The argument that American Heavies are "in other sports"

This argument will go around and around forever unless more admit that football takes all of europes MW - LHW and Rugby many of the HW top prospects in the same way. This has to go both ways otherwise its completly void.

 

yeah if they went into boxing they would be lazy and fat like most heavy's today.

 

:rofl yep hes an american alrite

 

First, you seem to be talking about height where I am not. The basis for me saying that football(soccer) doesn't take away from heavyweight talent is simply looking at the rosters of a few european league football clubs and only finding a few near the 200 range, most of the players I ran across if you spotted them 20lbs would fall short of heavyweight.

You would probably be right to say that if they trained for boxing, thye would be more muscular and more physically capable of handling the rigors of boxing.

However, when talking about soccer producing heavyweights, to me(and of course I can be in error on this), it seems a bigger "what if" than American football(or rugby). The reason being for it being a lesser "what if" to me is that, to quote you "I say if they took up boxing they would be great, more muscular." Well, in American football(and in rugby) the guys are already muscular and ridiculously strong and fast..it's not even a question. So that aspect of boxing, and I think it's more important in heavyweight than other divisions, would be handled.

It's not for certain to say that alone would produce a greater heavyweight, there's too many variables(for instance Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens is a freak athlete who incorporates boxing workouts into his offseason regimen but says he wouldn't want to be hit in the face that much). However, I am pretty sure that had many NFL players decided to take up boxing instead of football at an early age they would be better and certainly better disciplined than America's foremost heavyweight representative....Chris Arreola.

 

Sure they are. :roll:

 

I'm not saying the guy I used is better than any NFL player in strength and speed. That's not my point. Add stamina into the equation and there's no way that the guy you mentioned could live with Spies. It wouldn't happen.

People who are built for sprints, which is all the NFL is as the avergae play is less than 10 seconds, can't do endurance. It would be like asking Usain Bolt to run a marathon. He could do it, but he'd have a poorer time than the average semi-serious runner.

They are, but that's not the point I'm making. I'm not denying they are stronger and faster, even though it's far closer than you think, but your idea that they are better athletes because they're faster and stronger is wrong because rugby is a far more testing sport on a persons endurance. The simple fact is that you could put ANY rugby player into an NFL game and he would be garbage but he'd finish it off and just look really out of place. If you put the vast, vast majority of NFL players into a rugby game and they wouldn't be able to last 40 minutes, never mind 80.

And you contradicted your later point, where you said that distance runners aren't as good athletes as, say, an American football player because the average NFL player can do, say, basketball too. That indicates you think versatility defines an athlete, in which case surely combining strength, speed and stamina is the sign of a better athlete, than just strength and stamina?

You don't "learn" endurance.

And it can be significantly improved, yes, but at what cost? My whole point is, is that even though rugby players may not be as strong or fast as NFL players, they have to fit endurance into that. You could list 20 really fast or strong NFL players and not one of them will have significant stamina. The most one player will have to ever realistically run in the NFL is 91 metres, which should be done in around 10.5 seconds for someone very fast. That total amount of time is absolutely nothing compared to the endurance that rugby players need. The guy I mentioned can run 8 times that amount without slowing and carry on playing at a high pace. Ask any NFL player to do that and he won't be able to because they aren't trained for endurance, they're trained for strength or speed.

 

First, once again I want to American football does require endurance but a different kind of endurance than rugby.

This is where we get to the problem of it's impossible to compare athlete's across different sports because the demands are different. You say an NFL player wouldn't be able to live with Spies if stamina were added to the equation. With no ground to go upon for different NFL players endurance in a rugby environment, it's probably true. You are right to say (without really saying it) that it's a physical impossibilty to be at your absolute fastest, your absolute strongest, and your absolute best stamina simultaneously. Energy systems don't work that way. So having said, since you said "throw stamina into the equation and they couldn't live with Spies" you are also ignoring that Spies may not be as strong as or fast as the player he's being compared to (especially since you requested NFL players that could match Spies numbers while taking into consideration the stamina).

Vernon Davis- Tight End- 6'4 253lbs.
-4% body fat
-40 yard dash: 4.38 seconds
-33 reps of 225lbs on bench press
-bench press max of 480lbs.
- squat max 685 lbs.
-vertical leap of 42 inches

Vernon's obviously a big guy whos built for sheer power and speed. That's what his sport demands of him. Now if you throw rugby stamina into the equation. Obviously, Vernon could train for it, and his strength would probably decrease. However, he has an obvious large advantage in strength (115 lbs on the bench press). I can't say who is faster until I read Spies ran a 40 in ____ seconds (and that doesn't account for how fast he runs 100m,200m, etc. so it doesn't totally answer the question). If we assume that Davis is faster in short distances, and we know he's much stronger....he has a cushion to work with if he were to train for rugby. To develop rugby type stamina would he have to sacrifice 115lbs on his bench? Who's to say? Since I don't know how much Spies squats or how much Vernon Davis deadlifts I don't know how much of an advantage Davis would have in the leg strength department to burn in order to develop the rugby type stamina.

In short, it's pretty much useless to say on athlete is better than the other when they specifically train for different sports and to put higher or lesser values between athletic attributes is arbitrary and without basis.

EDIT: At any rate, Spies would make an intriguing heavyweight prospect if he had started training for it at an early age.

 

Maybe not naturally.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/the-doping-secrets-never-to-be-revealed-20100918-15h36.html

See this photo?

This content is protected

3 of those 4 were either caught or admitted to doping at the time.

I forget how many of the US women relay athletes from the same games were also caught, I think it was 3 as well.

 

To me its the same thing,while amrerican football players are big,maybe to big,strong,soccer players already have great endurance,not only talking about soccer either,if we are going to use what if arguments,where can one stop?
there are weightlifters,strongman,rubgy players and etc,maybe if they didnt choose boxing they dont like it?would they have the strenght to keep going?
no one knows.

