jpinard
1821
So are these leagues going to take care of these fighters when their inevitable, terrible health issues arise as they get much older? Or are they going to just say, “hey you knew you’d get hurt and suffer brain damage so you’re SOL”. While I am in awe of the capabilities of these fighters, I think it is pertinent the leagues offer lifetime healthcare for these individuals as they profit off this brutality. I’m especially worried about some lower ranking individuals wh never make the big money and are looking at a lifetime of trouble for the time they spent in the lower echelons of UFC or Bellator.
I’m not aware of any combat sport, or any major sport for that matter, that offers that kind of care taking.
Also: NY just legalized MMA.
Far less likely to ever happen than in Football or Hockey, let alone Boxing, given the nature of MMA, its equipment and rules.
Aside from the fact that, for most fighters, there is nothing in the world that they’d rather be doing. You either have that sort of calling for it or you don’t. There are occasionally, at least in recent years, young athletes who give the sport a shot because of its popularity and because they are gifted athletes - they usually don’t last long in the sport because ultimately they meet guys as naturally gifted who do primarily want to be fighters.
Yo_Rudy
1825
This isn’t football, where for a long time CTE was swept under the rug or depicted as bunk. This is men punching and kicking each other, and sometimes choking each other unconscious - the risks are obvious from the moment you start training. I agree with Desslock in that it seems like the rules of MMA (the fight is over when someone is knocked out or not defending themselves) seems to lend itself to LESS probability of CTE versus boxing (the standing 10 count along with hundreds of punches taken per fight) or hockey (82 games per year with plenty of checking plus a bare-fisted fight per game) or even football (helmet-to-helmet always looks worse to me than a KO in MMA). It’s still a young sport, so there isn’t quite anyone you can point to and say “there, that guy is obviously brain damaged from his time in the sport”… we’ll see as the years go by.
Also like Desslock said, a fighter’s mentality is different and hard to understand. Dan Hardy did a pretty good job explaining himself and why he fights in the comments section of The Independent, of all places.
Also yay MMA in NY :)
JFrazer
1826
The VAST majority of people in MMA (overall, not just UFC) aren’t in it for the money. It’s extremely rare to make a livable wage from fighting. Most have a day-job and fight when the opportunity arises. Read some interviews with Demetrius Johnson (Mighty Mouse) if you’d like some insight in to the money involved in MMA. He was a champion and still had to work days in a lumber mill to make ends meet.
Organizations that are paying most fighters $3000/yr, if you’re lucky, aren’t going to pony up potentially millions for life-long healthcare.
The UFC has much better “you must wait until you’re ready” soft-rules than the NFL. You end up with some fighters having to take 2 years off before they are able to fight again after being knocked out. The NFL/NHL, on the other hand, are throwing people back on the field a week later. Not nearly enough time for a traumatic brain injury to heal.
Zuwadza
1827
Yeah I’m not entirely convinced that CTE is going to be an issue for MMA the way it is for football, hockey or even boxing. At least, I hope not anyway. It’s probably hard to account for how guys train though. Some gyms train awfully hard.
Crazy developments in UFC 200, as Dana White booted Conor McGregor from the card for not participating in the promotion. Earlier in the day, Conor preempted the news by posting on Twitter that he was retiring. As far as the UFC is concerned, there won’t be any other repercussions for Conor if he wants to continue, but he won’t revisit the decision to pull Conor from the card, and at least for now, Conor says he’s retiring as a result. What a drama queen.
Interview with Dana and other background here: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/mma-world-in-shock-as-conor-mcgregor-pulled-from-ufc-200-730434.html
All about the “Benjamins”.
Conner and the UFC playing chicken…who blinks first?
RickH
1830
Is there an MMA promotion that would have a better offer?
I think McGregor has one more fight on this UFC deal, so if another organisation big enough for him does exist, they’d have to hand Zuffa an enormous novelty cheque that isn’t actually a novelty.
