming up, no huddle up tempo offenses have pretty much done away with that. You’re going all out for about 10-20 minutes at a time in many cases.
I boxed for three years, I was in the best shape of my life because of the threat of injury in a fight. But at the same time, my brothers were equally fanatic about condidtioning while in football. You really can’t lean on your teammates without them noticing, and the drive to win in any athlete is the drive to win. Nobody is successfull at the professional level in any sport by leaning on teammates.
yeah I have done half iron triathlons. they are pretty hard but, unlike MMA as you don’t have to think about breaking your teeth or your orbital. if you’re in a UFC fight, when you enter the ring you have to be ready to die. you make your peace with your God and take up humility and step on the mat. If that is not demanding in the essence of itself, I do not know what is. Not only that, but you know you might have a brush with death, leading to increased training technically and in endurance. What do rugby players and NFL players or track runners think when they go on the field? I want to win. Not thinking about brushes with death too much only concerned with injuries. When you’re losing in MMA, the air is being deprived of you, blood being cutoff to your brain, or your right hand just broke and you don’t want the other guy to know. Its almost like the animal world in UFC. You fight till the end… or till that buzzer hits if you last. Anderson Silva actually came back and fought again after this leg break…can you even imagine.
But on the other hand, and perhaps counterintuitively, the high probability of binary events like injuries would reduce the capability of MMA practitioners to perform at their highest capacity. Consider one stochastic process that is innovated by a simple Brownian motion, and a second process that has a jump diffusion component. Now, measure the probability that paths generated by either process can approach but not exceed some limit. (We can visualize exceeding the limit as an injury that removes the athlete from a competition. NFL players can also experience serious injuries, but at a lower rate than do MMA athletes.) More paths from the normal stochastic process will fall close to but not exceed the limit, compared to the process with a jump diffusion component.
Analti, my issue is at the highest echelon of each sport, the competition is often equally competive. you’re comparing running a triathlon to competing to place. These are totally different things. A lot of my friends would spar in college for fun but they never conditioned. That’s a big difference from how I trained for golden gloves. See what I’m saying? To win a triathlon I really think your conditioning and training will be at least on par with someone who wins a fighting tournament.
It’s pretty much the same with all athletes.
In 2001 I was on a horse drive in the Sierra Nevada. Just before noon the first day I got kicked just below the left knee; the horse cut me literally to the bone. (There’s a sheath around a bone called the periosteum; he split that.)
My first question to the surgeon in the Mammoth Lakes hospital emergency room was, “After you’ve stitched me up, can I get back on my horse?” The doctor – silly twit – wanted to see the damage before answering the question.)
In 2012 I tore my right ACL six days before competing in an equestrian world championship in Mafra, Portugal. Six days later I rode almost nonstop for nine hours one minute. A month later I had the ligament replaced with a cadaver graft.
I see what you’re saying.
I agree, the conditioning and training would be at a similar level, so that tests athleticism. But, demanding? I’m gonna have to say UFC is much more demanding. Just my opinion.
I’m surprised no one mentioned crew. A 2 kilometer race typically starts out fast, so athletes go into oxygen debt almost immediately. Then they continue for another 5-6 minutes. I’ve had a low of crew athletes in my classes, and the level of training they do is insane. I was a distance runner in high school and college (freshman and sophomore, and then got injured), and I thought I was in good shape. But these guys put it at a whole other level.
is this supposed to be a unique example of why hockey players are more intense because this is pretty run of the mill from my pov. i don’t know one serious goalie who hasn’t had an artery slashed by a skate blade. some guy reaching in and pinching the neck artery while you’re conscious is pretty nasty though, i’ll give you that. he probably lost 10 pounds that game. hockey goalies ftw.
^Getting bludgeoned and bleeding out doesn’t make you an athlete.
in hockey it does. geez, someone give this guy a hockey skate.
So, I brought up Jarryd Hayne as a potential Rugby (Leage, whatever) crossover to the NFL 49ers to demonstrate the difference between the two. It’s actually turning into a really interesting story for those interested.
Probabaly MMA where you actually get knocked out and choked out, plus you also get broken bones, noses, nasty cuts and bruises. Training is also brutal, no sports compare to it.
He’s certainly making a case for earning a roster spot. Kind of funny that he was tacked by the punter though on the one he nearly broke for a TD.
Haha, yeah I saw that. But all in, it’s really fun to watch and you imagine it must be an amazing experience to shift into a completely different league like th at.
Demanding: Marathon racing
Athletic: NBA