Modern MMA fighters that will get the most CTE

[Desji]

CTE is a proggresive neurodegenerative disease. You can't get more or less CTE? If you have it, you have it, and it will keep progressing until you die.

I guess the volume and severity of head trauma could affect the speed of the decay, but I don't think that's a given if you look at the studies that have been done?

People can get rapidly spreading CTE from a single head trauma while others spend their entire life taking shots without ever developing CTE.

Obviously taking more shots increases the risk of developing CTE. But it seems to be more rolls of the dice rather than affecting the severity.

 

[philcrow]

Max was the 1st one who came to mind. Anyone with a great chin that eventually goes away but they keep fighting later in their career and then suffer ill effects from it.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Many fighters and camps now do what they can to limit head trauma. It isn't 2000's Chute Box Academy training regiment.

Double edged sword. Guys need to spar more to develop functional defense and actually be able to put their strikes together. Sparring is the most integral part of development for striking by a large margin, you can taper off serious sparring to just fignt camps after a certain again/level for sure and do more technical work. You see this Japanese prospects who cant move their heads and under pressure spam the same strikes...they probably look good and technical on bags and pads but have no hours of legit sparring and are just exposed and underdeveloped.

CTE is complicated and seems to be largely genetics. Some people will have serious complications for a single or few concussions, others can have many with no real effects even into old age.

 

[spinup]

CTE is a proggresive neurodegenerative disease. You can't get more or less CTE? If you have it, you have it, and it will keep progressing until you die.

I guess the volume and severity of head trauma could affect the speed of the decay, but I don't think that's a given if you look at the studies that have been done?

CTE is an extremely controversial topic in neuroscience. It's very poorly known and understood, and so far, it can only be diagnosed after death.

People can get rapidly spreading CTE from a single head trauma while others spend their entire life taking shots without ever developing CTE.

We do not know that, and it's virtually impossible to point a single head trauma as a cause of CTE.

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

It varies depending on the person and how their brain reacts to it.

 

[Changeisinevitable]

CTE is made in the gym. These guys are lucky to fight 20-30 times but spar weekly. It's the gym heroes that walk away with the most damage.

 

[Changeisinevitable]

Dan Hooker has been in a lot of wars and I reckon he's got a few more to come.

Agreed. Dude seems pretty cooked already!

 

[Deleted member 609094]

Emmett, Gaethje, Bryce, Strickland, DDP, Max, Dustin, JDM, Hill, Khalil, every HW

Every HW. 90% - agreed.
Tom barely gets touched.
Same with that French guy I can't remember.

 

[Pequeño Corey]

I'm really concerned about Frankie Edgar and Darren Elkins

Frankie got CTE from the 2nd Grey Maynard fight. If you count, he got dropped, fell, or panic shot like 6 times altogether. Dude was getting pummeled.

 

[Qays Stetkevich]

In his younger days, Frankie had unique style with darting footwork (a bit like Cruz) that avoided damage. That ended as he almost got KO'd by Maynard in their last 2 fights then started to age and slow down. He fought until he was 41 at LW and FW, which is pretty crazy. A few others have done that, but they didn't face the same level of competition.

Yup. Edgar's strength of schedule and durability were insane. . . but it's always sad when the last several fights of your career you look like a ghost of your former self, yet his competition level remained high, so he got toasted over and over.

 

[arcadeperfect]

Overeem was lucky that his brain would immediately shut off at the sign of any trouble which saved him from a lot of damage I reckon even though he's been finished in many comically brutal ways, but I'm surprised the Francis KO didn't leave him speaking Botswanan after waking up.

Here's hoping that they figure out more efficient ways at treating it.

Crazy thing about Overeem is that he's been KO'd 19 times in his career, 4 times in KB and 15 times in MMA. Fought at LHW and HW against some of the heaviest hitters in the history of combat sports and he's still one of the most well spoken fighters and English isn't even his first language.

 

[arcadeperfect]

Western Boxing is the absolute worst because of the fight length. Bar-none. And I say Western Boxing because Muay Thai and Lethwei are short, comparatively speaking.

It's actually kind of stupid. The head trauma a professional boxer takes in a single 12 round fight is staggering. And for what reason? To go to a 12 round decision even though EVERYONE knows who's going to win by the end of round 5. Yes, there are exceptions, but they're actually quite rare.

That's not even factoring in the damage these guys take in sparring, which is what fucked Mickey Rourke up so badly.

