It has been called “human cockfighting,” a “blood sport,” and in extreme cases, not a sport at all. Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, is a dramatically growing phenomenon in modern sport culture. However, numerous critics want MMA banned due to its violent nature and argue that it sends youth the message “that fighting is okay.”  Evidence to the contrary is available, if the venue and activities are controlled, supervised, and commissioned by the state. Is there any correlation between high school students who watch MMA events and their unsupervised parking lot or basement fighting?  The short answer is yes, but there are factors surrounding violence as a core and evident practice in society that need to be addressed. MMA is a competitive skill-based sport that requires years of training, practice, knowledge of the sport, and learning the safety precautions and techniques involved to insure participants may win without severe injury. The same correlation could be made for sports such as football, popularized wrestling, and other contact sports.

It is a common misconception that MMA is only about beating another person’s face in and winning by any means possible. While there are some competitors who thrive on fighting as ferociously as possible, there is another side to MMA as well. Fighters who can, and do, win without severe and bloody physical repercussions, such as splitting an opponents’ lip or by leaving them with  swelling/bruising. Personally, I cannot imagine a football game in which a team could win and leave every team member unharmed without even a scratch. As well as the players of the losing team coming off the field unscathed. Some of the best fighters of professional Mixed Martial Arts focus primarily on Jiu Jitsu, which focuses on joint-locking and submission techniques that restrict an opponents’ air-way. Restricted breathing could force the opponent to either “tap” by physical or verbal submission, or risk blacking out due to restriction of blood flow to the brain for a short amount of time. Arguably, this is similar to tackling a member of the opposite team by tightly securing their upper body and gently lowering him to the ground. Would the rabid Husker fans not love to see our Black Shirts do this to the teammates of an opposing school? Perhaps that is not the best example, but, in football, you cannot win without dealing out some serious hits and punishment, and therefore, violence can be normalized by certain sport audiences.

Statistically, there are less injuries in MMA annually than in the history of football because sanctionshave been placed to restrict competition to fighters 18 years of age and older.There is no Peewee League, Junior High or High School teams for MMA. You have to be able to legally make decisions for yourself, and your future, before stepping into the cage for the first time. The same sanctions are not placed upon football.There are many young men in high school football that have been pushed by their family members to play, and without the passion instilled in those young men,the risk of injury due to complacency on the field rises. In my personal experience, every year there had been teammates injured within a range ofseverity because they did not want to dedicate themselves to the activity due to peer or familial pressures.

A major difference in MMA competitions and football games are the amount of players or fighters competing on the field, or in the cage, at the same time. In football there are 22 players at any one time. That is 11 on each side on a field, that's 120 yards by 53 1/3 yards total. In MMA there is one-on-one in the cage, octagon, or ring that does not exceed 750 sq. ft. That makes a huge difference in ground to cover if you are a referee for a football game. However, football teams have 7 referees the on field at one time.  That is close to 1 official for every 3 players, and these players and the official have no choreographed or structured movements other than the coaches strategies which are utilized on a case-by-case basis. In MMA there is only one referee who is to protect the fighters at all times and he is consistently moving to get the best line of sight on the fighters to make sure they are safe. There is alot more going on in a 5 second football play then there is in a 5 minute round. It is simply impossible to make sure each and every player on the football field is being 100% supervised at any given moment, where as MMA hold this as priority number one.

In football, a player is not taken off the field, or out of the game, unless he physically cannot walk. It is very rare for a coach or team doctor to pull a player off the field who had not signaled he had been injured. This has led to existing injuries becoming worse in nature, or a future injury due to the situation not being safe for them to continue. Often times because of all of the activity going on in the scrum one cannot even identify what the cause of his injury was. In MMA there are multiple ways for a fighter to be removed from competition whether he is mentally able to make the judgment or not. First and foremost is by referee stoppage. Again, he is in there for fighter safety. At any time, if the referee feels the fighter is in too much danger and cannot defend himself intelligently, the referee is required to stop the fight. Herschel Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner and 15 year NFL veteran, (and now professionalMMA fighter) stated from personal experience that in “football you have all the concussions, all the types of joint injuries, where as in MMA if you get knockedout, the referee can stop it.”

Another option to end a fight is for the fighter to consciously decide to “tap out” or submit. He can signal to the referee verbally, or by manually tapping one’s opponent, or the floor, signalling that he is no longer fit to continue which immediately ends the fight. Also, the ringside doctor can, and will, check on the condition of the fighter either by referee suggestion or his own accord in between rounds.If the doctor decides an injury is too severe the fight is ended upon his recommendation. As well, the “corner men” of a fighter can “throw in the towel” at their own discretion. This does not happen often, but it is a possibility. Again, fighter safety is very important.

Daniel Longoria, of Longoria’s Black Belt Academy, has instructed various forms of Martial Arts for the past 30 years in Lincoln,Nebraska. He originally specialized in teaching Taekwondo and has adopted other Martial Arts, including Krav Maga. Krav Maga is an Israeli self-defense style that is taught to police officers and securityenforcement agencies in Israel. In Longoria’s opinion, MMA is one of the next logical steps after successfully completing numerous courses in Krav Maga. He has had many students switch to MMA after realizing that they love the physicality of this style of Martial Art, and pursue MMA to enhance their skills.He has instructed fighters in MMA for the last three years, and has been a cornerman to many of his fighters, some who have become highly decorated with titles and belts.

