Women in MMA-your thoughts?

[riverdeep]

I was watching that fairly lame show American Gladiators, the remake from the nineties, and someone pointed out one of the gladiators is having a fight on network TV. This one, Crush.



Her real name is Gina Carano and intrigued, I did some research. She's fighting Kaitlin Young on May 31st on CBS. Not only is this the first time that MMA (Mixed Martial Arts, or cagefighting) has been featured on network TV, but it's also an event that features women. This isn't foxy boxing or professional wrestling, this stuff is real and it's brutal. Kicks, punches, elbows, chokes, all that is allowed. Eye gouging and hitting in certain places not allowed, but that's pretty much it.

I don't know how they do it, really. I'm not really familiar with this stuff, but if you can develop brain damage from boxing, what happens when you get kicked in the face?

But anyway, back to the point. If they want to do this, that's fine by me. More power to them. I can't really imagine why anyone, man or woman, would want to, but that's me. I like my limbs the way the are. Your take?


Links for your perusal:

Article on upcoming fight:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=mmajunkie-Young_ready_Carano&prov=mmajunkie&type=lgns


Clip of one of Gina's fights (Muay Thai, not MMA) warning: bad music accompaniment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgRtBM-hWm4


Clip of Kaitlin Young's MMA fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qczQL_BAaYs


Clip of Kaitlin Young training, she's pulling a truck for cryin' out loud -warning: bad music accompaniment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL4t0Hhwm5E

[ghostsofgiants]

1. I really don't understand the appeal of MMA.

I have no desire to watch people beat the crap out of each other.

[PVnRT]

2. Neither do I

At least with boxing, there is some strategy and sport and skill involved. MMA is just wailing on people for a while. Snooze.

[Wetzelbill]

6. MMA is light years more skilled than boxing

Boxing is just one thing. Yeah boxers are skilled at boxing itself, but that's only one aspect. MMA is boxing, muay thai, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, kickboxing. If you think it's just people wailing on each other you must not have ever watched it or only saw it like ten-fifteen years ago. Serious pro athletes get into MMA, former pro and college football players, Olympic level judokas and wrestlers, world champion submission grapplers, highly skilled stuff. I almost can't even watch boxing anymore because the level of athlete is so far below MMA, it's pathetic. Outside of the top few boxers in the world like Pacquiao and Mayweather boxing lacks a lot of athleticism. MMA doesn't. Right now if you lined up the top 30 MMA fighters in the world each one is probably a world-class athlete in some other sport. MMA has fighters who have won Olympic gold medals in a variety of discliplines. There are guys in MMA who have solid pro boxing records and were also All-American wrestlers in college, things like that. Lots going on.

on edit: I should add that it's more skilled in the sense that there is more you have to do and learn. Obviously to be at the top of any sport you have to be pretty damn skilled no matter what. MMA simply has more aspects about it, so by definition, more skills to learn. It's like comparing running to being an NFL Wide Reciever. A WR has to run and it helps to be fast and have good technique, but he also has to learn to block, how to catch, run with a ball, and read defenses etc.

[LostinVA]

3. I have no problem with it

The women choose to do it, just like choosing to do any other full-contact sport. No difference. I didn't know about the fight, though. I'll have to tell my wife; she loves MMA.

[Wetzelbill]

5. I know she does

we used to talk about it sometimes. :) She knows quite a bit about boxing and MMA both. :)

[DarkTirade]

10. Other than that last sentance, you pretty much covered my thoughts on the subject. :)

[Wetzelbill]

4. Boxing is different

because you have gloves and people get hit repeatedly in the head. That's what does the damage. Gloves pad enough to blunt a blow, plus if a boxer is knocked down, he/she gets a count and they get back up and go out and get punished again. In MMA, if you get hit the glove is so small it basically is a cover for the fist, it's still like getting hit with a regular fist, so lots of times that will put a person out. And they get no 8 counts either, if you are down and out you are out. The difference is that the level of punishment is quick and fast and less severe. If a person gets almost knocked out in boxing, they get a count and recover and keep getting punished. In MMA, if a guy is almost knocked out, he goes down, the other fighter jumps on him, maybe lands one more shot and it's stopped. It's way less punishment than say a guy getting beat on for 10 rounds.

Plus MMA is different in that you can take people down, work chokes and other submissions. You can win or lose a fight and never be hit or only get hit a few times. In boxing guys will land hundreds of punches in a fight, say a fighter lands an average of ten hard head shots to his opponent for ten rounds, that's 100 hard shots to the head. That's brutal. In MMA, that amount of prolonged force is nonexistent. It's much much safer, as a result. There has been been one death in a sanctioned event and that was last year, I can't say offhand that I know much about the situation, like any prior health issues or anything like that, but serious MMA injures are extremely rare.

