Muay Thai and kickboxing know tragedy, too. Dennis Munson, a Roufusport athlete, had a March 28 fight in Milwaukee in which he reportedly looked unsettlingly lethargic and clouded in the third round. He was taken to Mt. Sinai hospital, where he passed away later that night. (Roufusport has started a memorial fund to help his family.)
And despite the soundbites you may have heard, people have died while competing in MMA. It started with fighters taking part in unsanctioned events; the first known and most highly publicized was Douglas Dedge in 1998. It has continued with fighters in sanctioned events including Tyrone Mimms, Michael Kirkham, and Sam Vasquez. Most recently, we lost Booto Guylian after a fight in Extreme Fighting Championship Africa.
Beyond that, and again despite the prevailing public relations spin, people who have competed for the Ultimate Fighting Championship during the past 20 years have most certainly been the victim of serious injuries. What other word would you use for Frank Shamrock knocking out Igor Zinoviev with a slam that also obliterated his collarbone and ended his career? How would you categorize Cal Warsham taking a knee against Zane Frasier that broke his ribs, collapsed a lung, and put him in a hospital for a week? How about Corey Hill and Anderson Silva shattering their legs?
And then there’s the head trauma. It’s downplayed a bit because he also endured a punishing kickboxing career, but Gary Goodridge, a participant in several early UFC events who later appeared in Pride Fighting Championships, is suffering from obvious, serious symptoms of dementia pugilistica. Current UFC lightweight contender T.J. Grant is dealing with persistent concussion symptoms, and has put a previously promised title shot on hold while he recovers. Fighters like Nick Denis, Mac Danzig and many more have chosen to retire from the sport due to concerns about how their body was reacting to blunt head trauma. There’s plenty of unverified speculation about the altered speech patterns and behavior in many aging fighters; over time we’ll discover how many of our worst fears are justified. If excellent pieces like this one by Matthew Stanmyre are representative, and we accept what common sense and basic observation make readily clear, these problems are not at all isolated.
Some of the danger involved in professional fighting is intrinsic to what it is. It’s possible that even in a utopian world of perfect regulation and officiating, smart training, less dangerous weight-cutting procedures, and safe-as-possible rule sets and equipment, MMA would still cause deaths and grave injuries. This is something that everyone who is in any way involved with the sport is left to grapple with. There are still aspects of the risk that are very much in our control. If we pass on opportunities to make a barbaric sport less barbaric, it really isn’t much better than human cockfighting.