jazz, I disagree with you about UB and KB, but that's my opinion, and we could both debate the issue to moot standstill I'm sure. However, what I wanted to add, which I think you missed, is the 280+ pound linebacker, DE or SP'er who is a REAL ATHLETE!!!! Some of these guys are as good as any for the first 20m...and have some impressive agility. NFL defenses are littered with them and old skoolers like Oldfield were quite impressive outside of the ring.
jazzcyclist wrote:
preston wrote:As for hurdling...what is more shocking to me is NOT true sprinters not being able to convert to short hurdlers, it's 400m runners who can't convert to long hurdles.
I agree with this 100%. The 400H doesn't place nearly the premium on rhythm and body control that the 100H and 110H do. Didn't Irina Privolova win an Olympic gold medal in her seventh race or something like that?
Privalova is one of those who falls in my top-5 athletes! Period. She is not typical by any means; she also made an attempt at one point to make the Russian team at 800m! (started out as a speedskater)
preston wrote:...what I wanted to add, which I think you missed, is the 280+ pound linebacker, DE or SP'er who is a REAL ATHLETE!!!! Some of these guys are as good as any for the first 20m...and have some impressive agility.
But I bet that I (a middle aged mediocre rec runner) can beat every single one of them in a 1500m race.
And in Bolt-Bekele comparison, Bekele's 100m should be far more impressive than Bolt's 10000m based on the scoring table.
And that brings up the question: what exactly is athleticism? Most people agree speed and strength should count. But does it include endurance? Or flexibility?
preston wrote:jazz, I disagree with you about UB and KB, but that's my opinion, and we could both debate the issue to moot standstill I'm sure. However, what I wanted to add, which I think you missed, is the 280+ pound linebacker, DE or SP'er who is a REAL ATHLETE!!!! Some of these guys are as good as any for the first 20m...and have some impressive agility. NFL defenses are littered with them and old skoolers like Oldfield were quite impressive outside of the ring.
I agree with the NFL being littered with freaks like the ones you describe. Those are the types of guys I was thinking of when I made my list on on page one of this thread. One guy in college who fits this mold is South Carolina's man-child DE Jadeveon Clowney.
Last edited by jazzcyclist on Mon Oct 15, 2012 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
preston wrote:jazz, I disagree with you about UB and KB, but that's my opinion, and we could both debate the issue to moot standstill I'm sure. However, what I wanted to add, which I think you missed, is the 280+ pound linebacker, DE or SP'er who is a REAL ATHLETE!!!! Some of these guys are as good as any for the first 20m...and have some impressive agility. NFL defenses are littered with them and old skoolers like Oldfield were quite impressive outside of the ring.
I agree with the NFL being littered with freaks like the ones you describe. Those are the types of guys I was thinking of when I made my list on on pade one of this thread. One guy in college who fits this mold is South Carolina's man-child DE Jadeveon Clowney.
Then we are in complete agreement. I saw a youtube clip of Jason Pierre-Paul doing back handsprings (though you would have to google "back flips") and obviously he's an athlete. Vernon Davis running a 4.38 at 250? Athlete!
TN1965 wrote:what exactly is athleticism? Most people agree speed and strength should count. But does it include endurance? Or flexibility?
We've been over this several times, and it is our very inability to agree on what it is that is the reason you can't 'measure' it, much less 'scientifically' (sic) come up with a meaningful list of athletes. To me speed, strength, endurance, and flexibility are all in the mix, but my prime ingredient is 'coordination adaptability'. If you put ten athletes in a brand new sport that put a premium on all the aforementioned qualities, which athlete would be the best at this new sport. Sports Illustrated did a study and decided that the best overall athletes were . . . boxers! Mano a mano fighting! Ya gotta admit, that's an intriguing idea. Maybe Ali was right: he is The Greatest.
Marlow wrote:To me speed, strength, endurance, and flexibility are all in the mix, but my prime ingredient is 'coordination adaptability'. If you put ten athletes in a brand new sport that put a premium on all the aforementioned qualities, which athlete would be the best at this new sport. Sports Illustrated did a study and decided that the best overall athletes were . . . boxers! Mano a mano fighting! Ya gotta admit, that's an intriguing idea. Maybe Ali was right: he is The Greatest.
Glad to see you've become a fan of combat sports ... even though I'd say that wrestlers are better athletes than boxers. And then of course MMA fighters are even better athletes, because they combine the different skills.
