Poll: Toughest Sport

[Azure-Supernova]

I'm sticking with saying rugby. I've seen some brutal accidents in secondary school and one of my best mates died because a collaped scrum.

I'll hand it that Hockey's pretty brutal, but sometimes it looks like brutality for the sake of entertainment.

 

[Cobez]

The last tiddlywinks game i had i sent 3 people to the hospital

 

[Bomberman4000]

As far as which sport has tougher athletes, I'd say either hockey or rugby. But I haven't played either one so I can't be certain. I just go by what I see on TV or the internet.

As far as the toughest sport to play, I'm throwing my hat into the "baseball" pool. I know I'm gonna get some crap for this, but seriously, baseball is one hella difficult sport to master. It's the only sport where if you fail 2/3 of the time you're in the Hall of Fame. What other sport can say that?

When hitting, a baseball player must make split second decisions about:

1. Determining the speed of the pitch
2. Determining which way, if any, the ball is breaking
3. If it's a ball or a strike
4. What part of the field do I want to hit this pitch to
5. When do I start my swing

Most of the time these decisions have to be made in under a quarter of a second.

Sure, you don't necessarily have to be a great athlete to be a great baseball player, but the skill set needed to play baseball at the highest level beats out any other sport IMO.

 

[lior13]

the absolute Toughest Sport is drunken bear wrestling.....in the nude

 

[Latinidiot]

Well, fild hockey is a very, very fast game. it's less dangerous than the ice variety, and thus it requires less protection, making it a sport of agility. Strength doesn't help so much.

Plus, the chance is big you get to keep your teeth.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Probably the Irish sport of hurling.

Yup, this. It's fucking terrifying.

In fact, lately, my brother got knocked out with a huge concussion, lost a lot of blood and had to get about a dozen stitches.

I wouldn't have liked to see what would happen if he wasn't wearing a helmet...

 

[Kitteh]

i made up a game thats exactly like american football, except you play with hand grenades. quite hard.

 

[Kair]

Do not use the term 'Soccer', it is Football.

Use '(American) Football' or 'Handegg' for the sport Handegg, then 'Football' for Football.

 

[Nimcha]

I'd say Formula 1 racing. The forces those guys are subjected to would rip the best hockey player in half. Plus, one tiny mistake and you're a passenger in a 300 km/h bullet.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Would have to say Hurling, saw some of it being played last year when I went to Ireland man what a brutal sport. I think a mixture between rugby, football and field hockey, with violence of ice hockey is the best way to describe it. Wasn't exactly sure on the foul play rules but I did learn that turning round and hitting an opposing player in the face with your stick (not sure what it is actually called) is a sending off.

 

[s2dio]

I think hockey edges rugby just for the sheer number of games. Both sports are extremely physical, but the NHL season has more than double the IRL's number of games. And if you make the playoffs, that becomes near triple.

 

[D.C.]

Ahem,


and I'd have to go for almost every old sport ever, just watch the last man standing series, some of those sports are just designed to put you in hospital.

 

[[BDS]Omega]

Has to be rugby. While Hockey and American football players have protective equipment (pads helmets) these guys tough it out without any of that and play at a breakneck pace. Rugby players are real men (and women play too, sometimes better than men).

 

[CoL0sS]

Hockey followed by handball and soccer.

 

[Wolfram23]

As a Canadian who grew up playing hockey... I think rugby or Australian Rules Football are worse. People who play that are crazy. Hockey would be 2nd after that I guess. I mean I've seen some pretty bad hockey injuries. My friend nearly killed someone... not on purpose, it was a clean hit but he crushed the kid into the boards and the kid had to go to the hospital and had a blood vessel in his head pop or something crazy. He was hospitalized for like 2 weeks. I've also known guys with broken wrists and collar bones from hockey. Personally I haven't had much worse than a terribly banged up/hyper extended knee and had the wind knocked out of me at least a few times.

 

[Free-man]

Rugby, Definitely

 

[Shifty Tortoise]

Rugby, without a doubt, American football/hockey don't even compare. They wear body armour for christs sake

 

[SadakoMoose]

Wrestling. The real kind, not the wussy TV kind.

Toughest sport is probably a three-way tie between wrestling (real not that "professional" bullshit) boxing and MMA. All three are incredibly physically demanding, requiring not only considerable training in the learning of the fighting techniques but also considerable physical conditioning (weight-lifting, running, and so forth) as well as learning to endure a substantial amount of physical pain and keep fighting.

Well, now hold on there. While I wouldn't personally try to play the "my sport is tougher" game, I will argue that professional wrestling is a fairly demanding athletic endeavor. Here's a excerpt regarding the training at the Pro Wrestling NOAH Dojo in Japan:

"When not on tour, Dakota would train 6 days a week. ?I lived with 6 other young wrestlers in a small apartment and we would wake up around 9:00 and eat a small breakfast before we went to the Dojo for training.? said Dakota. He continued, ?We would start with about 20 minutes stretching on our own before we did some calisthenics together to warm up. After that we did at least 600 variations of ab crunches, 300 push-ups, 200 back extensions, and 15 minutes of neck bridges - every day. That took about an hour. Then we would work one body part with weights and resistance training for about 30 minutes until that muscle was totally fatigued. After this, we usually did a combination of technique training, matches, amateur sparring, and squats for an hour or more. This ended the group training; we finished off our workout with individual weight training. A training session usually lasted around 4-5 hours and ended around 3:00-4:00 .?

This difficult training, combined with a 300 days a year schedule and the potential for serious injury and you have yourself a very rough business.
Here's a real ugly botch just to demonstrate how:
while we're at it

I'm not saying it's the toughest, but let's give it it's due at least.

 

[Scarim Coral]

My vote is going for Rugby. I had a scar on my ear (it gone now) thank to that sport.