Is UFC Safer Than Boxing?

If only the answer were as simple! MMA is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world but it has yet to reach global prominence and moves at an evolutionary pace owing to the monopolistic nature of its prominent promotions.

Boxing, on the other hand, has been around for ages, with the first recorded fight being dated to 1681. So, the data at best, is disproportional. But according to studies, while MMA has a higher rate of injuries, they don’t necessarily carry the severity of boxing.

Conor McGregor‘s leg break cost him almost 3 years, Chris Weidman went through a similar injury and his leg will never be the same again. But as of right now, these are still considered freak accidents. What makes MMA seem more visibly violent is the inherent nature of fighting and the tools at the fighters’ disposal.

The Fighting Styles

Knees, kicks, elbows, shoulders… a competent wrestler can take anyone to the ground and punch and elbow them repeatedly to the face, causing swellings, hematomas, and bleeding, which makes for a visual spectacle and more often than not gives the appearance of one having gone through a car crash.

Boxing, on the other hand, has bigger gloves, and once the opponent is knocked down, there is no ground and pound to make it worse. Besides, boxers can only use their hands, which makes the offense limited. It’s easier on the eyes and hence, better for public perception.

But, that also has its drawbacks. Unlike MMA, a major part of which is ground game, grappling, wrestling, and submissions, boxers have the option of either body shots or headshots. Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson claims he never saw Muhammad Ali ever throw a body shot in his career of over 60 fights.

Headshots are the best way to finish fights. A great one would knock someone out cold, while a good one would knock them down. A

This allows the referee to count to 10 and if the boxer survives and gets up, they can go a few more rounds of getting punched in the head, which further causes damage to the brain.

KOs and CTE

According to Jordan BD’s Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury Associated With Boxing study, approximately 20% of pro boxers develop a chronic traumatic brain injury (CTBI) during their careers, and up to 40% of retired professional boxers have been diagnosed with symptoms of chronic brain injury.

Ali, quite simply the greatest of all time suffered from Parkinson’s for years. He died at age 74 in June 2016 and the doctors who who treated Ali for more than 20 years provided the evidence to support a diagnosis of young-onset idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. While the lack of an autopsy prevented them from establishing causality, they noted that head trauma was a known risk factor for the illness.

According to the ‘Mortality resulting from head injury in professional boxing’ case report, there were 339 deaths in professional boxing between 1950 and 2007.

Another ‘Neurological consequences of traumatic brain injuries in sports‘ study claims knockouts are the most common causes of acute neurologic injuries in the sport and cause approximately 10 boxing deaths per year.

Getting hit in the head generates a torque rotational force, which transfers to the brain, causing it to swirl around and smash against the skull, which causes impaired cerebellum and damage to brain stems, resulting in dizziness, lack of balance, and forces the noggin to reboot.

That’s the biological explanation of how a knockout works. Doesn’t sound very good, does it?

While boxers or MMA fighters do eventually recover, and go back to fighting, those with long careers are known to suffer prolonged consequences of the post-concussion syndrome, which eventually leads to Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known in the common tongue as CTE!

Now, none of this, and this is important to note, is limited to boxing.

It’s not just boxing…

Mixed martial artists get punched more than their fair share. But as mentioned before, it’s still a new sport. So the available data, while enlightening is also grossly limited.

According to Bleacher Report, statistically fewer mixed martial artists get knocked out than their boxing counterparts. While 7.1 boxers suffer from unconsciousness, that number is limited to 4.2 for MMA fighters.

However, that data is subject to change.

MMA has its own risks, and with only a fraction of the financial reward that boxing offers, things go from alright to dire, faster than a Khamzat Chimaev takedown.

Shane Carwin and the  Le vs. Zuffa anti-trust lawsuit

Earlier this year in September, the UFC agreed to pay $375 million to settle an old class action lawsuit. While fighter pay and wager theft are important discussions to be had, the lawsuit revealed something else- the deadly consequences of MMA’s high life.

50+ fighters declared the reasons they were suing the UFC and cited the injuries they had sustained while being employed by the company.

Former interim UFC heavyweight champion Shane Carwin admitted the harrowing reality of his life post a career in MMA and claimed that he was suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury while noticing symptoms of both TBI and CTE.

I have been unable to maintain adequate focus to hold down an engineering job. I face serious challenges in meeting basic everyday expenses for food, shelter, and transportation and in basic life skills necessary to function.

Carwin was not alone. Former middleweight fighter Wanderlei Silva also admitted to feeling the effects of both above-mentioned illnesses.

Perhaps, this ought to solidify the need for better and more comprehensive studies of brain injuries in MMA, because it’s not boxing’s ‘gentrified’ cousin as we have been led to believe.