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What is the toughest sport in the world? It is a question that has been asked for a long time, and with the new NFL season starting and the Rugby World Cup underway, the age-old debate about which sport is the toughest in the world once again rages.

But football and rugby are not the only tough sports out there.

We take at look at the most brutal and unforgiving sports around, counting down to the toughest sport in the world. Forget about wild fan claims; it's time to get scientific.

After careful consideration we have come up with six different categories that make a sport tough: speed, endurance, strength, agility, skill level and physicality.

Forget about the "my sport is tougher because we get hit harder" argument; this slideshow looks at sports that really are the toughest in the world. Toughest to play, toughest to compete, toughest on the body.

Each sport is given a rating out of 10 for all six attributes, and then the six scores are added together to give a final "toughness rating" out of 60 for each sport. The higher the rating, the tougher the sport.

Using this method we can finally answer the much-asked question, "Which sport is the toughest in the world?"

What you are about to see is real toughness.