Bellator is bubbling under with viacom money and they have Benson Henderson on their books already, who beat Frankie Edgar twice and Nate Diaz at Lightweight, before moving to Welterweight. Getting McGregor signed would give Bellator one genuine division, or two genuine champions in a division each, if one of them agreed to move back down to lightweight, (presuming McGregor doesn’t want to drop all the way back to 145).
I’d be keen to see what would happen if Bellator got Conor, then put on a PPV at Croke Park in Dublin. Does he pull UFC-type numbers in PPV buys essentially on his own? Could Bellator also poach someone like Fedor Emelianenko and try to fill its coffers in Europe?
I suspect the UFC will roll to UFC200 without him, look at what their PPV buys look like compared to 196 and then find a way to sort things out and McGregor goes back to Dana. The pool is pretty shallow, even in the UFC, so I doubt anyone else has the long term money to support McGregor.
It’s not about money. The UFC definitely didn’t want to do this, but it can’t allow the precedent of fighters not abiding by their contractual commitments, especially when there was a very public prior example of the UFC not tolerating this exact behavior when the brother of Conor’s opponent did it.
It seems clear that the UFC was hoping that Conor would come to his senses and apologize and recommit today, in which case they likely would have reversed their decision. That could possibly still happen, as July is still a few months away. But the UFC is trying to line up a marquee fight involving GSP/Lawlor or Fedor/Werdum, and possibly Holms/Rousey 2, and if those slim possibilities don’t work out, they will go with Jones/Cormier as the main event and/or a Lawlor defence (McDonold 2?)
Alstein
1833
The NBA actually does a decent job of it- though on their end it focuses more on heart disease, as that’s a big killer of large men.
JFrazer
1834
McGregor has officially un-retired. UFC 200 is still up in the air. Apparently he still will not promote and is citing that spending all his time promoting instead of training is why he lost and he thinks he’ll lose again if he is forced to dance for the cameras instead of concentrating on his camp. I don’t disagree with him.
He didn’t lose because he promoted too much. He met a really good veteran fighter in Diaz, who wasn’t out sized like in Connor’s previous fights at 145, can take hits and dish it right back which is what he did. He also showed how bad Connor is on the ground. Connor can train for the next 6 months and Diaz will win again.
it’s not in the air according to the UFC, as Dana repeatedly stated at the press conference that Conor will next fight the winner of Edgar/Aldo, despite Diaz also saying how much he wants to fight Conor and will not accept an alternate.
Conor’s line about not being able to spend a few days promoting the fight at the official press conference without ruining his training, almost 3 months before the fight, is obviously nonsense and disingenuous. He tried to change the rules and thought he was too big for there to be consequences, and got his nose smacked. From a viewer’s perspective, rigid enforcement of those rules seems silly, especially after Conor went way beyond the call promoting the Aldo fight around the world, but the UFC knows its business, and Conor was greatly enriched by his prior promotion rather than prejudiced.
his loss to Diaz had nothing to do with promotion, let alone participating at a press conference/commercial months prior to his fight.
Where’s that line? From his FB post it seemed he was willing to do that conference, it was all the other promotional stuff he wanted to skip this time:
" I will offer, like I already did, to fly to New York for the big press conference that was scheduled, and then I will go back into training."
RickH
1838
This is my take on it. McGregor looked bad when the fight went to the ground. Of course, he was pretty thoroughly gassed by the end of the first round, so maybe he’d have looked better had it happened earlier. But it’s impossible to think that the level of intensity he was bringing to that fight was going to last for five rounds. Punching uphill can’t be easy.
I don’t know why so many fighter are intent on trying to KO the Diaz brothers with a chin shot when their bodies are such easy targets.
no, that"s the New York conference. The official press conference (and filming of commercials) was today, connected to UFC 197 tomorrow. It’s a commitment of a few days, which is why they have it months ahead of the events.