When asked what his view points were on the safety of fighters in MMA, Longoria stated that “the rules are strictly enforced for the safety of the fighters. In fact MMA is actually safer than Boxing. MMA has no standing 8 count like in Boxing. So when an MMA participant is staggered or looks unable to defend themselves, the Referee will stop the fight. Fighters are also suspended for failures to tap when it could knowingly result in injury. Any type of loss that is result of being knocked out is an automatic 90day suspension and must have a Doctors release before allowed to enter the cage again.” He also mentioned possible injuries that occur in both MMA and football: “As in any contact sport, risk is always present, but MMA's record is really pretty good. Compared to football, the number of injuries to the spine is really rare in MMA. Major injuries that are catastrophic that might include death have been very rare in MMA. I think only 3 deaths attributed to an MMA fight are on record. I have heard of only a couple of spinal injuries resulting in paralysis. Compare these few recorded injuries to the grand total in football and you’ll see that if the fighters are prepared and train correctly, it can be a much safer sport.”

Regarding the three deaths Longoria mentioned, the Iowa State Daily had some interesting facts about the injuries that lead to both Sam Vasquez and Michael Kirkham’s premature passing. First, “Vasquez was fighting his first match in more than a year. He took approximately 20 unanswered shots to the head before the referee stopped the fight — most certainly too late. No illegal blows were landed during the fight. Vasquez died two weeks later.”  Kirkham’s situation was more complex than Vasquez. Kirkham’s death could have been prevented had the proper care and doctors’ orders been followed. “Kirkham died after his first professional fight. However, it wasn't likely that the injuries sustained in that fight are what truly caused his death. In Kirkham's previous, amateur bout, he was illegally harangued in the back of the head at least 30 times. In the time between that fight and his last, Kirkham was supposed to go check in with a doctor twice a month. He went to the doctor once immediately following the fight and never returned.”

Daniel Longoria’s opinions about MMA have been addressed in other media venues exploring the risk involved with combat sports. Bloody Elbow, an online MMA Magazine/Blog, referenced a fighter from Iowa named Zach Kirk, who was paralyzed from using an improper wrestling technique. “Kirk’s story is a painful reminder that MMA is aninherently risky activity and participating can have life changing consequences for athletes. The same is true of getting in the car and driving to work of course, but it serves us well to remember the risks these athletes take every single time they get in the cage.”

In a study performed by the Journal of Sport Science and Medicine the researchers concluded that, “from September 2001 and December 2004 in the state of Nevada exactly 171 MMA matches involving 220 different fighters occurred during that period. There were a total of 96 injuries to 78 fighters. The majority of recorded injuries were injuries to the facial region with facial lacerations accounting for 47.9%of all injuries. Hand injuries were the second most common injury, accounting for 13.5% of all injuries, followed by injuries to the nose (10.4%) and eye (8.3%)” At that time there were no recorded deaths in MMA nor did they talk of any fighter being severely injured in the way of spinal injuries or paralysis.”

In MMA, a fighter is not required to follow strategic plays, or choose to utilize only one fighting style during a fight in order to win and protect themselves. Fighters do not need to line up in front of an opponent and continuously ram each other head on, play after play, like a down lineman would. Nor do you have to stand toe-to-toe, as practiced by boxers, and constantly dodge and duck out of the way of each oncoming punch. Fighters can be as close as they want or as far away while utilizing different techniques to obtain the desired outcome. Fighters also can be as low or as high up on your heels as they want, and strafe sideways around the ring all while strategizing the best angle for the next strike or take down attempt. It can turn out to be quite symbolically similar to a chessmatch with each fighter attempting to connect with the other while at striking distance. There are numerous variables, and no two fighters will not fight the same, which creates a sense of randomness that one cannot really gain a definitive idea of what their limitations are, as one could in a football scouting film. A fighter can be assured that they do not have to be punched in the face if they strategize and train hard enough to counter it. A fighter must attempt to be smarter and faster than their opponent.

Due to MMA events being a relatively recent mainstream sport, there has not been the degree of research or data compared to sports such as football and baseball. Therefore, data and references for the arguments stated here may be enhanced in the near future by kinesiology students. It is easy to conclude that the rules governing the health and wellness of Mixed Martial Arts fighters are on a higher level than what is offered for football, whether it’s at the Pee Wee leagues, or the professional NFL.  The uninformed, or misinformed, general public should not be worried about the brutal, yet highly sanctioned sport of MMA. The more education about the rules and regulations,commissions, sanctions, refereeing, and judging of MMA that can be published, the greater the chance that other states will legalize MMA in the same manner as boxing. The years of training and practice that fighters endure, sometimes to only fight in one professional fight, may be used as an example of a sport that is much more than mere fighting. It is a passion, a love, a desire and a culmination of hard work and dedication. It is definitely not “human cockfighting,”it is a sport on the same corporate and logistical sphere as football.