Is MMA safer than boxing?

[FlyingKimurabar]

I don't know enough about the intricacies of either to make an educated comment. However, there is always this to consider:

I think we should stick to regulated MMA. Since we are comparing it to regulated boxing.

 

[FlyingKimurabar]

How many MMA fights were there in that year? How many boxing matches in that year?

Yea the sample size isn't even remotely comparable.

 

[jx820]

Everyone is talking about brain damage, and this is probably the biggest concern by far, I agree, but I wonder about the danger to the neck from guillotines and slams to the ground. I did a quick search and found the following article. I had never heard of this incident. I wonder how rare serious neck damage is?

Medical Beat: Fighter's recent paralysis underscores dangers of standing guillotines
By: MMAjunkie Staff June 1, 2012

http://mmajunkie.com/2012/06/medical-beat-fighters-recent-paralysis-underscores-dangers-of-standing-guillotines

MMA does have a few of it's own signature injuries. Ruptured testicles, slam related injuries, and broken shins come to mind, but those are largely freak occurrences.

If you see something like that once a year it's a lot. In the UFC I can only think of 1 guy who suffered serious injury to a slam, and 2 broken shins.

It is a real risk worth avoiding where possible, but one so minute as to hardly be worth worrying about. It's akin to broken knees in football. Those things will happen, but they shouldn't be expected.

 

[MC Paul Barman]

I don't know enough about the intricacies of either to make an educated comment. However, there is always this to consider:

Charles' Jr sponsors human koch-fighting?
I'm burning some of these coupons RIGHT NOW.

 

[jx820]

How many MMA fights were there in that year? How many boxing matches in that year?

You're not good with sarcasm I take it.

No matter what we do we'll be comparing apples and oranges. We can't get a clean 1-1 data set.

 

[tenniswhiz]

In boxing, if a guy even stumbles a little while getting up, the ref calls the fight.
If the ref doesn't like the look in a guy's eyes, fight is over.
If a guy gets knocked down 3x in a round, it's over.
If a guy stands covered up and doesn't return fire for a few seconds, it's over.

Contrast that with all the MMA fights where one guy got rocked, stumbled around clumsily for a half round, and took excess punishment.

By boxing standards, Gray Maynard would have one decision and two TKO victories over Frankie Edgar.

 

[RafailNadull]

You're not good with sarcasm I take it.

No matter what we do we'll be comparing apples and oranges. We can't get a clean 1-1 data set.

Yes, we can. What's the average death rate per fight? That's a relevant metric (an even more relevant metric would be health damage per fight, but that's hard to measure).

 

[58miles]

Boxing is far more dangerous than mma because the only way to win in boxing is by punches(usually to the head). In mma there are multiple ways to win that have nothing to do with punches.

 

[MilesAbove]

You're not good with sarcasm I take it.

No matter what we do we'll be comparing apples and oranges. We can't get a clean 1-1 data set.

My point is the sample size of MMA isn't large enough yet. They're also doing all they can to cover up deaths and sherk the dangers.

I work with fighters. I see the damage done, even on young guys. "safer" is a term that shouldn't be used until we have proper data.

 

[Monkey Pride]

Who cares about boxing only argument u need is this, and it's true: MMA is safer than American Football.

 

[RafailNadull]

Who cares about boxing only argument u need is this, and it's true: MMA is safer than American Football.

Is it, though? Also, NFL is a lot more rewarding than MMA.

 

[58miles]

My point is the sample size of MMA isn't large enough yet. They're also doing all they can to cover up deaths and sherk the dangers.

I work with fighters. I see the damage done, even on young guys. "safer" is a term that shouldn't be used until we have proper data.

The best data is just compare the damage suffererd by all time great boxers vs all time great mma fighters.

 

[PivotPunch]

I remember having the realization a few years back that in terms of long term brain damage football is almost certainly worse than MMA. Concussions pile up similarly, but football involves a lot more subconcussive damage; players are hitting each other at speed with their full weight on every play. The numbers coming out of autopsies on NFL players are staggering, with over 90% of players showing permanent damage from repeated brain trauma.

That made me feel a lot better about MMA and a lot worse about football.

If they made autopsies on MMA fighters they might very well find the same damagfe or even worse I don't see how it makes you feel better about MMA it should do the opposite.

 

[jx820]

Yes, we can. What's the average death rate per fight? That's a relevant metric (an even more relevant metric would be health damage per fight, but that's hard to measure).

That is true only:

• if you consider periods of equal maturity in the sport,
• if all fights considered are sanctioned in the same way where there can be some level of confidence in the licensing, match making, and officiating
• if there is sufficient pre-fight screening or autopsy evidence to rule out preexisting conditions that occurred outside the practice of the sport
• if each respective sport was contested under a consistent version of it's own rule set.
• if a complete data set of fights matching those criteria is available, or can be put together.

If you can't do that (I certainly can't or won't commit the effort, and I'm a pretty good researcher), then it's apples and oranges I'm afraid.

 

[Monkey Pride]

Is it, though? Also, NFL is a lot more rewarding than MMA.

Yah it is. And This isn't a discussion about how rewarding a sport is.

 

[Se4n]

Both are dangerous.

 

[laugh@u]

They're JUST as dangerous as the other. People only try to make the argument because they're bias. The fact is, people always compare the competitions to each other, but the real damage comes from the training, and when you look at that they're equally damaging.

 

[tasticles]

I think it depends a lot on the fighter.

Some fighters can go a long career without taking too much damage, whereas every boxer is going to get hit in every fight and in sparring. Some MMA fighters don't like to strike and are good enough to generally avoid striking damage.

But in general, the typical boxer will absorb more punches, but with dampened force. MMA doesn't dampen the force. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, honestly, because while they may get KO'd easier, is a KO really any better than getting hit 50 times without a KO?

All I really know is that concussions will fuck you up.

Those boxing gloves are designed to protect your hands from breaking, not the person you are punching. If anything it is worse because you can punch harder and more reckless without fear of injury. Some boxers have such good defense they only get tagged a few times per fight but as a whole I think boxing is going to be worse because they can fight much more often and tend to absorb more head shots since they can't grapple.

 

[BluntForceTrama]

Great thread topic. Definitely debatable.

Boxing is often times sustained damage over a much longer period of time.

MMA is super dangerous because hard elbows, knees, and balls of feet can be used to do some serious head trauma.


Heres a quandary I often remember. You often hear about MMA fighters never being the same after a certain bout they have. David Louiassa after Rich Franklin is one. There are MANY examples of dudes in MMA like this.

You don't really hear this happening in boxing too often. They're more damaged after a long series of fights. But so is MMA.

So if my first premise holds true about one time catastrophic damage, then of course MMA is more dangerous.