I find it pretty boring TBH, too much wrestling involved for my tastes.
Mitlov do you have decent stats on MMA injuries? I read an article a year or two ago saying that the vast majority of these competitions were either amateur or unlicensed for small amounts of prize money. If that is the case I very much doubt the injuries are reported.
The most frequently-cited article was done by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was published in the Journal of Sports and Science Medicine after five years of research. It focused on professional MMA fighters, but in my opinion amateur events
with the same level of refereeing as, and equivalent rules to, a modern UFC or Pride tournament should have the same results. The one local MMA event I watched (in Springfield, Oregon) did indeed fit that description.
Here's the complete article:
http://www.jssm.org/combat/1/18/v5combat-18.pdfIt concluded that knockout (i.e., brain injury) rates were lower than boxing and other injury rates were equivalent to boxing.
By the way, most competitors in ANY sport are amateur. Most boxers are amateur. There are dozens of boxers competing in local tournaments for every professional boxer. There are dozens of bicycle racers competing in local tournaments for every professional bicycle racer. The statement that "most MMA competitors are amateur" is just a truism about the nature of sports in general, and not a criticism of statistics on MMA safety, in my opinion.
If you've got a
Fight Club-style underground no-rules fighting club, you're going to have some serious injuries and they're going to be under-reported. But the same could be said of underground no-rules boxing clubs, wrestling clubs, etc. No reason to ban a legitimate sport that has, at most, a minimal connections to those underground events. In my experience with MMA competitors, the idea that these folks are a bunch of
Fight Club wannabes breaking each other's jaws in grimy basements and then telling ER docs they fell down the stairs is inaccurate and offensive fiction.