I’m worried how some fighters, such as Lytle, will fair in time…all we can do is wait and see.

Stuff like this is exactly why the “stand and bang” phenomenon is so troubling to me. MMA should hypothetically be less dangerous than boxing due to the grappling aspect, but some people seem to not want it that way.

There’s so many less strikes in MMA than boxing. And from what the article says, much less than what you get out of a football game. It’s a concern, but it seems to me that the risk of that sort of brain damage would be considerably less in MMA than either boxing or football.

While this obviously wouldn’t ever actually happen, perhaps they should institute weight caps for NFL players. Like you have to be less than 200 lbs or less to play.

Some gyms straight bang it out daily.

Although sparring is essential to bring concepts together and refine timing, I think a lot of well-meaning teams place too much time and importance on “sharpening iron with iron” with little to no regard for actually addressing the technical shortcomings of the fighter.

I can’t help but think of fighters like Pete Sell and Terry Martin while reading this.

I love MMA, but it’s potential long term damage like this, and other negative effects, that I’d rather see refs err on the side of caution. I’m all for letting a fighter have a chance to regain his composure, but I’d much rather see quick stoppages than not.

Also, I am sick of this idea that you have to stand and bang in order to be exciting. There are plenty of fighters that are exciting on the ground. Not only are we watching bad kick boxing, but there’s increased risk of head injuries. I’d like to see the UFC start awarding Fight of the Nigh honors to bouts other than your typical brawl.

They recently had this discussion on talk radio in Chicago, and concussions are really now being studied and found to be at the biomolecular level. You can pass all the tests to be re-instated to play your favorite sport, but in reality… at a biomolecular level, you’re probably FAR from being ready to play again.

Same applies to MMA.

And here’s a video with cool graphics explaining it

Hopefully the stand and bang philosophy will die in years to come

Head injuries scare the crap out of me. I get disgusted when a fighter is on the canvas, out cold and his opponent is dribbling his unconscious head off the mat. (maybe its easier to take an unconscious shot because your body doesnt tense up, the reason so many drunks walk away from horrible accidents)

The second shot in the Henderson Bisping fight is one that disgusted me. Dan said after the fight that it was to shut him up (dont know how much truth there is to that) but its the type of undefended shot that can snap a limp neck back. Look at how hard Teblow was hit. I see shots like that in MMA all the time. He didnt even go out and he was out for 2 weeks. Some of it is the culture of these fighters. When more money is at stake they will take more better care of their bodies and go get the proper test and treatment as opposed to getting sloppy drunk like Bisping did.

Does a KO mean a concussions? Ive never heard anyone talk about that. Also, I think the time between concussions plays a major role, and age. Real sports on hbo did a segment on it awhile ago.

I appreciate the time u put in, it shows, great job

Scott Smith doesn’t even remember his fight with Benji Radich. Then Nick Diaz tattooed his head with punch after punch for 3 rounds a few months later.

This is a good post, but more studies need to be done on the MMA angle. There are significant differences in the sports in the kind of hits and frequency. In football, as the example points out, you’re taking multiple hits in practice and bone-crushing hits in games once a week. In fighting, even if you stand and bang like Lytle, it’s 15 minutes of hits once every 3 months, and much lighter, infrequent hits during sparring. This may mean MMA fighters face less risk of repetitive sub-concussive injury. For the sake of Lytle and others, I certainly hope so.

The “cumulative effects” part of the above article is troubling. I wonder if maybe a fighter should only be allowed a certain conservative number of knockout losses before he is not allowed to fight anymore. I guess it depends on how many and how bad the knockouts are. But, i’m sure there is some sort of knowledge about this, like “after 5 KOs a person starts to change…for the worse” or something like that. Maybe that should be the limit for MMA fighters.

Just a thank you to woomike for pointing out that Lytle has a real ground game that he never seems to use. Easy to forget after so many KOs.