Boxing is the toughest sport, according to ESPN panellists -

Boxing is the toughest sport in the world according to a dataset by ESPN which was published on October 26th 2023.

Eight panellists ranked sixty different sports across ten skills such as endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, nerve, durability, hand-eye coordination and analytic aptitude with boxing having the highest average score.

Each skill was ranked out of ten and the panellists' responses were totalled and averaged out before arriving at a degree-of-difficulty number for each sport on a 1 to 100 scale, providing a value in the context of all sixty sports tested.

Endurance, strength, power, nerve and durability proved to be most crucial in boxing with respective scores of 8.63, 8.13, 8.63, 8.88 and 8.50.

Meanwhile, skills such as speed, agility, flexibility, hand-eye coordination and analytic aptitude were scored lower in boxing with respective scores of 6.38, 6.25, 4.38, 7.00 and 5.63.

The average score for boxing was 72.375 compared to 71.750, 68.375, 67.875 and 63.500 respectively for Ice Hockey, American Football, Basketball and Wrestling.

And professional boxer David Rajuili was unsurprised that boxing was voted the toughest sport.

“I would say it’s the toughest sport, I’m a boxer obviously. But I think if you ask a rugby player or an NFL player, ‘What’s the toughest sport?’ they would say their sport is tough.

“As a boxer, everyone is different. But the work, the grind, what you have to put in to get out. All sports at elite levels are tough. But in my opinion boxing is the toughest sport out there.”

On the opposite end of the scale, fishing was deemed the least demanding sport with a score of 14.500, slightly lower than billiards, shooting, bowling and curling which had respective scores of 21.500, 24.875, 25.375 and 27.500.

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About Daniele D’Alessio: Dan is an aspiring boxing journalist currently studying for his NCTJ qualification. Over the last few years Dan has written hundreds of articles for websites such as GiveMeSport, Sportskeeda and WorldInSport in addition to conducting several interviews with professional and amateur boxers.