Hardest Sport in the World Ranked with Top Tough Sports

Is water polo more grueling than Australian Rules Football? Does boxing deserve to be ranked ahead of rugby when it comes to the top 10 hardest sports in the world? Anybody who questions the physical toll of playing hockey, just check out the injury updates of star players once their team is eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

If you want to bet on your favorite sports, check out the BetUS sportsbook.

Ranking The Toughest Sports To Play

Rugby/Australian Rules Football

Let’s group them together because there is little to protect players from bone-jarring hits. It seems like a flag will be thrown if a player in the NFL even considers hitting a quarterback with a running start. There is no such protection in rugby or Australian Rules Football.

When ESPN was just starting, one of its staples was Australian Rules Football. The physicality of the sport has to be seen to be believed. No helmets or shoulder pads are protecting the players.

The collisions as players try to score in both sports can be brutal, making them among the toughest sports on earth.

Boxing/Mixed Martial Arts

There was a time when it seemed like not a year would go by without reports of a death in the boxing ring.

One of the more well-publicized deaths took place in 1982 when Kim Duk-koo died four days after his fight with Ray Mancini. In 1995, fighters from three different countries died after a boxing match.

Limiting boxing matches to 12 rounds is one move to protect the fighters. However, it is still one of the most difficult sports, with two people trying to knock the other’s head off.

The increased popularity of no-holds-barred mixed martial arts competition brings the risk of serious injury and perhaps even death.

Water Polo

Treading water for a water polo competition is not the easiest of athletic feats. Try doing it when chiseled 200 or 250-pound physical specimens were trying to stop you from advancing with the ball.

Water polo ranks high in endurance compared to other top sports worldwide. It is one of the hardest sports in the world.

Eleven of the 12 competitors with at least four Olympic men’s water polo medals hail from Hungary and Serbia. The United States has won medals just twice in the last nine Olympics, so the sport hasn’t caught on quite as much as in other parts of the world.

Ice Hockey

You can watch the hitting in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and try to find another North American team sport that matches that.

The league has tried to legislate head hits out of the game, and even fighting is frowned upon more these days than in the NHL’s glory days.

Violent hits still have their place. The Florida Panthers used a physical brand of hockey to win the 2024 Stanley Cup title.

There are no reports of shoulder, elbow, knee, or ankle injuries. Upper-body injuries and lower-body injuries are the two categories of injuries. That results from players going after a specific body part if that information were released regularly.

One of the most unbelievable sports records is Wayne Gretzky’s career assist record, which will probably never be threatened.

American Football

Much like hockey, those running college football and the NFL have tried to protect their players in a violent sport. Targeting penalties (especially in college) can result in an ejection. It is one of the ways that American Football is trying to distance itself from the brutal hitting that helped it gain popularity.

Research shows that kickoffs result in a large number of injuries, so changes to the kickoff rules seem to occur annually.

Hardest Sport in the World FAQs