Marlow wrote:To me speed, strength, endurance, and flexibility are all in the mix, but my prime ingredient is 'coordination adaptability'. If you put ten athletes in a brand new sport that put a premium on all the aforementioned qualities, which athlete would be the best at this new sport. Sports Illustrated did a study and decided that the best overall athletes were . . . boxers! Mano a mano fighting! Ya gotta admit, that's an intriguing idea. Maybe Ali was right: he is The Greatest.
Glad to see you've become a fan of combat sports ... even though I'd say that wrestlers are better athletes than boxers. And then of course MMA fighters are even better athletes, because they combine the different skills.
Neither wrestiling nor MMA require the hand-eye coordination and stamina that boxing does, especially back in the days when they were still fighting 15 rounds.
As I've mentioned before, the most "athletic" female I've ever encountered is my friend who was on the USA figure skating team in ice dance. For all around "athletic" ability, she was a step above any track & field athlete I've been around.
Before I read one of j-a-m's earlier posts, free style rock climbers came to mind. Their "athleticism" simply boggles my mind.
preston wrote:...what I wanted to add, which I think you missed, is the 280+ pound linebacker, DE or SP'er who is a REAL ATHLETE!!!! Some of these guys are as good as any for the first 20m...and have some impressive agility.
But I bet that I (a middle aged mediocre rec runner) can beat every single one of them in a 1500m race.
I guess that depends on how you define "middle aged mediocre rec runner".
TN1965 wrote:And that brings up the question: what exactly is athleticism? Most people agree speed and strength should count. But does it include endurance?
marknhj wrote:As I've mentioned before, the most "athletic" female I've ever encountered is my friend who was on the USA figure skating team in ice dance. For all around "athletic" ability, she was a step above any track & field athlete I've been around.
Would you mind elaborating or linking your previous post about her?
jazzcyclist wrote:Neither wrestiling nor MMA require the hand-eye coordination and stamina that boxing does, especially back in the days when they were still fighting 15 rounds.
If you want to talk about "back in the day", don't forget that MMA used to have fights with no time limits and/or very long rounds, and fighters doing 3 or 4 fights in a single night.
j-a-m wrote:And then of course MMA fighters are even better athletes, because they combine the different skills.
I wouldn't say that. From the limited amount I've seen of it (it's most akin to watching a gruesome multi-car crash), 'viciousness' seems to be a prime ingredient. In one match one guy was clearly a better athlete and fighter, but the other guy was, what I would call, under other circumstances, a Sadistic Psychopath. The SP, after taking BRUTAL punishment for most of the match, finally got a hold of the other guy's arm and was wrenching it out of its socket, no skill involved at all, just a praeternatural desire to inflict pain. The ref stopped the contest and declared him the winner (sic)
j-a-m wrote:And then of course MMA fighters are even better athletes, because they combine the different skills.
I wouldn't say that. From the limited amount I've seen of it (it's most akin to watching a gruesome multi-car crash), 'viciousness' seems to be a prime ingredient. In one match one guy was clearly a better athlete and fighter, but the other guy was, what I would call, under other circumstances, a Sadistic Psychopath. The SP, after taking BRUTAL punishment for most of the match, finally got a hold of the other guy's arm and was wrenching it out of its socket, no skill involved at all, just a praeternatural desire to inflict pain. The ref stopped the contest and declared him the winner (sic)
You are much too bold in exposing your ignorance of the fighting arts.
Simple man to man fighting is one of the 3 or 4 most pure athletic tests there is. Mental toughness, an extreme expression of what makes NFL football so appealing, is one of the bare components of sport. And so it will ever be.
Last edited by user4 on Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Marlow wrote:The SP, after taking BRUTAL punishment for most of the match, finally got a hold of the other guy's arm and was wrenching it out of its socket, no skill involved at all, just a praeternatural desire to inflict pain. The ref stopped the contest and declared him the winner (sic)
That "wrenching his arm out its socket" took a ton of skill to get into position and execute the hold in a manner that would be inescapable by somebody with the strength and experience of his opponent. That move probably was practiced hundreds of times in training.
In a professional MMA fight, what looks like random brawling to the untrained eye is really a series of heavily practiced techniques. (There are exceptions, like Mark Hunt's "atomic butt drop" and some of the antics by Kazushi Sakuraba which must have been made up on the spot.)
jazzcyclist wrote:Neither wrestiling nor MMA require the hand-eye coordination and stamina that boxing does, especially back in the days when they were still fighting 15 rounds.
