There's definitely some talent at the smaller sizes, in LW especially.

It's tough for those Poirier-esque, 5'9" 170 lb sized athletes to find another sport they can play at a pro level. You can play striker in soccer, if you have really elite change of direction. Maybe pro baseball, but you are on the size threshold. Basketball is closed, football is closed unless you run a 4.3, hockey is closed, pro golf is closed to most athletes anyway but 5'9" is even small for a golfer.

If you're a stocky wrestler type dude where strength is your best attribute, getting into weight classed combat sports is probably your best athletic play. Ditto if you have abnormally long arms.

Greg Hardy gave up on life after his DV, attempted murder stuff closed the door on big football money. Cowboys crew and I remember what a head case he was in his one season with us. Skipped workouts, skipped meetings, just went AWOL and snorted Pepsi. When Jerry Jones cuts you for being lazy, you know you've fukked up. And with the way Hardy bloatmaxxed out in UFC, I don't think he put in much more effort there.

The one real NFL caliber athlete that HW has had is Brock Lesnar. He worked out at the Combine and put up some freak numbers. The Vikings signed him even though he'd never played a down, due to physical talent + wrestling experience. I think he could have made it in football too, but dude decided to go be the UFC HW champion instead.

By all counts, it is going to be embarrassing for Ngannou. Fun to see anyway what will happen as he hits like a truck and is a wild man. I wonder how hard Jairzinho Rozenstruik hits, he generally doesn't even connect properly and puts everyone to sleep.

it's true the pool isn't as big but this is a strawman


there's literally no motion in basketball that resembles a punch, or a kick, or a takedown

I can tell just by looking at michael jordan he wouldn't be a good combat athlete


HW is just ass. it always has been and probably always will be in mma

This is a HUGE oversimplification. Some dudes are just built for certain sports and not for others. Wilder is definitely an anomaly. Failed (or successful basketball players) can't just make a career in boxing. Imagine Victor Wembanyama trying to box.. lmao but dude is undoubtedly built for basketball.

You can argue that some of the best pure athletes in the world are in boxing/MMA.. if you were to put them in a series of drills to test speed, quickness, strength, cardio.. they would beat a lot of NFL/MBA/MLB players. But just because you can do that doesn't mean you can automatically play in those leagues. It's a totally different skillset and mentality.

Don't you think he'd be able to knock out Derrick Lewis he was that powerful as a puncher? A professional heavyweight boxer could KILL an amateur boxer

are you saying he couldn't knock out lewis if he hit him clean?

that's a skill issue cuh

I bet Rozenstruik at 205 would be a monster. He used to be in better shape too, he's gotten a little fatter.

Thats true in the US thats why there are so very few US heavyweight champs anymore, there is no scholarships for boxing so athletic kids go into other sports where there are scholarships.

In other countries though like the eastern euros its still more common there for heavyweights.


Wilder is an ultra rarity, you make it sound like any random athletic 20 year old could take over boxing but if that was the case it would happen all the time. Wilder has unreal level of power, a natural ability for it. He made it to win an olympic medal in 3 years, showing his power was enough to overcome the skills at a global level. The only other guy that really did that was George Foreman who also started relatively late and had unreal power and won an olympic gold in like 2 years from starting. All these other guys would get pieced up by the high level amateurs. There was 40 years between those two guys medal wins so that shows how rare that is. Most elite heavyweights started as children or teenagers.

You go look at Jake paul and for all the hype of him being so good at it in a short period of time, he lost to the very first actual boxer he fought, a D level guy who had one foot in reality TV shows and one foot in boxing. Jake is athletic and on PEDs and it doesnt matter because boxing isnt that easy.

Are you sure about MJ? He was quite quick with his hand. Big hand as well by the way.

I put my money on Kawhi as a potential HW elite. Strong as ****, big and quick hand, wingspan...