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What is the greatest sport technically?


Dindeleux

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Thought this would be a good place to put this even though it's going to include football.
 
Simple question - what is the greatest sport in terms of the technical ability shown by those at the top level?
 
I was thinking about this last night when Garcia had a wee flap at the Masters but also when he showed his fantastic ability with some of his shots in the last few holes. A top level golfer will play 72 holes (and roughly 4x this amount in shots) across a weekend and probably only have maybe 6 or 7 really poor shots (I don't count missing a difficult putt as a poor shot as an example) which is a great average.
 
Compare this to say Messi in your average football game, Djokovic in tennis, LeBron James in basketball etc etc and what do you think the best overall sport is in terms of great : poor shot/play ratio at the top level?
 
I don't have an answer myself to be honest just throwing it out there as a discussion topic.

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It's definitely boxing. 


Would never have considered that but I disagree only based on the fact that people like Haye, Valuev (sp?) have won World Titles. You can make a lot of mistakes in boxing but still win a fight I would say. Or an average fighter could beat someone far better with one lucky punch. Whereas I don't think across golf, tennis you get examples of people with poor technical abilities winning Majors.
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2 minutes ago, Dindeleux said:

 


Would never have considered that but I disagree only based on the fact that people like Haye, Valuev (sp?) have won World Titles. You can make a lot of mistakes in boxing but still win a fight I would say. Or an average fighter could beat someone far better with one lucky punch. Whereas I don't think across golf, tennis you get examples of people with poor technical abilities winning Majors.

 

Have you ever boxed? 

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For all the slating he gets, Haye was a tremendous boxer.  He won world titles in two divisions, reached a World Championship final as an amateur.  

Most sports you can make a mistake and claw it back - score another goal, make a tackle, claw things back.  In boxing, if you make a mistake it can end the content, there arne't many sports with that knife edge quality.  You do get great boxers who made loads of mistakes - Felix Trinidad didn't start fighting until the other guy had knocked him down a lot of the time.

I don't think you can really compare - there are 'skill sports' like golf but how do you compare that to a sport like road cycling, which emphasises endurance or a sport like weightlifting?  Also, having a standard of making zero mistakes isn't applicable to some sports.  For example, Tom Brady is probably the best QB in the history of football - he has a completion percentage of 64% on his passes, which is amazing for a  QB but doesn't meet the standard of having fewest errors.

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Ignoring the "what is/isn't a sport?" debate for another day I think darts would be a shout. It's possibly the only sport where luck doesn't play a part.

Baseball could be up there as well. If you drop whatever you have to hand, such as a pen on your keys, from shoulder height the time taken between that object hitting the floor from you letting go is the same amount of time it takes for a baseball pitch to leave the pitcher's hand and reach the batsman. In that time the batsman has to judge the speed and spin of the ball as well as have the physical ability to swing his bat around and connect with the very centre of the ball at the precise moment for the ball to go in the direction the batsman wants it. I suppose you could argue the same for cricket but it's a lot easier to defensive with your shots there as opposed to baseball. It's an outstanding achievement. As is the ability of the pitcher to throw a ball at that speed with the right amount of curve and spin for it to drop, slide or just zoom into an exact corner of a stirke zone that's no bigger than a foot square.

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Deffo not boxing even though it's my favourite sport.

You could never pull on a glove till you were in your late teens and become a good pro boxer. If you never kicked a football until you even hit double figures of an age you'd be an absolute laughing stock at 5 a side level in most instances.

Boxing has a huge physical and mental component that other sports don't have but not the same technical.

Obviously mayweather is as technically gifted as a Christian Ronaldo but you could also do ok in boxing if you were fit and strong with limited technical skills.

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Is golf a sport? More of a pastime for badly dressed wankers. Does take huge skill and dedication to be good at it though.

I think people would get a shock if they'd not boxed before just how hard it is to try and handle a decent boxer if you're a novice. You just don't get a sense of it from watching on TV etc.

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Ballet dancers are at the absolute peak of human fitness and conditioning btw, being strong and flexible enough to pull of some astounding manoeuvres and moves. Plus the grace in which they do it clearly demonstrates a finesse which I'd argue no other sport has.

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