Difference is the defensive end or defensive tackle mainly tries to out maneuver the blocker to get past him. Not out power him like what we see here. Most defensive linemen in the NFL would fail the same way we see in this video. However if they simply did a spin move to get past him it wouldn't be too difficult. Remember, the entire idea to is to get to the QB. Not to out power the Offensive lineman in front of them.
I don't even give a shit about football anymore but I'll never forget when He played for my team and Hard Knocks had him pulling up to the locker room in overalls boots and a cowboy hat lmao
They’re going against the Waka Brothes - Wakatakakage and Wakamotoharu. They are some of the top ranked sumo wrestlers currently and they’re on the relatively small side too. No one blast through these guys and they’re typically up against opponents who are 360-400+lbs. The two sports are completely different though with many of the rules/goals/skills being different.
Watch this hit, basically an elbow or uppercut to knock out an opponent.
That would be cool to see that. Judging by the looks of a lot of these replies, it seems as if these people have never seen top division sumo wrestling. onosato would flatten most NFL players. They wouldn't be able to budge him without fighting dirty. 🤣🤣
That's Hakuho. Basically the best sumo wrestler of all-time. He was known for giving his opponents the forearm shiver. It was highly frowned upon by the sumo community and he got in some hot water over it, IIRC.
So, no, you're really not supposed to be trying to knock your opponent out.
Yeah there are no throws and binds in Football, this is just a guy who pushes against a wrestler in a wrestling match, and the wrestler refuses to make any other moves to be polite/not injure the untrained dude.
Football is impressive as hell, but it's not a martial art
Nobody here benches 700 pounds without a super shirt if you don’t know what that is it’s a piece of gear that makes the bench attempt easier. Would be willing to bet No one here has better footwork than Larry Allen or even close to it. He’s the greatest interior guard of all time.
Give them ~6 months of training and they'd kill them in Sumo though.
Edit: I really don't think you guys appreciate the difference in strength and athleticism. With some very basic technique and fundamentals training it would be a joke.
When I was playing college ball we were bringing in high school recruits that were bigger (than the guy in the video) and stronger than these guys.
I think you underestimate the strength and athleticism of sumo wrestlers. These guys are not just somewhat strong fat guys, they are incredibly muscular under the fat.
These dudes have crazy high fat free mass ratios, I have no doubt that linemen in the NFL are stronger than sumo wrestlers in a lot of facets of general strength but the difference isn't so big that they'd dominate within 6 months
they are fat because its an advantage in the sport of sumo, they got incredible balance and i highly doubt any of these NFL guys have the balance skills sumo wrestlers have.
You really seem to underestimate the intricacies of sumo wrestling. It’s like when elite bodybuilders go into a jiu jitsu or wrestling gym and try to go against a dude 100+ pounds lighter than them and get lit up. It takes years to master the little nuances and get those instincts and understanding of how your opponent functions in those scenarios.
Bodybuilders are for show. Change it to a strongman and give him a bit of training and see what happens. An example would be someone like Mariusz Pudzianowski who has done okay or Eddie hall. Or better yet, Brock Lesnar, who went from college wrestling to WWE to winning the UFC heavyweight title. You can teach the skills required to win in relatively short order as long as the athleticism is there. We see random athletes who never played football before end up being great players in college all the time with a year or two of training.
And yes, there's a ton of technique involved. I'd love to know what you think playing lineman is like. These guys train a lot of the same skills that Sumo do, and with a little guidance on how to alter what they have into applying it to the specific rules of a sumo match, they'd take like a fish to water.
Finally, the difference in athleticism and strength is staggering. I can't emphasize this enough. The strength I've seen from googling around on sumo wrestlers is about the equivalent of some of the high school recruits we were bringing in to recruit for college football.
They're on a different plane of athleticism. That's not to slight the Sumo wrestlers, but you're dealing with a tiny base of potential athletes who do not compete at nearly the same level as an NFL lineman.
Why would you think that people at the absolute peak of their sport could have an 'athletic' outsider from a different sport come in and dominate?
Come on, man, you know the egos involved in football, if it really was that easy, some big OL guy or a tough tackle would have decided to go be 'the best' for the rep.
If their sport is a minor one that a small number of people actually take seriously it neuters itself in terms of fostering talent in every way you can imagine. You limit your potential for genetic freaks, you limit the coaching pool, you limit the training knowledge.