I remember when the Conor/Floyd circus was in full swing and an interviewer asked Jim Lampley what he thought Conor's chances were against Floyd:

And I quote:
"Conor McGregor has spent a total of 21 minutes on his feet in his last TEN fights. He's about to go 36 minutes in ONE fight against Floyd Mayweather."

In terms of sheer brain trauma, Western Boxing is unparalleled. The reason we occasionally hear about deaths in the boxing ring, and almost NEVER hear about it in MMA, is because some of these boxers are rolling into round 8 fully concussed, and possibly bleeding in the brain.

The irony of Muay Thai is you would think it would have more brain damage, but adding kicks actually takes away some of the damage to the head. Kicks are used to the legs and body to soften guys up and score points from a safe distance. Since it's a frequent tactic, you don't get those wild brawls where guys take a shit ton of head trauma.

 

[Trabaho]

Overeem and Arlovski sound clear

 

[Brather]

Crazy thing about Overeem is that he's been KO'd 19 times in his career, 4 times in KB and 15 times in MMA. Fought at LHW and HW against some of the heaviest hitters in the history of combat sports and he's still one of the most well spoken fighters and English isn't even his first language.

Yep, his recent JAXXON interview shows him speaking pretty smoothly.
Another one that doesn't seem to have any speech issues is BJ Penn, even though he has more important issues going on lol

 

[joy2day]

CTE is kinda rarer in MMA because they take way less damage to the head than boxers. I know people want to point to Tony Ferguson and Diego Sanchez, but they were crazy mfs before and their change can be just attributed to aging.

I'm surprised so many people can't see the CTE that many fighters clearly have. There is a long list of fighters that sound markedly different when they talk than they did when they were younger- pretty clear signs of cognitive damage.

 

[joy2day]

CTE is a proggresive neurodegenerative disease. You can't get more or less CTE? If you have it, you have it, and it will keep progressing until you die.

There is a big difference in the severity between different athletes, but it does have to do with the damage level. The studies on dead football players showed this clearly- high school players had some CTE, college players had more, and NFL players had the most. Longer exposure to repeated head traumas.

What most MMA fans get wrong is in thinking it is all about bad KOs, when the opposite is true- repeated small head traumas make up more damage than the KOs.

 

[wufabufa]

Kattar is gonna have some problems. Jonathon Goulet has be in dangerous territory after all those ko losses. You look at the dude weird and his chin cracked.

 

[spinup]

The irony of Muay Thai is you would think it would have more brain damage, but adding kicks actually takes away some of the damage to the head. Kicks are used to the legs and body to soften guys up and score points from a safe distance. Since it's a frequent tactic, you don't get those wild brawls where guys take a shit ton of head trauma.

It's a bit compensated by the fight that Thai boxers fight every week since they are teenagers, while smoning and drinking.
But yeah, western boxing is another level of crazy.

 

[arcadeperfect]

There is a big difference in the severity between different athletes, but it does have to do with the damage level. The studies on dead football players showed this clearly- high school players had some CTE, college players had more, and NFL players had the most. Longer exposure to repeated head traumas.

What most MMA fans get wrong is in thinking it is all about bad KOs, when the opposite is true- repeated small head traumas make up more damage than the KOs.

Football looks absolutely ridiculous even at high school levels. I saw a clip of Vitor's kid playing:



The amount of damage from that sequence alone is absurd. Why the hell would any parent sign off on this? At least with combat sports there's ways to avoid and mitigate damage.

 

[Superzorro]

There is a big difference in the severity between different athletes, but it does have to do with the damage level. The studies on dead football players showed this clearly- high school players had some CTE, college players had more, and NFL players had the most. Longer exposure to repeated head traumas.

What most MMA fans get wrong is in thinking it is all about bad KOs, when the opposite is true- repeated small head traumas make up more damage than the KOs.

There are tons of different factors. Some of them are impossible to quantify like the damage you take in sparring. And then, even something as small as hitting the heavy bag can cause your brain to shuffle around. But what a lot of fans aren’t considering is the fact that genetically, some people are more resistant to the adverse effects of CTE. Others are extremely predisposed. So from our perspective, it might as well be random who suffers and who doesn’t. Like for example, if you look at recent interviews, Floyd Mayweather’s starting to sound punch drunk and he pretty much started the whole defense first philosophy in combat sports. We know he didn’t take hardly any damage in fights.