How Dangerous Is MMA?

Men named Tank do not arrive quietly. Especially not David "Tank" Abbott, a pitfighter who made his MMA debut at UFC 6 in 1994 in a spectacular display of violence that sparked a fight about the dangers of cagefighting. Back then, Abbott was a fearsome man-hydrant who bench-pressed 600 pounds and looked like he'd just come from a Hell's Angels party. His opponent, John Matua, was even scarier. The scowling Matua was the size of a dojo and claimed to be a master of Kapu Kuialua, the "ancient Hawaiian art of bone-breaking."

Alas for Matua, Kapu Kuialua turned out to be useless in real combat. Within 20 seconds, Abbott had knocked the bonebreaker down and out. Then things got messy. Before the ref could step in, Abbott dropped a final thundering right on his supine opponent. Matua's arms and legs stiffened and cranked sideways, elevating off the ground grotesquely. It looked for all the world like he'd been paralyzed. Check it out here.

Let's be clear: MMA has matured significantly since 1994, but in its freewheeling early days part of the sport's attraction was the idea that paralytic doom was only a haymaker away. But was that dread misplaced? As terrifying as Matua's knockout seemed, he was unharmed. After 15 years of MMA fights and the adoption of vastly improved rules and safety standards, the KO appears no worse than countless others today. Wanderlei Silva turned Keith Jardine into a similar-looking meat plank recently at UFC 84. And a few weeks ago, these two fighters simultaneously Matua-ed each other in Indianapolis.

So how dangerous is the sport? There's not much medical data yet. But a few recent studies suggest MMA is safer than it sometimes looks. It's almost certainly less damaging to the brain than the accumulated trauma of getting punched in the head for 12 rounds by a boxer. And it's often gentler than a chop block to the knees from a 300 pound lineman. The variety of ways to finish an MMA bout together with a fighter's ability to tap out before taking too much punishment reduce the risk of serious injury.