Presumably that youth players often rise to the full team when very young (I think Walcott got in at 16?) but no woman has. And then we can look at their relative level of competition to see if it's just bigotry
Why dont more MMA fighters get to those powerlifting numbers?
Opportunity cost. MMA fighters also have to be technically skilled and have a gas tank and be at the best weight for their professional prospects . All of that takes training time and conflicts with being as strong as possible.
And at a certain point height does just matter. Jon Jones comes from a family of athletes. MMA fans joke that he's actually the worst performing of his entire family. He has a horrible vertical and just can't seem to put muscle on his legs. But he had the perfect body type for light heavyweight because he was a great wrestler and out-ranged everyone. Daniel Cormier was an Olympic wrestler and he couldn't get past the height difference to take Jon down.
And maybe that is the other thing: MMA simply doesn't attract top talents as easily as other sports. Jon Jones - one of the greatest of all time - is essentially a fuckup who ruined his wrestling career which is why he jumped into MMA so young.
Even in that fight Halmich got caught in a grapple.
Most realistic version of the Hollywood fight is (a taller) Black Widow kicks him in the leg until he can't fight back. Never Back Down did it and it was perfectly cinematic (and accurate), it just isn't as cool as acrobatic jiu-jitsu.
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