UFC on FX 8: Belfort v. Rockhold (May 18)

[cowboyronnie]

The death thing isn't proportionate though, right?

I read there are dozens of boxing deaths each year, whereas there have been less than 10 mma deaths I think (and all but one or two of those were unsanctioned). Are there really that many more boxing matches? That would be surprising to me.

A lot of those deaths are in boxing sparring, under God knows what conditions. I'm sure there's a 100x more boxing sparring that anything that could be called MMA sparring, so that's a factor.

[cowboyronnie]

I'm by no means an expert on this subject, but I'd have to conclude that MMA is safer than boxing. I mean, look at Dan Henderson. He started fighting in 1997, he's had 38 fights against the deadliest fighters in 3 divisions, and he's still as charismatic as ever, and he's still fighting. GSP and Anderson Silva have been fighting against the best for a long time and they're still going strong and they're both going to star in movies. Nick Diaz has actually improved his speech since starting his MMA career. And Chuck actually sounds coherent when he's sober. Listen to his interviews about Glover.

Now whether that's due to shorter rounds, knockdowns, smaller gloves, or something else, I'm not sure.

Also, isn't there evidence that playing in the NFL is significantly worse for a person's health than fighting in the UFC? Or is that just UFC propaganda? I know that the average career of a running back in the NFL is less than 5 years.

!!!

[AussieBuck]

Part of the reason why I didn't get into MMA earlier was seeing a guy take 3-4 unconscious punches in a fight with a lousy ref. (Don't remember the fight now) I've come around though on comparative safety, as long as the ref is competent secondary concussion seems to be far less of a danger than in boxing.

[cowboyronnie]

IDK, I think talk is that those blows to unconscious are less dangerous that someone getting their brained effed up a minute in, with some acute trauma, and then continuously for the next 14 minutes as the brain swells.

People who follow football must know about this stuff. Secondary concussions and the danger of being put back in the game.

[REDDzone]

Part of the reason why I didn't get into MMA earlier was seeing a guy take 3-4 unconscious punches in a fight with a lousy ref. (Don't remember the fight now) I've come around though on comparative safety, as long as the ref is competent secondary concussion seems to be far less of a danger than in boxing.

Oh give it up. We all know your interest in mma begins and ends with one George Sotiropoulos.

[NO-KG-AI]

I don't have a comprehensive answer. Thoughts:.

(BTW, please don't enter this discussion if you're just quoting Joe Rogan c. UFC 40s...)

-It's swelling or bleeds over a period of time, still being beat on, that is most dangerous, right? This is why 15 rounders have stopped in boxing. Considerably more risk in those final 11 minutes. 15 rounds x 3 minutes + 14 single minutes between rounds...That's 59 minutes for the brain to swell and sustain continued beating. It's increasingly more dangerous with every further round, as damage is damaged is damaged. MMA fights go max 29 minutes, of course. But those are exceptions, they're almost always just 17. That's a big difference in terms of safety. 47 versus 17.

-MMA punches do more soft tissue damage than boxing, which spreads out the impact. MMA blows are sharper. My grasp is that spread out impact means absorption by the spine rather than tissue.

-You don't get hit nearly as much in a MMA match, simple as that. You can't hang in boxing range because single punches are too damaging and - just as significantly - you don't have nearly as much surface area in your own guard to block punches. You have to be much more elusive. It's probably on the minimal side to eat 25+ jabs and 10+ power punches in a 3 minute round in boxing. Punch after punch after punch, adding up, reaching a potential crisis point if the brain starts to swell.

I was thinking about this the other day, boxing knockouts might not always be as flashy and brilliant as MMA, but the sustained beating you take over a long period of time is so much worse. A big part of it is that people are just more willing to take a shot with boxing gloves on.

[REDDzone]

That is the narrative. But I tell you, someone recently did a study on this and concluded that there was no evidence (as of yet) that mma was any safer than boxing. I'm off to dinner now but will try to find it later on. I think the undergound blog did a review on it at one point.

[Bernman]

Yeah, while I think the theories and reasoning of people like CBR is very interesting and there's logic to them, the reality is you can go back and forth into ways in which one could be safer than the other, and we'll only really know when a good sample of mixed martial artists are elderly and/or dead. Right now it's such a new sport, still. The dinosaurs like Severn, Mo Smith, Tank, Ken, Royce, etc.; are like late 40's to early 50's. Even a guy like Frank Shamrock, who was in it practically since the beginning, is still 40 today. We can only tell so much from eye tests at these ages. And there are lucid boxers around those ages after long careers. Look at Mike Tyson. He's smarter now than when he was fighting. The fighters participating in MMA today are still guinea pigs.

