As the UFC pushes Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) into the mainstream, an age old question remains: Why Is MMA safer then boxing? The major premise behind the argument has always been that unlike boxing, in MMA, there are more avenues to success compared to hitting your opponent. Highlighting the apparent, there are less painful routes to victory, therefore making some losses in MMA less damaging on a fighter’s body and brain. The Unified Rules of MMA make it feasible for an MMA fighter to win a bout by judges’ decision or by maybe submitting their competitor. The resulting idea is that MMA athletes suffer fewer traumatic injuries and the chances are lessened that they may become jaded drunk. However, proponents of boxing are always quick to point out the smaller gloves employed in MMA and also the fact the rules allowing for leg strikes and elbows. Therefore”it is time” to have a comprehensive look to both sides of the argument. Prior to getting into the thick of this debate, I’d like to highlight one of the important reasons I chose to write this report. Shawn O’Sullivan, a retired fighter that I have met many times, resides in my mind. On paper, his life seems like a success story. However the actual truth is his boxing career killed his odds of having a successful life after his career was finished. A brief documentary about his story can be found below.Many would believe O’Sullivan’s career marginally illustrious as he had been the 1981 World Amateur Champion, 1981 Canadian Athlete of the Year and 1984 Olympic Silver medalist at light middleweight. Also many consider his gold medal bout against Frank Tate very controversial as it appeared like the fix has been in. Despite scoring two standing 8 counts at round two the judges given that round to Tate. Upon going expert, he found himself fast murdered in 1988 with failed comebacks in both 1991 and 1997. Shawn’s overall record of 23-5-0, together with 16 knockouts passed him by without reaching his dreams of competing in a world title bout. Following four more fights in 1997, a neurologist refused to renew the permit he needed to continue boxing due to brain injury that he saw during a CAT scan. Now, O’Sullivan is living with the difficulties of brain damage, but he does not regret his career in boxing. Throughout my many discussions with O’Sullivan, he almost always slurred his speech also had problems remembering parts of his lifetime. Sadly, his ability to share his story is all he has to show for his famous career. But, that’s hindered as a result of the culmination of blows to the head that he suffered during his boxing career. O’Sullivan suffers from fighter’s dementia, commonly known as being”punch drunk” caused partly as a result of the fighting style and gruelling sparring sessions at the gym. If you’d like to see what I mean, take a few minutes and see his bout against Armando Martinez. What remains untold to many, and something that highlights the relevance of this article is that O’Sullivan was pushed into boxing with his first coach: his dad. Rumors are his father was letting his son spar against heavyweights and even bigger men as part of the everyday reality check for O’Sullivan. As parents, an individual may feel uncomfortable recommending your kid partake in any battle sport out of the fear of their long-term consequences. So signing up your child to either boxing or MMA training could become a question of which can be safer? Is there a possibility that you could help select the lesser of 2 so-called evils. Until recently the entire debate behind MMA is safer then Boxing was completely theoretical. There remains to be little scientific facts and findings to support the claim. The University of Alberta’s Dr. Shelby Karpman led a review of more than a decade’s worth of health care exams from approximately 1,700 fighters in Edmonton, Canada. According to the study, Fifty-nine percent of MMA athletes sustained some form of harm, compared to 50 per cent of boxers. However, boxers were more likely to eliminate consciousness in a bout: seven percent versus four percent for MMA fighters. Irrespective of the facts to as which sport is safer, ” The Canadian Medical Association has called for a ban on both MMA and boxing. By highlighting a 2014 University of Toronto study revealed an MMA fighter suffered a traumatic brain injury in nearly a third of specialist spells. It’s not my aim to cast doubt onto the protection of a sport, nevertheless both boxing and MMA have experienced instances of deaths which are well recorded. Lately a MMA fighter died due to complications reducing weight. John McCain, who once labeled the sport of MMA”human cockfighting,” sat ringside at the 1995 boxing departure of Jimmy Garcia. But, very few serious life threatening injuries in MMA come to mind because no one have occurred on its primary point. A fighter’s death inside the Octagon hasn’t occurred and hopefully it never will. But it’s something