Not talking smartest, quickest, but toughest. Any other contenders than running backs in NFL?
How about rugby players? They don’t use any protective equipment, right?
Definitely not the hockey players in the NHL. Some of them were whining during the strike about having to live on a mere $10,000 per month from their investments and strike fund. :rolleyes:
Well, the Ultimate Fighting Challenge guys seem pretty hardy.
How about some of the sports where the stated purpose (not just an incidental side-show) is to beat each other up? It seems to me that the typical boxer (or kickboxer or karatake or whatever) would be tougher than a ball-sport athlete.
I’d agree with the “beat each other up” sports.
Rugby seems pretty hard core, but I wonder if getting hit by a 250+ lbs defender wearing his own full padding doesn’t cause more damage than what you’d see in rugby–even if the latter don’t have their own protective equipment.
Other than that, jockeys take some hellacious falls (sometimes getting trampled) at high speeds. Even if they’re lucky enough not to have bad falls, they have to be pretty brave since the chance of a bad fall is always there.
You could argue that some of the endurance sports require a different type of toughness. Pushing yourself to those levels takes a lot of toughness (or so says me who thinks that exercise should stop at the first stitch in my side). And all the marathoners I know are frequently battling some sort of sports-related/repetitive stress injury.
In terms of flat out physical toughness it has to be a martial artist or an endurance athlete. Given that boxing is a mixture of both I’d put it top of the tree. Answering the bell for the twelfth round to go toe to toe with a guy who’s trying to beat you down, and has been trying for the last half hour, takes enormous toughness. The sport requires tremendous physical strength and ability, as well as serious mental fortitude. There cannot be any stronger test of your character in the world of sports than in the boxing ring.
Not sure where you’re getting NFL running back from. Did you mean to ask what is the toughest position in an NFL game?
Me too. However, if we were to talk about team sports…
Rugby players are of equally-intimidating sizes - the average weight of a player in the last World Cup was 218lb.
So if it was a sumo wrestler vs. a Tour de France cyclist, who’d win?
I have to give it to Ironman Triathletes. The fact that people can swim 3 miles in the ocean (ok, I can do this, but I swam competitively for 8 years), immediately go on a 120 mile bike ride, usually through mountains (couldn’t do in my wildest dreams), THEN run a complete marathon (again, couldn’t do in my wildest dreams, and I’ve been running 3-4 times a week for 10 years). These people are nuts, and have the ultimate in both physical endurance, and MENTAL toughness. Without complete determination, NO ONE finishes an Ironman.
Seconded. These people are machines.
They wear pads in American football because it’s a tougher sport than rugby. People in American football, heavy, strong, and fast people, are slamming into each other constantly in a way they don’t do in rugby.
Of course it all depends on what we mean by tough, doesn’t it? In sports like soccer and basketball, especially soccer, the players spend an awful lot of time running or jogging when compared with sports like football or soccer.
I’d have to go with boxing as the toughest sport. Boxers tend to exercise every part of their body through a variety of means during training. They have to be able to take damaging blows to head and body without any real option of “tapping out” like they do in UFC. Not that I’d be willing to call those guys pansies or anything…
Marc
Also, there is no blocking in rugby meaning less likelihood of blindsided hits. In most plays, no-one gets hit other than the person with the ball.
For toughness, I’d have to add most Gaelic Football players and of course Roy Keane.
Depends - are they cycling for days, or wrestling for seconds? This is the problem, that we cannot compare like with like.
HUH?!?! Have you ever played, or watched, rugby? (And not the prissy bastard-child Rugby League, either)
Thats true, the impacts in American football can be brutal. OTOH, it has nothing like the endurance component of rugby, having to make hard tackles in the 70th minute of the game when you’re worn out is a tough man’s job.
Football (soccer) players are about as tough as the average ballerina.
Agreed. The high injury rates for football (the one with the feet) are due to the legs being vulnerable - in any tackle, it’s the lower extremities that are at risk. Compare this to rugby, where any (legal) tackle delivers the blow to the parts of the body most able to absorb the impact, i.e. between neck and knee. Mauls, however, are a different matter.
I think we can all agree that WWE style wrestling is not a true sport; however, a lot of those dudes are in fact pretty tough.
I’d have to disagree. I’ve played football (soccer), GAA (gaelic football for many years) and Rugby and footie is as hard as any of them.
There’s more running involved, a lot more tackling (constant shoving, pushing and 50/50 impacts. Football is actually a very physically demanding game. If you are in any way shy about tackling then you either need to be supremely skilled or you just won’t make it.
To suggest that footballers are tough is as ignorant as it is stupid.
You’re assuming ballerinas aren’t tough!
Agreed 
I’ve played football all my life, Lochdale, and I am amazed that someone would think football was as tough as Gaelic or rugby, but if that’s the way you see it. No question its an athletically demanding game, non-stop running and a lot of contact, but lets be real; tougher than a game of rugby league?