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Post written by HTTN’s MMA expert: Buffbug

On Wednesday, The Globe and Mail published this article, which states that the Canadian Medical Association is looking to Ban MMA in Canada. After reading it and seeing their viewpoint, I was left feeling nothing but utterly disappointed.

Do Your Homework

Canada’s doctors, who should be some of the most educated people in our society, came out sounding like a bunch of half-wits. The fact that they believe mixed martial arts is dangerous can be understood, but to call it barbaric and say the sole purpose of the sport is to maim an opponent is downright ridiculous. Just talk to any professional mixed martial artist who fights for a sanctioned organization, he will explain that the first thing they are trying to do is to not injur an opponent.

All mixed martial artists want to win, and if the win comes about by knocking an opponent out, so be it. But fighters can tell when their opponent is unconscious, and they cease before delivering any further shots.

A perfect example of this came from UFC 116 in a fight between Geral Harris and Dave Branch.  In the 3rd round, Harris slammed Branch so hard that he actually knocked him out. Rather than inflicting any more damage, Harris stopped mid-punch, looking up at the referee and advising him that his opponent was knocked out. The fight was stopped and Harris was declared the victor.  He also took home “Knockout of the Night” honours and kudos from fans and peers.  His boss, Dana White, even applauded his actions several times during the post-fight press conference.

Repurcussions of Banning the Sport

If the issue for the CMA is the safety of the fighters, banning mixed martial arts would be utterly stupid and counter productive. As the sport is right now, for anyone to hold an event in Canada, it must be sanctioned by the province or city the event is held in. This means that there are doctors and emergency medical staff on hand.  If the sport is banned, don’t believe for a second that fighting will stop.  It will simply go underground.

Rules and Regulations

If this happens, the doctors and medical staff will be forced out of the equation, leaving the safety of the fighters in their own hands. In this vein, as long as the sport is being sanctioned, fighters are aware that there will be consequences for their actions.

Take for example Renato “Babalu” Sobral: at UFC 74, in a fight with David Heath, Sobral continued to choke Heath even after he tapped out. As a result, Sobral had $25,000 of his purse withheld and was released from his UFC contract 5-days after the incident. Rules and regulations like these can only be enforced in an officially sanctioned association, the way they are right now.

Another huge factor from a fighter safety aspect is the pre-fight medical.  Every fighter is required to have a medical test prior to them being allowed to fight in an event. This would almost certainly not be practised if the event wasn’t legal or sanctioned. And if you don’t believe they take the testing seriously, just look at Thiago Alves.  He was pulled 2 days before his fight in March of this year because they discovered an abnormality in his CAT scan, which subsequently led him to have brain surgery 6 days later.

MMA is Safer Than Other Sports

As for the sport itself, when outsiders with no knowledge of the sport come in and make rash judgements without fully understanding it, they’re the ones who end-up looking foolish.

In MMA a referee can stop a fight if he feels one fighter is “not intelligently defending himself.” Also, a fighter has the option of “tapping out” so that they don’t become unconscious due to chokes or break any bones due to locks. In actuality, MMA organizers are more diligent than those in other sporting leagues when it comes to the safety of their athletes. If a figher emerges with an injury, the athletic commission (a third party organization) can and does medically suspend you from training and fighting until they feel your injury has healed.

In hockey and football you regularly see athletes “playing through the pain” and being encouraged to do so.  To me, the CMA would be better served looking into the safety of other sports, rather than MMA.

I’ve been watching both hockey and MMA for many years and I cannot recall the last time I saw more than a couple of doctors looking at one fighter, let alone a stretcher come out.

Sure, we can understand why someone who has never seen the sport before would be weary.  But doctors?  These educated individuals should know better than to pass judgement without having all the facts.

Banning the sport is not the solution.  If anything, the solution is for the athletic commissions to hire and employ better qualified officials to referee matches.

Sidenote: if on Saturday August 21st, you watched the Strikeforce promotions fights and saw the reffing or lack thereof in the K.J. Noons vs. Jorge Gurgel fight, you know what an unqualified and terrible referee looks like. But this is a topic an article for a later time.

Cheers my friends. I look forward to seeing your tweets and responses about this article and about UFC 118 this saturday.

-Buffbug (follow me on twitter @buffbug)