The 15 round fight is a very recent invention (of the early 20th century). Most boxing matches of the 19th and first decade of the 20th were much longer and allowed for more standing grappling and pushing that tremendously taxed the athletes stamina. The boxing world actually became more brutal with the reduction to 15 rounds and the refs enforcing much more discipline in keeping/restraining the athletes from clinching. Once the 20+ round fight was history and the clinching and grappling removed the athletes and trainers began to focus much more of their training/strategy on knock out blows to the head.
I dislocated my elbow a few years back (falling out of a tree; don't ask), and while at the Nationals with my arm in a sling I was sitting poolside with a USOC medico. He was very familiar with my problem because he said that dislocating the elbow was a classic judo move. I assume he knew of what he spoke.
(he made it sound relatively "ordinary," but I ended up having to have an ulnar nerve transfer a year later)
gh wrote:I dislocated my elbow a few years back (falling out of a tree; don't ask), and while at the Nationals with my arm in a sling I was sitting poolside with a USOC medico. He was very familiar with my problem because he said that dislocating the elbow was a classic judo move. I assume he knew of what he spoke.
(he made it sound relatively "ordinary," but I ended up having to have an ulnar nerve transfer a year later)
Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
gh wrote:I dislocated my elbow a few years back (falling out of a tree; don't ask), and while at the Nationals with my arm in a sling I was sitting poolside with a USOC medico. He was very familiar with my problem because he said that dislocating the elbow was a classic judo move. I assume he knew of what he spoke.
(he made it sound relatively "ordinary," but I ended up having to have an ulnar nerve transfer a year later)
Any loss of hand function?
I had to switch hands, but it feels so much better that way!
18.99s wrote:That "wrenching his arm out its socket" took a ton of skill to get into position and execute the hold in a manner that would be inescapable by somebody with the strength and experience of his opponent. That move probably was practiced hundreds of times in training.
Excuse me, I can barely read that, what with the BS Meter going off so loudly in my ear!
j-a-m wrote:Glad to see you've become a fan of combat sports ... even though I'd say that wrestlers are better athletes than boxers. And then of course MMA fighters are even better athletes, because they combine the different skills.
And perhaps water polo - there's lots of struggling involved as well as immense coordination in the water
18.99s wrote:That "wrenching his arm out its socket" took a ton of skill to get into position and execute the hold in a manner that would be inescapable by somebody with the strength and experience of his opponent. That move probably was practiced hundreds of times in training.
Excuse me, I can barely read that, what with the BS Meter going off so loudly in my ear!
There's not a word of BS in what I wrote. There's a method to what looks like madness in MMA; that "random" rolling on the ground is really a series of attempts to get in position to apply or counteract an extensively practiced fight-ending hold like a rear naked choke, guillotine choke, triangle choke, keylock, or armbar.
18.99s wrote:There's not a word of BS in what I wrote.
From what I read about MMA/UFC many matches are won or lost on 'fluke' attacks, not unlike when a boxer's jab suddenly hits just the right point and dazes the fighter enough to subsequently knock him out.
fortyacresandamule wrote:Do golfers qualify as athletes? For if they do, we might as well called ball room dancers athletes also.
The fact that women can't compete with men tells me that there is some athleticism involved in golf, though John Daley proved that you don't have to be in shape. Also, I can't think of another sport that places as a high a premium on hand-eye coordination as golf does.
user4 wrote:Most boxing matches of the 19th and first decade of the 20th were much longer and allowed for more standing grappling and pushing that tremendously taxed the athletes stamina.
Exactly; and in today's MMA you frequently hear commentators and interviewed fighters talk about the wrestling/grappling part being the one that requires more stamina than the boxing/kickboxing part.
18.99s wrote:There's not a word of BS in what I wrote. There's a method to what looks like madness in MMA; that "random" rolling on the ground is really a series of attempts to get in position to apply or counteract an extensively practiced fight-ending hold like a rear naked choke, guillotine choke, triangle choke, keylock, or armbar.
That's correct. 18.99s knows what he or she is talking about, Marlow doesn't. Simple as that.
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Good point; the criteria to determine the best overall athlete should apply both to lower body and upper body strength/muscular endurance/etc.
j-a-m wrote:That's correct. 18.99s knows what he or she is talking about, Marlow doesn't. Simple as that.
Actually, the correct distinction is that 1899 has a vested interest in the sport being perceived as 'legitimate' whereas I don't and don't even think it deserves the appellation 'sport' (though I agree that it is a very athletic endeavor). Brutal beat-downs (which is exactly what it is) has no place in our consciousness any more. Even the NFL realizes it has to get control of itself.
(started out as a speedskater)