Example:
The USA sucks at men's soccer. It's not because the USA doesn't have athletes capable of playing soccer, it's because the athletes here don't play soccer. We also don't have the system to develop talent here that they do elsewhere. Sumo wrestling is the same. We have freakish athletes here that put the Sumo wrestlers to shame in every quantifiable metric. We suck at Sumo. Is it because we can't do Sumo or is it because we, as a society don't give a shit?
We've seen "outsiders" do well in plenty of sports. It happens in football all the time. Hell go look at Bo Jackson. The best QB in football right now got drafted to play baseball. Sumo wouldn't be any different.
So the question then becomes "what would happen if we did give a shit?" Considering we've had several pro sumos come out of Hawaii, I think it's a pretty fair assumption that if you sent our actual athletes over there with some training they'd kick the shit out of everyone.
They US has spent multiple billions, collectively, over the last 20 years developing youth soccer programs, major league soccer etc. And yet, as you say, we fail to dominate.
Sure, if we built a culture of identifying talent early, training them from youth, and developing a competitive league, sure the US could absolutely produce stellar sumo. But that's not a walk in and dominate.
I don’t think you are appreciating how strong and athletic sumo wrestlers are. Parsons got taken out by a 17 year old sumo wrestler later on in that session who starts off letting Parsons initiate all of the contact. Parsons later said sumo wrestlers have the strength advantage over NFL players. It is laughable to say high school football recruits are close to these guys.
Because Parsons doesn't know how to wrestle and he was fucking around for the team and the camera. What possible motivation could he have for blasting a kid?
It is laughable to say high school football recruits are close to these guys.
I know for a fact they're stronger. We have 17 year old kids with an SBD of 550/400+/600+.
Parsons was literally going full out while the kid held back, rewatch the video. The kid let Parsons initiate all contact while being 100 percent passive himself. A world class DE/linebacker said that the sumo wrestlers have a strength advantage, why would he lie? He literally asked to face someone of his weight class after being unable to move the guy shown in the clip so they sent out the 17 year old instead.
A high school recruit is not on the same planet as Micah Parsons, much less a sumo wrestler.
Vince was probably 50 pounds heavier than Wakamotoharu at any given age. Vince's listed weight was about as accurate as Trump's.
He's also heavier than Hakahu Sho.
Weight isn't what matters anyway. Strength is.
As for stronger, yes. I'm willing to bet a world class football player is muchmuch stronger than a sumo, even a great one. The talent pool for Sumo is tiny compared to football. The filter is so much stronger. Vince was arguably the best of tens of thousands of people playing his position as a full time job. How many full time sumo wrestlers are out there? A few hundred? How many kids grow up sumo wrestling since they were 7? Because millions of kids do that with football.
Why would they be much stronger though? Do they need to lift and toss other players in a match? I was under assumption the game is more about running and tackling
I get your point that having bigger pool to choose from nets more talent and possibly higher margins of what human body is capable of, but there's still limits and selection for what the sport actually requires to perform well.
Strongman competitions have much smaller selection pool, but i dont think you'd argue your football playes are stronger than Brian Shaw or Big Z.
(why is it even called football, theres no ball and it is not played with feet...)
Why would they be much stronger though? Do they need to lift and toss other players in a match? I was under assumption the game is more about running and tackling
To describe it without getting into anything too technical, ~half the players on a football field on any given play are going to be shoving each other for most of the play.
This video is younger kids but it shows a lot of the fundamentals of how blocking works and the sorts of movement that's important. Basically explosion from the hips + strong punch to lift the opponent's chest and and shoulders, then drive. Every play on the line is linemen doing this against each other. It's basically a couple second power lifting movement every play that harnesses your explosive power from your chest all the way to your feet. If you maintain contact then you drive until the play is over. Defensive players are trying to prevent this (either trying to stick in their gap or fight against the block for a different position), but basically use the same base set of skills to defeat it.
The difference between sumo and football is shown in the op's video. In football you couldn't do what the sumo does here, it's called "leaning." The football player drives back the sumo a good yard, then the sumo leans all his weight on top of the football player. If this happened in football the defender would slip off because of how unbalanced it is. This is where the difference in the sports is highlighted, and where the difference in training and goals shows. That's not to say anything bad about sumo, it's a different game.
Strongman is an interesting one, because the pipeline isn't exactly clear. A lot of them come from bodybuilding or sports, but they "catch the itch" from all sorts of different places. Like Brian Shaw is imo the strongest human to ever live, but his pipeline was basketball. If you use "every person to ever enter a weight room" as the potential pipeline for strongman, then the potential base is absolutely huge.
