Rettinghouse got off his stool and answered the bell for the fourth round. No one stopped him; he’s a professional fighter, and like most others is probably far too tough for his own good. He fought for 10 more minutes, hopping and scooting and doing whatever he could to survive to the bell. The ringside doctor and the referee, supposedly there to protect the fighters, and the people in Rettinghouse’s corner, who presumably know him and care about his well-being, all decided that this was OK. This was not OK.
Moraes, who seemingly could have turned up the pressure and put the fight away, seemed truly uncomfortable. He coasted through the final rounds, playing it safe and looking almost disconcerted. The announcers lauded Rettinghouse’s Do You Want to Be a Fucking Fighter Warrior Spirit. One of them may have even nominated a 50-44 mauling as a possible fight of the year contender.
What’s more disturbing than the fact that this happened is that it happens all the time. This wasn’t even all that bad, comparatively speaking. Fighters in similar situations are often even less able to defend themselves, and frequently take far more blows to the head.
Mixed martial arts has a problem, a fundamental defect for which doctors and referees, coaches and corners, promoters and announcers, and journalists and bloggers and fans are all responsible. It needs to change.
Fighting is inherently dangerous. We’re obligated to mitigate that danger as much as possible. We’re doing a piss poor job.
Last week, the American Journal of Sports Medicine published a study on head trauma in MMA. There were a lot of problems with it—knockouts don’t work as proxies for brain injury nearly as well as the authors would like them to, they came to a totally unfounded conclusion about the relative safety of boxing and MMA, etc.—but as a descriptive document, it was unnerving.