You can bring up how in MMA a typical publicized fight is about half as long as in boxing, and fighters who would be finished in MMA would be allowed to get up and continue in boxing. But the flip side is in MMA because there's ground fighting involved refs will rarely stop fights on the feet (see Warren-Curran) and fighters can take numerous hammer blows post knockout/concussion (see Munoz-Weidman), plus throughout the duration of an MMA fight guys take un-cushioned blows sometimes with as heavy and long of an object as a leg (Cro Cop-Wand), and in boxing there are shorter fights early in careers where in MMA it's basically all 15 but now 25's are becoming much more prevalent too with all UFC main events lasting that long. Then what about mixed martial artists who are choked unconscious, sometimes to the point of seizures. Of course long periods of time without oxygen is known to cause brain damage. How about continual short periods throughout lifetimes to the point of causing unconsciousness? What reason would scientists have for testing it outside MMA/BJJ up until now? Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation freaks? We only know a singular, run of the mill event, doesn't cause long-lasting, obvious neurological symptoms. But that is the case with concussions too, previously leading to false conclusions they don't cause long-term damage in conjunction with other concussions and aging, yet of course they found out that conclusion was false through numerous posthumous brain examinations.

It's impossible to have a whole lot of hard or even compelling anecdotal evidence right now. And we can't use logic to say one combat sport is obviously safer than another, like we can do with a combat sport like MMA vs. a non contact like cheerleading, which is obviously less dangerous unless you use very convenient criteria. Dana keeps on pounding away and pounding away in the media, to portray MMA as relatively safe, until it becomes a well accepted truth, based on the one-sided arguments of a man who stands to gain more from the belief than just about anybody in the world.

[REDDzone]

What fights had guys seizuring from being choked out? Don't necessarily doubt it, just curious, and never heard that. Would like to research this topic.

[AussieBuck]

IDK, I think talk is that those blows to unconscious are less dangerous that someone getting their brained effed up a minute in, with some acute trauma, and then continuously for the next 14 minutes as the brain swells.

People who follow football must know about this stuff. Secondary concussions and the danger of being put back in the game.

I've got nothing concrete to back it up just going on the punch a fighter never sees coming being the one that does the most damage and there's no bracing for a punch when you're asleep. Left hooks always got me the worst as a lefty always looking for the straight right. Bro science I know but I'm running with it for now.

[AussieBuck]

Part of the reason why I didn't get into MMA earlier was seeing a guy take 3-4 unconscious punches in a fight with a lousy ref. (Don't remember the fight now) I've come around though on comparative safety, as long as the ref is competent secondary concussion seems to be far less of a danger than in boxing.

Oh give it up. We all know your interest in mma begins and ends with one George Sotiropoulos.

I did love the G-sot's little run but my wife and I actually got into MMA from an obscure late night highlights/old fights show. It was Anderson Silva who converted us for good.

[cowboyronnie]

IDK, I think talk is that those blows to unconscious are less dangerous that someone getting their brained effed up a minute in, with some acute trauma, and then continuously for the next 14 minutes as the brain swells.

People who follow football must know about this stuff. Secondary concussions and the danger of being put back in the game.

I've got nothing concrete to back it up just going on the punch a fighter never sees coming being the one that does the most damage and there's no bracing for a punch when you're asleep. Left hooks always got me the worst as a lefty always looking for the straight right. Bro science I know but I'm running with it for now.

It's horrifying and surely really not good. I know it also turns a lot of people off of MMA, I hear it explicitly - guys getting hit when already out.

[REDDzone]

There was a guy on the Bucks board. Super old and out of touch (on every topic), ranting and raving about how society has gone to hell - as old bitter folk tend to do.

Anyway, his evidence of this was how the sweet science was being replaced by a brutal sport where you could punch opponent's after they had already fallen to the ground.

Again, I'm not a hater at all. I think boxing/mma/nfl are all super brutal. But to pretend like one is disgusting and to love the other is just idiotic.

[SDM]

Hockey too especially the useless fights. Up here, folks have no problem with guys taking KO shots without helmets and then falling like a sack of potatoes to the ice for no f'n reason. Well, not all folks, but certainly a large enough portion don't want to see fighting--by two untrained guys-- removed from the sport.

But MMA is a non-starter. "Too violent". "I wouldn't want my kids doing that".

[Bernman]

What fights had guys seizuring from being choked out? Don't necessarily doubt it, just curious, and never heard that. Would like to research this topic.

Kim Couture was one guy.

[REDDzone]

The weird scissor choke thing? I know she spasmed a little, but how do you know she seizured? I googled it but didn't find anything. IDK much abotu seizures, but I thought the brief convulsing was to get the blood/oxygen flowing again, don't think that all convulsion = seizure but could be wrong.

[AussieBuck]

There was a guy on the Bucks board. Super old and out of touch (on every topic), ranting and raving about how society has gone to hell - as old bitter folk tend to do.

Anyway, his evidence of this was how the sweet science was being replaced by a brutal sport where you could punch opponent's after they had already fallen to the ground.

Again, I'm not a hater at all. I think boxing/mma/nfl are all super brutal. But to pretend like one is disgusting and to love the other is just idiotic.

It will be a hard argument to make once we get enough studies out. "Sure my sport turns guys into zombies after an average 10 years but yours does it in 8!! Ban it!!"

[SDM]

Even then, what if a MMA fighter never drives a car and walks everywhere, takes transit, or uses a plane vs. a football player who drives super fast in a sports car to the corner store. Just being in the car is a 9x risk of death... speeding doubles it... driving reckless doubles that... there's risk in everything, unless you walk everywhere, don't apply deodorant, and only use speaker phone.