DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Concussions

Given what's happened to Mahommes and DPJ, extrordinary precautions were taken for the players well being and rightly so, and I believe the majority of the fans support this. {Though they can do away with calling penalties for accidental love taps to the qb's head.) Concussions are a huge concern and can result in long term effects down the road.

It blows my mind that the public takes a completely different stance given the popularity of combat sports, where one of the three main goals is to concuss your opponent (KO). There's no talking around the argument that a knockout is a concussion, other than the relatively rare instances of body shots or injury causing a TKO.

The second is to land a greater number of or more powerful blows to the unprotected head of the opponent (to win a decision). It is a fact that solid and repeated blows to the head can result in a concussion, even though there are no immediate overt symptoms.

The third is submission.

The reason I brought this up is that as I age and learn more about concussions, I find myself losing interest in watching boxing and MMA. I used to watch quite a bit of it, but I'm now questioning the entertainment value in watching people deliberately try and injure their opponent.

Am I becoming enlightened or am I getting old and soft?

I wrestled and played football in high school. And while in the Navy, I did some amatuer boxing though an off base gym. The reason I bring this up is that I had to have physicals to do those things before I could participate.

One year, in my very early 30s, I tried to sign up for one of these toughman contests. They too required a physical and were run via some sport authority that required certain medical criteria be passed before you could participate. Although I was in very good shape and could have easily competed, my history of heart issues disqualified me before I even got to see a doctor.

So I can't imagine how anyone with a history of multiple concussions is allowed to take even more shots to the head in sports. As far as I can tell, they must just consider that part of the risk in the sport and simply overlook it or have some system inplace like the NFL to monitor and provide clearance protocol.

Another consideration might also be the amount of time you have to heal between matches. Most fighters don't fight more than a few times a year, excluding practice sparring.