which has to be in the back of everybody’s mind once we see fighters getting knocked out lifelessly. Rendering a competition not just defenceless but unconscious remains to be the title of the struggle game whether it’s MMA or Boxing. That is where a fighter’s fanfare, bonus cash and continuous hype derives. UFC President Dana White declared MMA that the”safest sport in the world, fact.” The idea that MMA is the most popular sport in the world is mad. Tennis, golf, track and field, swimming… Are all”safer” sports because they lack head trauma all together and pose little risk of death. Touting up security should include a duty to fully study the effects of your game. The construction on what will be known as the UFC Athlete Health and Performance Center begins this shortly and will take 15 weeks to complete. Next to medical insurance for training accidents, this can be MMA’s next most important step towards taking on more of a top role in sport security. With that said, Dana’s end game is that Scientific study will eventually brand MMA as a”safer” alternative for battle sport athletes compared to boxing. However, it might just further the sport’s inverse relationship. As MMA increases in popularity, boxing’s visibility at the national understanding continues to fall and it is easy to finger stage. It also can not be stressed enough the first generation of fighters are just getting out of this sport within the last few years. Science has a remarkably small sample dimension to check at with respect to aging MMA fighters right now, although UFC originals such as Gary Goodridge are already feeling the effects. We probably still need a couple more”generations” of fighters to retire and grow old to get an actual feel for the effects of the sport on them as they age. And by that I mean boxers who have had to compete with other high level athletes, not boxers who were the very best of a sport that was very much in the developmental stages. Fighters like George St Pierre, Demetrious Johnson and Ronda Rousey are unlikely to face any longstanding consequences of brain injury primarily because of their runs of dominance as well as their capacity to prevent substantial damage. Johnson recently stated on the Joe Rogan Expertise that”There is not enough money in the entire world for me to risk brain damage” Johnson, like many other educated fighters, knows that taking too much damage in his profession will hurt his longevity both inside and outside the game, and that’s why he’s so conscious of his safety in the Octagon. Maybe that’s the main reason he’s never lost consciousness from the Octagon. In any scenario, it’s difficult to use findings of the past to determine the security of the sport now. So much always changes inside the sport of MMA that trying to compare between eras is essentially the exact same in attempting to compare completely different sports. Perhaps then a better approach isn’t to examine the sport’s past, and rather on its present as time goes on. The argument as to which game is safer due to the glove size is moot. The quantity of punishment a fighter chooses over their career is individualistic and highly dependent on a fighter’s style. The most important selling point as to why MMA is safer than boxing is truly the glove size. The boxing glove has been created to guard the hands, not the individual being punched. However MMA practitioners argue that they utilize the bare minimum in hand defense. Any debate surrounding how a hand will crack before the head is not exactly the most appealing strategy to advocate for a safer sport. The same holds for the standing eight count. Arguing that allowing a concussed fighter to continue in a fight after being knocked down only furthers brain trauma. In MMA we witness a lot follow up punches after a fighter is left unconscious — maybe equally damaging to permitting a boxer to continue after getting devastating blows. There are many factors in determining the devastation of a landed punch–out of technique to time, to whether or not the recipient saw the punch coming–which it would be almost impossible to determine at a live game which glove size could have caused the most harm. What’s more, there are quite a few different rules and elements that deciding on which game is safer. The average period of a Boxing match is generally longer then that of an MMA fight. There are many factors that are individualistic into the fighter. I’d love to declare each sport equally as dangerous, but until further research is completed, one can’t create such a statement with much confidence. The inherent risks in the sports are intrinsically connected. The ability of a fighter to achieve longevity in the game is more dependant on the skills of the fighter themselves their various sports parameters independently. Generalizing that is safer with no scientific proof to support such a claim remains to be a matter of opinion.
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