 

I typed a lengthy response to this only to be logged out, so I will try a more condensed version.

The reason I point out American football and Rugby for the heavyweight division is a little multi-faceted. I already mentioned the sheer power and speed, however there is the size to take into account. I know you said there's plenty of tall soccer players and I know there are. However, the are boxers over 6 ft. tall all the way down to the 135lb division so it just because they're tall wouldn't make them sure fire heavyweight, there's plenty of 6ft. + fighters from middleweight to cruiserweight and so they may or may not go for the "big" middleweight as opposed to the small heavyweight. American Football, a great percentage of them, all they could be are heavyweights. How would you be able to ask a guy like Vernon Davis to drop down below 200 when he's at 253 and only 4% body fat...it isn't happening. Secondly, the reason why it's easier in the mind's eye to make the correlation from rugby and American football to the boxing ring is more than just than power and size...both of those sports are collision sports(hockey as well). A lot of the sports you mentioned when you asked "where would it stop" aren't collision sports (and that's why I shy away when someone brings up basketball players and their possibility in the ring because that sport is far less violent). Players in Rugby, American Football, and Hockey are all willing to take a large degree of punishment for their sport which is an unknown variable in powerlifting, soccer, swimming, volleyball,etc.

The OTHER way of figuring out where it could end is simple. Soccer is head and shoulders the most popular sport in the continent of Europe. American Football is by far the most popular sport in all of America. If there is a very athletic child in Europe, they're likely going to be introduced to soccer and if they catch on will go through different developmental programs for that sport. America is no different with football. Are European boxers the best athletes in all of Europe? No. To me this affects their middleweight-light heavyweight divisions more than the heavyweight division). Are American boxers the best athletes in America? No. And with so many of the top shelf athletes going to football it affects the heavyweight division). With Europe and America pushing it's best athletes to it's most popular sports it would also be sufficient to stop there. Both America and Europe lose more boxing prospects to football and soccer than any other sport and it's not even close. So that would also be a sufficient stopping point so that you don't have to go on ad nauseum through every sport in the world and count all the prospects missed.

This isn't a blind pro-USA rebuttal. I'm keenly aware that neither Europe nor America is sending it's best athletes to boxing. Nor do I attempt to get into arguments about "which country/continent produces the best athletes" nor do I go out on a limb and determine which sport produces the best athletes. My point is simply(going back to the thread title), if the best American heavyweight is a fighter with limited dedication, limited skills, and has caught attention recently with his ability to take an absurd amount of punishment(yes, talking about Arreola here)...then yes, the best heavyweight prospect America has is probably playing another sport(probably to a larger degree than it has been in the past).

 

So, what about our (US) Cruisers, LHWs, down to flyweight? Are they all playing NBA and NFL too?

Sorry guys. The "all the best Americans are playing BB and Football" is not logical. I wish it was so we could shut these Euroturds up.

 

Well, for one, the beauty of every other weight class besides heavyweight(and a big reason why I don't watch much heavyweight fights) is that the fighters are obligated to weigh-in at a certain weight. So unless someone's pulling a Guzman there is a certain level of preparation that is expected.

Like everything else, it's more than just losing prospects to other sports and to simply blame that and that alone is short-sighted, and I would imagine europe has this problem as well...the amateur system is not quite adequate as far as translating boxing prospects from the amateur level to the professional level. The fact that America can take an extrememly niche sport like swimming and field great swimming teams and individuals where we've struggled with boxing tells me that 1)any developmental programs are not working at a peak performance and 2)the training may not be as substantial as it once was at the heavyweight level (and I think that bears out with Arreola, the trainers seem to have limited monitoring of his diet and regimen as he's constantly saying he's going to weigh in at 235 only to show up 20+ heavier, hard to imagine a guy like Angelo Dundee standing for that), the American trainers that are typically viewed as the best tend to do more work at the lighter weights.

I also imagine that boxing doesn't sell itself quite the way it used to when boxing was shown on regular television. When football is on from 11am until midnight on Saturdays on regular TV and ESPN that's a lot of competition and I'm sure Europe has that problem with soccer. In order to sell boxing and make it more appealing to athletes in Europe and America may take some creativity. It is good seeing Pacquiao break through into the mainstream in Nike commercials with Tim Tebow and Suh, that's a step in the right direction.

 

The answer IMO is a bit deeper than this, but it's probably true.

Boxing (IMO anyway) has always been about desperation, and the best boxers seem to have come from poor (or very poor) backgrounds, and boxing is the only way to get out of there.

Any ball playing sport, is easier. Plus, with the US college system, for a guy that is OK, but probably not quite good enough to go pro, it makes far more sense to use your skills and get an education, than use your skills and get punched in the face

It's the same around the world. US guys, UK guys etc. Not many turn to boxing to earn a crust these days. The money (at all but the very elite) level isn't great, and there are far, far, far more guys becoming millionaires by playing football (soccer) in Europe and the US (NFL, Baseball, basketball etc) than in boxing.

Most of Western Europe, the US etc don't have the situation where boxing is seen as the only way out.

Other parts of the world, it is. Read this about David Tua....

 

I used to train a Canadian sprinter in the early 90's names Larry Isaak. He trained with Ben Johnson at York University, and told me that both Ben AND Carl Lewis were caught for using juice after the race. However, where Canadian Olympic Comittee offered $50,000 as a "donation", the Americans offered $500,000. Suffice it to say, 9.79 never stood!

 

There's no doubt in my mind that all the top 3 in that race were well and truly on the gear.

Johnson, Lewis and Linford Christie were all doing it (allegedly and IMO of course..........)

From good ol' Wikipedia..