Sports

Cardinals’ Fitzgerald says MMA fighters are tougher than football players

Larry Fitzgerald plays one of the most grueling and demanding sports in the world. But the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver says from a physical standpoint, football is “not even close to MMA.”

“Fighters are the toughest, hands down,” Fitzgerald told SI.com’s Loretta Hunt. “Their livelihood depends on how they can take a punch and throw one. There’s no other job like that, besides boxing. They’re as mentally tough as they come. Our game is different: you don’t have to worry about getting punched and kicked.”

Fitzgerald, one of the top players at his position in the NFL, is a huge MMA fan. He told Hunt he has been to seven or eight UFC events in person, went to Japan to see PRIDE shows and has even caught some Thai boxing competitions in Thailand.

And he’s hardly the only Cardinals player to enjoy the sport.

“Coach [Ken] Whisenhunt is pretty cool about it,” Fitzgerald said. “He orders the [pay-per-views] for us on Saturdays, as long as it’s not after we have to be in our rooms for curfew. He watches them with us. There’s usually about a good 20-25 of us watching in our dining hall. No beers are cracked, but every guy has his favorites and cheers them on. Every summer, there seems to be a UFC pay-per-view on during our first weekend of camp, so we rent out a restaurant and about 40 of us go over, enjoy some non-alcoholic beverages and food, and watch the fights there.”

Fitzgerald also does MMA workouts in the offseason like many NFL players. He told SI that he does hand work, foot quickness, ladder drills and some of the in-ring techniques “to make me quicker and more explosive with my feet and in the hand battles I have to get into on the line of scrimmage.” He called the cardio of MMA training “fantastic,” but he doesn’t do sparring – he doesn’t want to get hit.

“It’s one of those things I admire from a distance,” said Fitzgerald, who said he’ll never make MMA a second career. “I’ve watched [former UFC heavyweight champion] Frank Mir break down grown men with leg kicks and thought that’s probably not where I should be. I’ll stick to my side of the cage.”

Fitzgerald doesn’t think MMA is “too far away” from hitting the mainstream. At any rate, he’ll remain a major enthusiast. He is friends with UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta and has trained in Fertitta’s personal gym.

“The UFC is the best; watching those fights up close and personal and getting to know some of those athletes over the years, I have a really great respect for the way these guys train, the way they work, the way they compete,” he said.

He says the preparation is “much, much different” than football.

“These guys are the best in the world,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m a big supporter.”

mraimondi@nypost.com