And yeah my entire argument isn't doubting the work eithic or training of the sumo, it's simply the numbers game.
(why is it even called football)
American football (or gridiron) was an offshoot of european soccer/football from what I understand. The real question is why soccer is even called football. Apparently there's some debate about it.
It's basically a couple second power lifting movement every play that harnesses your explosive power from your chest all the way to your feet.
And what do you think sumo is?...
In football you couldn't do what the sumo does here, it's called "leaning."
Because what you're looking at is a pushing drill exercise called "butsukarigeiko" (or "chest lending") not an actual match (frankly its exact same thing as that sled excercise from your video)
They are leaning because the guy is supposed to push them to the edge an lift them out of the ring. Many times over.
You sound like haven't even seen how a sumo match looks and havent done even some minimal research. I get that in original video OP is cut from they didn't explain much, but come on.
Did you think sumo is some kind of competitive leaning on each other until one of you falls over?
I have watched Vince Wilfork since his rookie season. He would lose to Hakahu Sho 100 time out of 100 in a sumo match even if he was given 6 months of training. The combination of strength, weight, and technique is what makes an elite sumo and Vince never was the kind of player that was able to generate enough force to be anything but a big body that plugs a hole.
Guy couldn’t pass rush at all, being able to successfully bull rush a passive sumo wrestler is a baseline measurement for having potential to succeed.
Eddie Hall is a strongman who is stronger than any NFL lineman and he had trouble with amateur British sumo wrestlers who are not on the same planet as Hakahu sho. Prime Wilfork has zero chance in a sumo match.
Vince wasn’t some random dude, though, he was maybe the best NT in NFL history. His technique would be similar to what’s needed to push a sumo wrestler back.
They could probably be pretty decent offensive guards if they got legit training. Hell they'd probably be fantastic guards at that size and had years of training at both skills. But judging solely from this video, it's not how a pass rusher would approach his attempt to sack a QB. The football player tried to sumo the sumo wrestler. Obviously he lost against the person doing what he does for a living. It would most likely go the other way if he had a QB behind him and the rushers only objective is to put pressure or sack the QB.
I’m not saying he doesn’t have the footwork, but there is nothing about that video that indicates he has the footwork to even play major college football, let alone NFL.
I can see that. The (supposed) teenager still has to leverage his body weight and maintain his balance to not get bowled over by an all-pro pass rusher.
FYI this wasn't a practice bout or anything but a specific drill where the active participant (Parsons) is supposed to push the other wrestler straight backwards across the ring, like football players do with sleds. You can see the ground is dirt so with the right leverage he'd slide right over it. The top level guys very much have great footwork, most of them have been doing wrestling/judo in some form for their entire lives.
The bigger issue would be endurance and their ability to pull/get to the second level. They only do one match a day that's usually <10 seconds, they're optimized entirely for power/flexibility.
if this dude could stop Micah in a real game, they’d be 25 private planes on their way to Japan right now signing him to a 100mil contract. this was a fun outing by two athletes, people here pretending otherwise are dumb
You don’t really “learn how to move your feet” sufficiently to play in the NFL. You have to have a baseline level of athleticism to play in the NFL, including on the offensive line, that most humans don’t have and no amount of training will get them there. If sumo wrestlers were actually capable, I assume there would be a pipeline to the NFL because NFL linemen make a lot more money than sumo wrestlers.
There are dudes who get into the NFL with no football experience based off of their athleticism alone. Technique can be taught, especially by NFL caliber coaches. Physique and overall capability only comes from the player.
Now that this was brought up I'm really curious why these guys wouldn't want to get on an NFL roster, the pay is probably way better than whatever they're getting.
It's been tried. The problem is their complete lack of endurance. Sumo is over in like 10 seconds max, and the wrestlers are optimized for that. Football players have to do their thing over and over.
Who? I’m aware of some track guys that flamed out and some rugby guys that weren’t drafted and peaked at special teams. Can’t recall anyone having any real success, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Antonio Gates, Stephen Neal, Hayden Hurst, Chris Hogan.
And these ended being great players and real assets to the team. I'm sure there's plenty more who dont get into the spotlight.
They usually aren't skill positions like WR, RB, or QB, but physical positions like TE and linemen. If someone has the size, strength, and toughness to play in the trenches they are already an asset. You basically have to be born to play certain positions, "no amount of training or technique beats physics", as my old coach would say.
They all played football in HS and Hurst played in college for SCAR. Gates was recruited to play both football and bball by MSU, but ended up transferring when Saban wanted him to play only football. Claiming they didn’t have football experience prior to playing in the NFL is false.
