Mixed martial arts, MMA

[hessyniebla]

Hey guys and girls,
Having trained in martial arts from the age of 9, i now train in mix martial arts, this is incorporates grappling (judo, roman-greco wrestling), and striking (boxing, thai boxing, Tae Kwon Do and others). Although i train at amateur level i still see a few repeated injuries which i would like to attain if they are synonymous with MMA participants or occur in other sports, such a football etc!


I would like to attain an idea of what medics think of the sport?
The Ultimate Fighting Championship http://www.ufc.com/ has become a popular sporting franchise, and MMA is becoming one of the fastest growing sports world wide.
The BMA want to ban sports such as boxing,( http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/BoxingPU) based on research of head trauma sustained during fights, however with this ban on boxing, there would be pressure for MMA to be banned. However due to the different style of fighting, i.e. in boxing there is sustained upper body, head contact resulting in head trauma, eye injuries and potential to promote other serious health conditions

This is not always true in MMA, where is the opportunity to grapple and therefore remove the amount of sustained head contact, which would other wise occur in a boxing match. There are other ways to win in MMA, such as submission i.e. a joint lock, therefore reducing the incidence of head trauma.

This is something i'd like to research to confirm whether MMA is a safer sport than boxing or to provide some more guidance to the BMA and the UFC in terms of its real morbidity potential!

It would be cool if you guys would give me yor opinions
Cheers Hessyniebla!

[Shujaat]

UFC & Pride is not safer than boxing! repeated knees, elbows to the head until the opponent is knocked out? check silva vs quintin jackson. in Pride you can kick them on the head while the opponents on the floor! In boxing or K-1 once the opponent falls down the judge gets in the way and lets him get up. In ufc, as soon as your opponent is down, you pound on them for a knockout.

but even then i think ufc is a sport that requires enormous amount of skills, because those athletes have to be able to counter any style of fighting, and at the end of the fight they always have respect for the opponent. the ufc is well regulated, so their fighters do it for the sport. the less regulated tournaments that occur can involve criminal fighters.

just saw this: South Korea boxer dies after bout
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/7167435.stm

i think in ufc the gloves that they wear has far less padding than boxing gloves.

[Dr Noodle]

My house mate does MMA...it doesn't sound any safer! He's very tough yet he's often come home with injured shoulder/arm/neck so much so that he can't train for a few weeks after. Grappling is fine, I used to do it myself in Aikiwa Jitsu, but it's a striking form as well and apparently some clubs put more emphasis on the strikes and barely cover grappling.

[hessyniebla]

I think Pride is the very extreme of MMA,in terms of the rules and there are even worse competitions. Referring to Silva vs quiton jackson , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazyoSzuGWU even though he was kneed to the head repeatedly, he still had the opportunity to take his opponent to the ground ( a defensive tactic), and thus prevent the repeated kneeing, there is not an equivalent technique in boxing apart from the clinch or hug, but this imposes a point penalty,but this does not occur in UFC.

The problem i think with the "10 count " in boxing and perhaps in K1 is that the referee is allowing continual reintroduction into a situation where there is progressive head trauma. However in the UFC the refereeing has improved, if a player is unable to defend themselves the referee will intervene even before a KO. So i don't think it is a bad as the earlier UFC tournaments were, they have spent a great deal of time with the American Sports Council in order to improve safety etc.

As for the MMA gloves, there is less padding due to the necessity of grappling, however even in boxing the gloves do not dispel much of the force of the punch.

[Dr Noodle]

Head trauma isn't the only problem. You could damage your spleen etc.

[hessyniebla]

yeh defo about the internal organs, but the main area of contention for the BMA is the head trauma

[Dr Noodle]

Are you a girl? Just wondering what it's like for girls training in MMA. I was going to go but chickened out. Apparently the girls at Seamus' club don't last long.

[hessyniebla]

no im not a girl, hessy is a nick name, is derived from Jesús, im spanish so its pronouced he-soos

[kofi]

i think MMA is a street brawl in a cage, so its dangerous, but i like watching it

[Dr Noodle]

I was basing that assumption on your picture I doubt you'll see many street brawlers clinching their opponents or locking their joints effectively...