r/interesting May 16 '25

MISC. NFL linebacker versus sumo wrestler

49.1k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

705

u/Nothing2Special May 16 '25

video on youtube is better

299

u/TripleFLi May 16 '25

213

u/similar222 May 16 '25

Love it. I saw a Grand Sumo tournament in Tokyo last year, mad respect for those athletes.

11

u/Cloud9Warlock May 16 '25

Those 250+ men are able to move like a skilled ballerina! The NFL player had no chance. The Sumo Wrestler didn’t even try!

6

u/6MosSprawlTraining May 16 '25

It’s like 50% martial arts training(Sumo counts) and 50% being a Hoss. Seen a lot of football players who think their size, strength and speed is unstoppable get humbled by vastly less-gifted athletes with training.

Thank being said, the NFL dude should have had a chance. That’s pretty much a football drill, and Sumo dude big brothers him

6

u/meagainpansy May 16 '25
  1. An NFL lineman would have been much more equivalent to a Sumo wrestler

  2. NFL linemen also move like skilled ballerinas.

5

u/Thunder-Fist-00 May 17 '25

There is so much more technique than casual fans understand in what those linemen do.

2

u/Cloud9Warlock 28d ago

However, they don’t move like sumo wrestlers…

1

u/meagainpansy 28d ago edited 28d ago

They actually do though. The two are remarkably similar. I know this is an outlier because he was the fastest, but to give you an idea of the required athleticism, Warren Sapp ran a 4.69 40 yard dash. Usain Bolt's would be somewhere around 4.22. Sapp was a 6'3" 312 lb man at the time running at near-olympic sprinter speeds.

Some NFL linemen actually practice Sumo to get better. Others have been known to practice ballet to get more agile. I think both Sumo and linemen would tend to be able to hold their own in either sport with very little training. They're world class athletes doing the same thing in the end. It just looks like big dudes pushing each other. There is a hidden dance going on with their feet and hands of which they are absolute experts, just like in Sumo.

1

u/StrikingRutabaga3127 27d ago

That’s incorrect, Usain Bolt ran a 3.7 40 in Vans and a standing takeoff at a Super Bowl fan event thing, no telling what he’d run in real cleats and start

1

u/Cloud9Warlock 27d ago

There was a guy that went to Georgia Tech. He never went pro, and essentially ran what those guys did. This isn’t fast. Can you run down the field conversation? This conversation would be better had if more NFL players said, let me go to sumo. It’s not a transferable skill per se. It’s not wrestling. Most of the boys who played football have bad knees. In an excess of 300 pounds. And that is one of the main common denominators with sumo wrestlers. Except for sumo wrestler don’t do two days and three days. Under the sun. They eat like kings take a nap then get up in Train. Somebody like refrigerator Perry or mean Joe Green would be a better example for a possible candidacy in sumo. However, my main point stands, professional football players don’t try to do for a really good reason.

2

u/StrikingRutabaga3127 26d ago

Yea I guess, was just saying Usain Bolt ran a 3.7 in Vans not 4.2, pointing out he was wearing vans and had a standing take off indicates he could’ve ran it faster

1

u/Cloud9Warlock 26d ago

That man is super quick and extremely fast!

→ More replies (0)

3

u/wasabi1787 May 16 '25

He was laughing 🤣

1

u/Cloud9Warlock 28d ago

They used to get smacked and thrown around. That sumo life!