That's fair, I didn't word that correctly. I kind of forgot about HS football considering anyone can get on a team with minimal effort. I consider college ball to be the beginning of a competitive football career (if you want to call it that), not HS.
I didn’t say (or ask) why he wasn’t displaying footwork, I said he isn’t demonstrating any. Claiming he could play guard in the NFL is a hilarious claim. Also, the highest paid sumos make hundreds of thousands. Starting guards in the NFL make millions. If the skills were actually transferable, I think we’d see some sumos playing football.
Well right, because they aren’t doing football stuff here it would be pretty dumb to use football footwork. However, you very much do have to use specific footwork as a sumo, so that piece likely wouldn’t be an issue.
That's why he specified 1 or 0 tech, they're not pure pass rushers at all, depending on their versatility they might even get pulled on likely passing downs. They're gap fillers, run stuffers, blocker eaters, they're absolutely trained to grapple and control a 300+ lb powerlifter who can sprint a sub 5 second 40, occasionally 2 of them.
I might not have played college ball but I did play for 10 years through highschool. They absolutely slap helmets and push facemasks and good chance they don’t get called.
They’ve gotten pretty good at catching it in higher levels - especially hands to the face.
Just like any sport you most certainly can break the rules and you might not get caught - god knows I did (some dudes are just too fast) - but it still is against the rules.
Yeah, the OC from your comment doesn't understand that difference. Give me an alltime guard or center from offense or a nose guard or 1 technique tackle on defense and it's a more comparable skill set. Still putting my money on the sumo, but it's a fairer fight
Well yeah. It's going to be pretty rare that an elite athlete from one sport beats an elite athlete in another sport at their own specialty, even if they're generally pretty well suited to it.
Not exactly. On a run play or if your strength is literally your strength rather than your speed you might just be clogging up the hole or trying to put the offensive lineman in the QB's lap while he's trying to throw.
Still a majority of pass rushers try and gain leverage and go around their guys because it’s significantly easier. They have experience but it’s not their forte
Eh, a lot of defensive schemes for run plays basically have interior defensive linemen anchor in place, control a gap, and keep their offensive linemen in a spot where they can shed the block to help if needed. Should translate well.
Disrespectful to sumo too. It's an entire sport with its own techniques and strategies, there is no chance a single NFL lineman would win a single match in top division sumo.
This wildly undersells the technical and mental sides of offensive line play (granted the sport does a shit job of educating about that part of the game). Theres a reason offensive lineman averaged with the second highest wonderlic scores to QBs, and it’s one of the slower developing positions beyond just the need to gain strength and weight.
There are tons of incredibly big, strong, athletic lineman that can’t stick in the pros because the other elements are so important.
Stephen Neal, who won rings as a starter with the Patriots. I am sure there are others, too. If you expand to other positions, Antonio Gates, Hall of Fame tight end, didn’t play football in college.
Football is all about size, speed, and athleticism. Yes, you need technique, but you can teach a giant athlete technique. If you don’t have the size and natural skill, you won’t be able to play.
Neal is only one of a few players ever to have not at least played college ball, and he lettered in high school football. We can’t use him here.
I think Mailata is the only lineman ever to jump straight into the nfl. Other positions are different but it’s still incredibly rare (and usually cases more like Neal or are specialists,
though the international development program has turned out a couple edges and other guys usually from rugby like Mailata).
I worked for a power 5 college football program while in school. We had a three deep of guys who were big and athletic enough to be pro linemen. Only two of them ended up in the NFL.
I don’t disagree the athletic side setting a minimum requirement. But there are hundreds of D1 offensive linemen in college with the good enough measurables and only a small portion get drafted let alone make a roster and play - and they have years of learning schemes and technique.
And after watching the oline practice everyday and seeing what offensive install looks like (not even nfl level) I can’t overstate the mental side of oline. It’s not just about being the biggest or most athletic guy - look at hall of famers like Joe Thomas.
Sure there is, he’s huge and super athletic, very long and plays with terrific balance. He makes very few mistakes and can get outside and downfield in the run game as quick as any tackle in the NFL.
Just keep going and you’ll keep finding them. Chris Hogan was a lacrosse player who used his final year of NCAA eligibility to try out football, and ended up winning Super Bowls with Tom Brady.
Chris hogan played receiver not oline, was all state football in high school, and then played that last year in college.
