MMA a Safer Sport Than Boxing
Many people look at the sport of MMA and see the cage, small gloves and the ground fighting and think it is violent, barbaric etc. but really these assets to it just make it safer, especially in comparison to it’s older brother.
Post Comment|0 Liked It
first things first, if you compete in any combat sport (e.g boxing, MMA, tae-kwon do, american football etc.) you are always putting your health at risk, but let me explain why MMA is a far safer sport than many sports, but here i will be comparing it to boxing as this is probably the most debated discussion.
1. most MMA fights are 3×5 minute rounds. most boxing fights are 12×3 minute rounds. this means that MMA fights are usually 15 minutes (with the exception of UFC title fights which is 5×5 rounds, still less time than an average boxing fight.) compared to boxing’s 36 minutes. I do not have to explain why this makes boxing more dangerous. there is an extra 21 minutes where you can get hit in the face.
2.A study from brodavil of reddit showed that throughout multiple MMA events, 35.9% of the fight was spent on the ground (link to study http://www.reddit.com/r/MMA/comments/anypt/average_amount_of_time_spent_on_the_ground_in_mma/). This is also not taking into account the clinch, which could easily bring the amount of time spent on the ground/clinch to 50%. This means that during at least 35.9% of the fight, the fighters do not have their full potential of power. (with the exception of full mount, but this is only present in less than 1% of the time). This is compared to boxing’s 100% of time being able to produce their full amount of power. If you also take in the time of each fight going the full distance, that would mean, that MMA has at most 9mins and 36 seconds with full power. boxing has the full 36 minutes.
3.Boxing has the 10 second count. this means that if a boxer gets knocked down (and could possibly have a concussion) he has 10 seconds to get back up and start getting punched again. In MMA if you get knocked down, you can either defend yourself, or you can’t. If you are’nt defending yourself properly , the referee will stop the fight. No getting back up to get hit again.
4. Deaths in boxing and MMA. talking about the last three points is all well and good, but the truth is that from 1998-2006 70 people unfortunately died in boxing, and 1 person unfortunately died in MMA. (statistics from TheSpartan o sherdog, link to stat http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/deaths-boxing-mma-576427/).
Don’t get me wrong, I like boxing as much as anyone, but being someone who does Mixed Martial Arts myself, I hate the image that people have created of it and I just want to change a few people’s minds about it.
I hope you enjoyed the article, thanks for reading
