Posted on 10/16/2009 11:22:30 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Actually, I'll refrain from watering down the spirit of my headline (like a Liberal writer would've) - and turbo-charge it instead:
I'm European and regardless of the fact that American football is an extremely physical game, it still isn't a true contact sport like Australian football or soccer is and compared to soccer, it is often pretty safe. Period.
Which part of the world houses the toughest sport on Earth?
The Far East?
Karate, Kung Fu and such hobbies are widely regarded as "true contact".
But, provided you really wish to injure an opponent, the runway is longer and the ref is more absent in soccer.
My position is this:
The two toughest people on Earth probably are the Japanese and the Scandinavians.
However, an average Japanese weighs something like 36% of an average Viking.
Therefore, no one ought to be impressed if a Japanese karate black belter knocks down another Japanese black smurf.
Instead, what we all should bow down to, IM(humble)O, is someone like this;
A young kid, having the words of "-Get off the field, you're too weak, you don't belong" ringing in his head while trying to fall asleep each evening, before surrendering to dreams of becoming a soccer legend, a kid who remains "tiny", but manages to beat the odds, yet somehow gets signed by a major club (thinking of Celtic F.C.) in one of the nastiest leagues of the game (that of brutish Scotland), gets assaulted from behind suffering an injury (clip below) that, literally, would cripple most men for good but still rises from the dead and among other things, manages to decide a CL final, score more league goals than any other presently active player of today and score THE most appraised goal of the most/second most prestigeous tournament of the sport.
Henrik Larsson isn't the toughest man I know of, but he's by far the toughest sportsman known to me.
Perhaps his accomplishments doesn't settle the initial question, but Larsson still drives a nicer car than those people who once counted him out of the game and the vast majority of people who refuses to acknowledge what a noble game soccer actually is.
Anyhow;
Some years ago, immediately after having explored the excavagations of Pomeji, I, rather deliberately, rested myself on the stairs of a primary school of Naples.
And yes, suddently, I was surrounded by young boys tearing me to pieces with questions of what I was was up to in their "quartiere", where I was from and what I knew about them and their home.
Upon telling them I was from Svezia, Thule, thirty young Napoletane throats began shouting something, in perfect chorus, I first could't make any sense of. But then, the leader of the pack began to, demonstratively, kick a ball that simply wasn't there in front of him and I understood they were all trying to speak Swedish to me in Nnapulitano;
"- LARSSON! LARSSON! LARSSON!"
Skål from Sweden to everyone who believes in self-reliance and dares to embrace challenges in life!
Sooner or later in your life, you’ll confront major obstacles on your planned route to happiness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ry3L1Ou9GM
So, how to respond, in case you happen to love your destined path:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk4rTWSUyxY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCxEkdACBrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk2rV33VPCw
Mixed Martial Arts
Rodeo. Hands down. I’m not even a fan, but those guys are tough.
Water Polo. The object of the game is to keep the other guy’s head under water. If he gets it out of the water, bounce the ball off his head. Accidently.
It isn't always how tough you are. It is how tough you are coupled with ability to fake the enemy out.
Odd that you missed it given where you seem to be from. American football to my mind is the second toughest major sport in the world. The first is clearly ice hockey.
It has the hitting of American football compounded with the speed of being on ice. It has those sharp blades on players feet. If the ice did not keep them from getting traction, it would be so dangerous it could not be played.
As far as soccer or football goes, you dont have a hard shell helment on. Sure there can be freak accidents like the broken leg you showed. But there is not the physical play game in and game out, play after play like ice hockey and American football.
BTW, rodeo is an interesting choice as is mma.
Hockey is pretty good.
Lacrosse is soccer with weapons. Football has more pads. I can not argue with MMA or Rodeo though.
Tangling with a defensive lineman who weighs 265 cannot compare to a BULL who weighs half-a-ton and is TRYING to maim you...with no pads and holding on with only one arm.
Cheers!
Soccer? A contact sport....LMFAO.
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/5/soccer-is-for-fags-301892.html
Rugby
Wasn’t Kilgore from Texas too?
Martial arts is not a sport.
Charlie don’t surf!
He did have a sweet hat.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Skål part though.
One of my best mates is Sweden. I can’t wait to visit so I can go to Denmark. :)
(Sorry, but the death metal culture in Sweden just isn’t up to snuff these years.)
marriage
Pick a combat sport. No ball game or field game will come close.
Lacrosse was all three.
“However, an average Japanese weighs something like 36% of an average Viking.”
An average Viking would appear out of the mist from their boats and hack unprepared villagers to pieces before carrying off the loot and children.
You are not supposed to make contact in soccer. Meanwhile American football is all about contact.
Down in the holler we grew up playing horseshoe frisbee. It was a little rough on the dogs when they played.
Toughest sport on Earth? Karate? Pshaw!!! Hop on, son!!!
Oh and uh, I have a camera for sale cheap! Only used once...
So why do soccer players fake injury? http://worldcup2010soccer.blogspot.com/
If you thought that the best actors and actresses in the world are restricted to Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood; think again. They actually reside on the other side of the white picket fence, where the grass is really greener. A soccer field, their stage, and free reign to improvise on the script, their blossoming acting careers seem to be a little too perfect.
These so-called ‘actors’ are professional soccer players, also known as footballers, who fake injuries to get a free penalty kick for their team. It usually happens when a player loses the ball to an opponent. Their natural instinct is then to flop on the pitch, as if the victim of a horrible foul that appears to have caused a career-ending injury. ...
- In combat sports, few last for decades on as far as I know.
Larsson has now been in the game of soccer for over two decades at professional level.
Let's not complicate things here.
