You need toughness to get through life; and you need toughness to get through a basketball game.
Yao Ming and Shane Battier aren't big talkers. But when it came down to business against the Lakers in Game 1, they were two of the toughest guys on the floor.
I won't get into how tough the Houston Rockets as a team are, because I've done it already, but when you're pouring blood from a gash over your eye after you got elbowed as if you were in a UFC bout but unfazed, or begging your trainer to let you go back in the game after banging knees gave the entire Rockets Nation a scare, that's tough.
I've always been a huge Yao Ming fan, and became a big Battier fan recently (although I've always respected him) after reading Michael Lewis' New York Times article. But after watching these two step it up in Game 1 against the Lakers, I'm moved like never before.
If toughness is your cup of tea, I suggest that you follow the career of boxer Miguel Cotto. Cotto is an elite, talented fighter, but true cojones are what stand out about him. He doesn't talk a lot of trash and respects his opponents, but when he has to, as his uncle and former trainer Evangelista and most recent opponent Michael Jennings found out, he will beat your ass.
To end, true toughness can be deceptive. Just-retired boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya may have been a pretty boy who lost his share of fights, but never did he duck an opponent, nor did he ever not leave everything in the ring. Only a body blow by a bigger Bernard Hopkins or a merciless pounding at the hands of the pound-for-pound king and all-time great Manny Pacquiao could knock Oscar out of a fight.
That, my friend, is true toughness.
Original Story:
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