Also, kicks and certain other things aren't allowed say when somebody is on all fors. No kneeing to the head on the ground. You can't bring an elbow straight down either. No hitting in the back of the head. Also, it's rare that someone breaks a bone or blows out a ligament in a fight. The refs are on top of the action, and a person taps out if they are in trouble. Sure some injuries happen, but nobody has ever been crippled or anything like that. Football for example is way harder on a person's body. Sure there is some risk, any athlete has wear and tear and nagging injuries, it's part of the game. But MMA is purely a sport now, the sanctioning body has set up certain rules, they have rounds and judges, it's a pure martial art really. They get some of the best athletes in the world, like Olympic wrestlers and judokas, people who know how to compete and are sportsmen, guys don't just go in and rip each other's limbs off anymore than college wrestlers do or anything.

I'm fine with women doing it. They box and they kickbox and wrestle, MMA isn't much different, it just requires more skills that you would need to learn and you won't take the same amount of harsh head trauma as those other sports do. Women play basketball and do everything else good for them. And Gina Carano is a great athlete. She's a beautiful woman and one helluva Muay Thai artist. She's good.

[riverdeep]

7. Interesting.

Like I said, I don't follow this much. Looking at it superficially, it seems like there is more potential for damage in MMA. Take a look at that third link with Kaitlin Young where she kicks the other woman in the face. Fortunately, she got up, eventually. But something like that could have resulted in who knows what- cerebral hemorrhage, spinal injury? But I see what you're saying about quantity vs. quality of damage. Has anyone looked at the long-term impacts? It may not be possible since it hasn't been around that long. How long does the career of an MMA fighter last?

I will say that both these women are highly talented and seem evenly matched, so it should be a good fight.

[Wetzelbill]

8. it depends on the fighter

but the UFC Heavyweight Champion is 45 years old and better than ever. Up until a few young guys won some titles last year several of the major titleholders were over 37 years old. People just don't take the same type of beating.

Yeah there is potential for injury, a hard punch or kick in kickboxing, boxing and/or MMA could seriously hurt somebody, but it almost never does. Like I said, accumulation of blows is much different. Kicks also help in that organizations don't let fighters wear shoes and kick, so they aren't getting booted that way either. But yeah, she kicks her in the face, it can be brutal looking, but it's really less brutal than say too 225 pound football players cracking heads at full speed with hard helmets. Those guys get concussions and herniated discs all the time. One kick or one punch from a human being can seem brual, but it's effects aren't that long lasting. Like say if you get the wind knocked out of you, that hurts like hell, but a few minutes later you're perfectly fine. Now brain trauma can be serious, don't get me wrong there is always that risk, but the really serious stuff is rare. About the long-term impacts, I know that seeing former fighters who are now in their 40s, they don't sound punch-drunk the way a lot of boxers do. Some guys tend to fight way into their 40s and they do ok, simply because they don't lose their motor skills the way a boxer or kickboxer does from the constant trauma. I have never seen a really punch drunk MMA fighter before. There might be, I don't know, but as far as I know, they take way less punishment to the head than say boxers and kickboxers do.

[Threedifferentones]

9. SInce you say you know little about it I will tell you

that clip is an exceptional fight. I watch MMA semi-regularly and from what I have seen grappling decides way more fights than kicks and punches. Many fighters typically just block a couple strikes and then move in close, where strikes can be irrelevant. So, often times fights will end without a major blow being landed.

You are of course right that it is a brutal sport where contestants' bodies could easily suffer traumatic injury. But, I do not think it is exceptionally more dangerous than boxing, and it almost can't be more dangerous than the most brutal modern sport of them all, American football. I know they wear pads and there is no actual fighting, but when two giant professional athletes slam into eachother while running full speed in opposite directions the forces involved are far greater than in a fight. That is why football players are, according to the TV, more likely to suffer head injuries than boxers or any other fighters.

[BarenakedLady]

11. Did I marry you?

Well the guy I did was watching female MMA on youtube all last night. I think he's got a bit of a crush on Gina. I'd love to see her kick his ass. LOL.

[Godhumor]

12. MMA has had a total of two deaths due to the sport

One of which occurred in an unsanctioned bout on a concrete floor in the 1990s. The only "real" one occurred last year to a fighter with a previous existing heart condition. You cannot directly compare boxing to MMA, but the people who harp on the brutality of the sport tend to miss that little nugget of info (boxing averages around ten deaths a year).

As someone up thread said, the likelihood of traumatic head injury is much higher in boxing due to being able to take more punishment with the heavier padded gloves. In MMA the referees are under strict orders to protect the fighters as the first priority. Not actively defending yourself? Fight's over. Not doing anything but "turtling" (covering up)? Fight's over. Tap out? Fight's over. Furthermore, the fighters understand this sport, as well, and are actually extremely aware of their bodies. Fighters will tap almost 100% of the time when they find themselves in a position they are unable to defend due to not wanting to be injured. This is the reason you see fighters struggle so hard to prevent, say, an armbar from being locked in but will tap immediately when it is clear that they cannot escape.

As far as women fighting, why not? Gina is widely considered one of the top 3 women MMA fighters in the world, and, just like men, she fights only within a weight class against people of the same sex. I see absolutely no reason to forbid that beyond basic misogyny.

[Mojambo]

13. More MMA is always good with me.

Hell, I'd watch Toddlers do it if it was available on free TV.