Is MMA dangerous?

Short answer yes it is.

But the detailed answer is far more nuanced.

Asfar as I am aware there hasn’t been any conclusive study on life expectancy within MMA purely because the sport is in its infancy. That’s to say MMA has only been around 35yrs. A significant amount of fighters that began in the late 80s and early 90s are still around today.

However there was a study into the life expectancy within boxing along with other disciplines such as football and it found that Boxers could be expected to have a 5 year short life span compared to the average human. All the other sport disciplines showed an extension of life span so there could be a correlation between the style of sport (and trauma suffered) and a shortening of life span.

Similar findings may be found when reviewing MMA in the next 30 years. However I am not sure it will be the same as Boxing because although MMA can look bloody at times it is seen by many as not as damaging as Boxing.

Although a study into life expectancy hasn’t been carried out we can look at the types of injuries fighters sustain and whether these can have a severe impact on them in later life:

1. Broken Bones are common across MMA. There has been a decrease in them over 30 years due to fighters understanding it may be better long term to tap out to a lock. It still can happen. As with any broken bone, proper rehabilitation can ensure there are not any long term issues. Potential muscle tears and twists are also prevalent in the sport and depending on the severity of these; recovery normally occurs.
2. Head trauma: Studies here fall in line with Boxing and cite CTE and Parkinsonism as potential outcomes of continuous hits to the head during a fighters career. The same studies also conclude there may be some improvement in this area when a fighter stops fighting.
3. Chokeholds do not normally cause a healthy fighter any long term damage. The brain needs to be deprived of oxygen for a few minutes for the risk of brain damage to increase. Most chokes are around 10–15 seconds.
   (There is a caveat here. If you are unfortunate to suffer a hypersensitive carotid sinus then a chokehold could help you develop a dangerously irregular heartbeat)
4. Concussion is prevalent in every combat sport including MMA. Whilst concussion in sports such as American Football is high there is a a lot of head and neck support that can help mitigate some of the trauma. MMA as with other combat sports has at its core the very real objective of causing knockout by head strike. Head strikes are actively encouraged as it’s one of the quickest routes to victory. Recent studies have concluded as many as a quarter of athletes have suffered concussion due to impacts within the octagon or whilst training. Concussion as with other types of head trauma can lead to issues in later life. Concussion and CTE are two separate things. Whilst we have pointed out CTE as a potential outcome within point 2 it has to be recognized that concussion can escalate CTE far quicker. It is true that suffering concussion does not automatically lead to CTE but there does appear to be a link between Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and CTE. Furthermore, In a study by PROTECT and published in the Journal of Neurotrauma, it was found that people who reported three or more concussions had significantly worse cognitive function, which then got successively worse with each further concussion. It was seen that even a single moderate to severe concussion could have a long term impact on brain function including memory.
5. Freak accidents do occur as with any sport and these follow as obvious risks when participating in a sport whose main objective is to incapacitate the opponent by submission or consciousness:
   1. During a 2008 fight against Alistair Overeem; Mirko Cro Cop had his right testicle literally kneed so hard it became lodged inside his body. There followed tests on this area and no long term damage was done.
   2. Both Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman suffered horrific leg break whilst competing in the octagon. Whilst both are still able to walk and compete (Weidmann is on the road to recovery) it cannot be overstated the potential mental impact this could have on a fighter. Whilst we dont know the full outcome of Chris Weidmann’s recovery we can look at Anderson Silva and question whether there was longer term damage to him in part because of the leg break. His record before the break stood at 33–5 and after 33–11 with one win and 1 no contest in that run of 6 defeats.
   3. In 2016, Evangelista Santos took part in a Bellator sanctioned MMA Fight against Michael Venom page. Unfortunately he was stopped in the second round with a flying knee leading to a partial collapse to the front of his skull. He later went into surgery for a depressed frontal sinus fracture

1. As of 2020 there has been 18 deaths within an MMA contest. Within this number there were 7 deaths within a sanctioned contest and 9 deaths within an unsanctioned contest. These deaths have been attributed to a range of issues from Kidney failure, to breathing difficulties but it goes some way to support the idea that MMA is a dangerous sport and should never be entered into lightly. To give this number some context if we look at Boxing we can see as many as 1,876 fighters may have died as a direct result of injuries sustained in the ring. This number is for all years of boxing from 1890 to the present day. That’s 133 years or an average of 14 fighters per year throughout its documented history.

The numbers of deaths per sport is in no way highlighted to compare the averages etc but merely show that the risk within each sport is great and the end risk is the loss of ones life. My thoughts are with the families and friends of those that have lost their lives in this way.

So in conclusion yes MMA is dangerous and a lot of data can be linked with detail we have on boxing to show that combat sports in general are dangerous pursuits. However what I haven’t done is attempt to compare the dangers of MMA in comparison to other less obviously dangerous non combat sport such as Horse racing which has seen the deaths of over 3000 horses since 2011. This could be considered extremely dangerous (Just for Horses rather than humans).

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