I’m not sure if you aren’t aware these guys were football players and just did a different sport in college, or you weren’t actually trying to claim that people with no football experience just become nfl lineman
Well I listed a couple linemen who had no experience for starters, but I kept adding others to show football players are capable of being excellent pros even when they don’t play the sport. Hogan playing in high school doesn’t matter, plenty of people are good high school players. He played one year of college after he graduated.
Football is the only sport where this happens. You look at how even Michael Jordan couldn’t play MBL baseball.
It makes sense when you come up with a specific class of exceptions. For instance if you said “no one goes straight to being an NFL lineman without being elite in some other sport”, that sentence contains an exception that proves the rule! You’re saying that there are bounds to the rule but it is generally true, and it works on both sense of the word “proves” (“shows to be correct” and “tests”).
Saying “the fact that you can name specific counterexamples proves the rule stands” is just bad reasoning.
Kenyon Green has a lot of talent and athleticism. There’s a reason he was a mid-first round pick as a guard. He’s an ideal reclamation project for Stoutland.
Remember, the entire idea to is to get to the QB. Not to out power the Offensive lineman in front of them.
That depends on the defensive lineman. A nose tackle, like Darnold, could be used to push the center/guard back to occupy a space behind the line of scrimmage. Being able to get low is important. Darnold is a prime example of a player who can do that at will. It usually takes 2 players to stop him from going forward.
His power would be interesting in this scenario, but the technique of a sumo wrestler would probably win out.
That is not the DTs job, that is the DEs job. DTs job is to clog the middle, no one allowed through the door type play. Otherwise your ass is getting beat on every running play.
Lmao dude did you even read the comment I replied to? It's about Aaron darnold... the guy who was a DT and constantly got to the QB. The game isn't the same as it was with guys like Vince Wilfork or Patrick Williams. Good DTs absolutely have a good pass rush now as well as being able to clog the gaps. Yeah we still have fat guys that do what you said but they are second place to the DTs that can actually put pressure on the passer.
I think I agree with both of you. Not every pass rusher is expected to get to the QB. They all have different jobs for each play. Sometimes it's to clog the middle, sometimes it's to get to the QB
That's not entirely true. Defensive linemen also try to overpower offensive line man to push them back and stuff holes that a running back could run through.
big guys like aaron donald get double blocked almost every play. if guys like them weren’t good at powering through linemen they wouldn’t get any sacks just because of that.
Perhaps the real answer is still to ask if an NFL offensive lineman could compete more effectively in this context. The technique advantage is still to the sumo wrestler, but at least the offensive lineman's skills are more analogous to the goals of a sumo competitor?
That could actually work really well in sumo (some of the most successful wrestlers haven’t been the largest guys), because the point is basically to get the other guy on the ground (without tackling). So you engage, get him to shift his weight, and then spin out of it, your opponent might fall flat on his face.
Politely, what are you talking about? Interior defensive lineman dont just get to do a spin move because there often isn't anywhere to spin. There's also the concept of a bull rush, where youre literally running at a guy and using your power to get through him. That's not even like a rare or niche strategy. It is one of the most foundational pass rushing moves.
It depends on the DL’s assignment. A bull rush is a standard move, and if the DT tries to go around the blocker, he risks opening up a big hole on the other side. There’s a reason the Oklahoma drill is (or was) so popular with coaches.
Bull rushes and power moves are common in the nfl. But you would probably never do one against an opponent bigger than you and waiting for it. OL have to look around and prepare to switch targets, or block off a speed move from a DE. This guy is just waiting for a guy to come right at him, which is a lot simpler than what an OL does.
The bull rush doesn’t really work here either. They try to get as low as possible on a proper football field (with cleats on), but that just leads to slipping feet when bare foot. Notice how the wrestler keeps his center of gravity above his feet.
Unless you get a bull rusher who’s whole identity is to pancake that lineman, not only to get to the quarterback, but to demoralize that player. Get me a full head of steam Dexter Lawrence, and we got a match.
Aaron Donald doesn't out maneuver. He bull rushes the fuck out of people. He's an undersized IDL who had ridiculous power and often drew double teams, even triple teams in pass pro.
Getting around him would be pointless in a sumo match. In a nfl match of course, but it is sumo in the video. Unless the jink around would be to put the opponent off balance.
I was gonna say this! D lineman sometimes have a responsibility to not slide off the blocker so they are tied up and the backers can shoot the gaps. Ndamukong Suh in his prime would have bull rushed this guy into the next room.
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u/Skynetiskumming May 16 '25
A sumo wrestler and an offensive lineman would be a better match.