Athletes from other sports that could become UFC champions with some training

[tenniswhiz]

Ronaldo would be WW champion after a 15 minute instructional DVD and a Dana White pep talk. Dude is an A level athlete.

He'd be the smallest WW in recent history.

 

[TheAmericanGazelle]

There definitely isn't a straight line between athletic ability and MMA success.

There is a whole different mindset attached to fighting that some people simply don't have, no matter how athletic they are.

Even if you have a good mindset, piecing everything together into a coherent framework FOR MMA is another thing entirely. There have been many great, literally world-class wrestlers who came to MMA and made relatively little noise.

 

[wilKO]

He'd be the smallest WW in recent history.

No he wouldnt. He's 6 foot tall

McGregor just fought twice at WW last year.

Ronaldo would be perfect size WW.

 

[gspieler]

Lebron would likely turtle up, the first time someone landed clean on him.

 

[Mr Wings]

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

This kind of thread appears in a lot of sports forums. For instance, you'll find people saying Lebron could outplay Sidney Crosby in hockey with a couple of years training. Hockey fans, being more secure than MMA fans, just laugh off such posts, typically not even bothering to reply to them. MMA fans tend to take such posts much more seriously for some reason.

Or you'll find posts that some NFL star could be a MLB baseball star within a couple of years (on the grounds that baseball players aren't athletic and so its easy to do what they do). But when you go through the actual lists, the number of guys who can make that transition, or do both at once, is very small. And most of them did so as amateurs (ie playing two sports in college); Bo Jackson is the only one I can think of who was able to play two sports as a pro.

People tend to vastly underestimate how much skill is needed to play major league sport (ask Michael Jordan about the transition from basketball to baseball), and to overestimate how being athletic in one sport transitions to a different sport (again, ask Michael Jordan about that). Athletic ultimately means being able to perform at high levels in a sport, and different attributes constitute athleticism in different sports. For instance, the ability to jump is far more important in basketball than baseball, whereas extremely fast reflexes (to hit major league pitching) is more important in baseball than basketball. There's no such thing as general athleticism, its sport based. Every major coach knows this - different sports reward different attributes.

And people who think money draws the greatest athletes are basically arguing that golfers are the best athletes in the world, since they tend to make the most money.

 

[ChaelSonnenGSWKD]

For those talking about Lebron let's see if these MMA guys can play basketball. I am pretty sure Lebron could play in the NFL and become a pretty good player too. I think he was almost as good in football as he is in basketball but he decided to play basketball because of the injury risk as one of the reasons.

Those using the MJ example may be overlooking the fact that MJ may have just be a mediocre baseball player. Just because he can't make it in baseball despite how good he was in basketball doesn't mean other NBA players can't make it in other sports.

I think basketball and football correlate more. I believe some of the great defensive players in the NBA could play defense in NFL like Draymond.

 

[BALLERSTATUSMCG]

 

[eiyuu]

If Tom Brady trained MMA for a couple years and had Bill Belichick in his corner game planning his strategies they could probably do some damage.

Only if they have deflated balls

 

[ChaelSonnenGSWKD]

Those are inflated in your avi.

 

[calisoul]

 

[cevo]

Jon Jones is a good example of a lower end A level athlete competing in UFC. His brother was a relative nobody in NFL and can still allegedly kick Jon's ass.

Allegedly you're stupid.

 

[calisoul]

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

For those talking about Lebron let's see if these MMA guys can play basketball. I am pretty sure Lebron could play in the NFL and become a pretty good player too. I think he was almost as good in football as he is in basketball but he decided to play basketball because of the injury risk as one of the reasons.

Those using the MJ example may be overlooking the fact that MJ may have just be a mediocre baseball player. Just because he can't make it in baseball despite how good he was in basketball doesn't mean other NBA players can't make it in other sports.

I think basketball and football correlate more. I believe some of the great defensive players in the NBA could play defense in NFL like Draymond.

Or in reverse by the same argument. That of course is the theory - any star athlete in any sport could become a star in any other sport. That is, any NBA star could become an NFL star or NHL star or MLB star with a couple years of training, and vice-versa.

The problem with that theory is that there are so few examples of it. In fact, I can't think of any - the people who are good at more than one sport always played both those sports at a high amateur level, typically college (and except for Jim Thorpe its almost never more than two sports).

The counter theory is that sports tend to be very specific in both skills and athleticism. One sport will reward great explosiveness, another great endurance, another great co-ordination, another great hand-eye co-ordination and so on. And almost all of them take years to learn the skills. For instance, to take something that got a minor amount of press a few years ago, it was asked if Lebron James could play in the NHL with a year or two of training. Lots of folks think he could. I just can't see him, despite his incrediblemental and physical abilities, learning how to skate well enough to do so in a year or two, let alone the passing and stick handling, reading the flow of play and so on.

I suppose the truth is somewhere between the extremes that sports are interchangeable and that no one can cross over; but I suspect even for the most talented individuals, it'd take at least five years if they started from scratch. For example, an NBA who'd never skated or an NHL player who'd never touched a basketball would both take at least five years to learn to play at NHL/NBA level ... and actually I'd bet against it even then. Not only because of the individual skills, but because of all the game smarts you have to learn to play at pro levels; you have to automatically do so many things right, and it takes years of hard competition to learn to read plays like that.

In the case of NBA to basketball or vice-versa, it might be possible for a few positions (say an NBA player might be able to become a line-backer or some other position with a more limited skillset), but even then I don't know. Which NBA player could in a year play on the line for any NFL team?

 

[LoneStalker]

OK, here is my list:

.

 

[Rozko]

Let's list athletes from other sports that could become UFC champions with some training.

-Anthony Joshua
-Reuben Foster
-LeBron James
-Mijain Lopez

This bitch is not taking a leg kick

 

[ChaelSonnenGSWKD]

This bitch is not taking a leg kick

You are probably a Kobe fan. Lebron is tougher than the vast majority of people.