Henrik Larsson has the physique of a Bolshoi Theater ballerina, yet he has lasted longer, in a very tough sport, than many rock legends did after finding out drugs, sex and the luxury of smashing hotels involved selling your soul to a record company.
I guess I should add that the biggest hit I ever saw at a “sporting event” in my life was a bull hitting a matador. That bull caught the matador square with his head [not the horns] and knocked him up to about eye level with in the stands. The poor guy fell back to earth with a thud, but was able to get up and stagger away as the bull was distracted by I think the banderilleros.
great movie!! damn, I don’t know how many times I have watched it, (why do you guys all sit on your helmets?!!!) along with ‘full metal jacket’ and more than a few WW2 movies.
Few last for decades because it’s brutal. That’s a no brainer.
I've always admired the downhill skiers. 70+ mph on a pair of knifes, on uneven ice, all out, just one wipe-out away from a destroyed knee.
Or the ski-jumpers. I remember in one winter olympics there was a windy day and it seemed like one after another crashed in a knocked-out heap at the bottom of the hill. Nasty cross winds.
It must be kind of hard to have the nerve to start down that ramp when you saw the guy before you half kill himself.
****It must be kind of hard to have the nerve to start down that ramp when you saw the guy before you half kill himself.****
That gets into mental part of sports, when the challenge becomes if you can survive what just took out a competitor. Sports that include the forces of beast and nature are less predictable because the energy is highly variable. When this is what you train in and you see a competitor fall from those intense natural energies, the massive amount of adrenalin must still be controlled.
This comes closer to war than man to man competitions, and that is what sports are attempting to recreate in a civilized way.
Samoans.
“Few last for decades because it’s brutal. That’s a no brainer.”
- If you’re 10 years old or below, I forgive you.
If not:
Who hasn’t grown tired of using/hearing the expression of “no brainer” by now?
I gave a lession in the obvious above and you weren’t there.
Am I to blame?
If Samoan is in a combat sport (MMA, Boxing, Kickboxing) he is often shorter but heavier than his opponents, has bricks for fists, and can take the equivalent of a baseball bat to the head.
I compare them to the guys that do freestyle motorcross. Skill there? yes. Insanity? It’s in there.
- They deserve respect, but if you ask me, being “tough” is not so much coping with the constant nagging of the elements on your way to America/Moscow as it is about disposing the mental strength required to lead others into the void, risking everything and still sleep well at night knowing you dare to look beyond what is commonly known.
Christopher Columbus was “tough”.
This former monarch of my nation was “tough”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XII
In the end, Charles XII wasn't victorious, but he stood up to the situation which is more than you could say of any leader of our big Eastern neighbor throughout History.
I like ordinary Russian people a lot though. It's a damn shame they always seem unable to produce competent leaders.
Today, Peter the “Great” is widely romanticized. He declared war on Sweden, a nation which actually was a major European power at that time, proving a fatal decision paving way for both Russian, Swedish and Baltic economical disaster.
Sweden is today one of the world's richest countries.
Russia could prosper too.
All it takes is they give up Feudalism, Imperialism, Marxism and Alcoholism once and for all.
Motocross is another one of those sports that require supreme conditioning and fearlessness. They’re always on the edge.
****They deserve respect, but if you ask me, being “tough” is not so much coping with the constant nagging of the elements on your way to America/Moscow as it is about disposing the mental strength required to lead others into the void, risking everything and still sleep well at night knowing you dare to look beyond what is commonly known.****
By that criteria many ignoble leaders would qualify. Are you trying to redefine toughness into goodness standards?
Erm, American football! That's a joke. The game stopping every couple seconds! Pads! A third of the players grossly overweight!
Compare that with Australian Rules Football, or for that matter plain straight professional Rugby! The players not only have to be very fit (far fewer stoppages), but they have next to no padding, and the level of contact is obscene (e.g. in Aussie rules football literally running up an opponent's back and jumping off the shoulders to catch the football).
I'm sorry, but professional Rugby and Aussie rules are way tougher than American Football. Easily.
You wrote:
“In the end, Charles XII wasn’t victorious, but he stood up to the situation which is more than you could say of any leader of our big Eastern neighbor throughout History.”
Peter the Great? Ivan the Terrible? Grand Duke Vladimir?
I don’t know why you keep exposing your ignorance about Russian history. You’re just embarrassing yourself.
I’m and Aussie and have played American Football. Aussie Fotball is fast and tough on the body but I would rather be hit by the biggest Aussie Rules player than any on field player in NFL (obvioulsy I’m leaving out kickers) as you guys are trained to knock the stuffing out of someone else while it is more incidental in Aussie rules! So unless this guy has played both I don’t think he knows what he is talking about!
Mel
Boxing...
“Hockey is pretty good.”
Hockey is DAMN good. Those guys are very tough and very physical and in GREAT shape!
I agree. I was wondering if anyone would get around to naming the sport where injuring your opponent is the primary goal of the sport and not incidental to it.
I would break the discussion down into team vs. individual sports.
For individual sports, martial arts followed by rodeo or perhaps rodeo followed by marial arts. And I am not limiting marial arts to the forms from the far east. Just about every culture, from the depts of the Amazon to the deepest parts of Africa have developed some form of martial arts and they are brutal.
For team sports, soccer really shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as American football, but even American football seems tame compared to (in no particular order) rugby, hurling, Austrailian Rules Football, lacrosse, and Gaelic football.
The toughest sport on earth is either The Toure de France or that Australian cross-country mountain bike race of over a hundred miles.
There are also a 100-mile footrace and a 100-mile mountain-bike race out of Leadville, CO.
“The two toughest people on Earth probably are the Japanese and the Scandinavians.”
I lightly armed Finn army of about 250,000 took on the Russian army in the 1939 Winter War and inflicted over 1 million casualties.
That’s tough.
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