I've been training, fighting and now teaching for a very long time. If you really want to stay healthy, then you eat right and train moderately doing boring ass, cardio shit and some strength, at a fitness gym. While doing a sport that involves getting a lot of head trauma (as well as body trauma), then that's going way overboard for the health incentives that you pointed out while risking a shitload of other problems. Just about every BJJ brown belt and up that I know, who've competed at least 10x, have had knee surgery, .....some more than once + back problems, etc. And this is just BJJ only, not even close to full MMA yet. The brain was not designed to take head trauma for sport. That's why over time, it programs itself to shut down faster. It also programs itself to enjoy getting hit in the head, so you know it's bad for you but you still want to keep doing it to get that high.
Hopkins, Foreman, etc....sure, there are people that can handle it. But that's their passion in life and there are huge incentives for them in doing so. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to pay the price in my 70's from getting my head cracked for sport & still doing it.... and I'm getting paid nothing. But it's still not healthy.
Now I'm only entertaining what you're saying b/c you're not a little bitch like the other guy.....so that's why I'm clarifying, which was....I never said that MMA (nor other combat sports) is a guarantee to give you brain aneurysm and/or kill you. I didn't even say that this Fighter (RIP), died b/c of MMA.....just that getting banged up in the head often as a full time profession, certainly didn't help and probably contributed to it. That was all I was saying.