Although the mandatory use of gloves in Mixed Martial Arts was one step which assisted bring the sport from its ‘human-cockfighting‘ stigma into higher mainstream acceptance, this demand likely increased the incidence of brain trauma for the sport’s participants.
Gloves protect fighters’ fists from injuries as well as reduce superficial cuts to opponents but do bit to protect an opponent from brain injury. Given the higher comprehending of the long term damage that accompanies head trauma, I decided to look at objective evidence of the higher rate of knockouts from punches in MMA with the addition of gloves. In short, the knockout rate from punches increased from 1% Camiseta Selección de fútbol de Francia to 10% after gloves ended up being mandatory for the sport. While I appreciate that connection does not always Camiseta Aston Villa FC prove causation this is, at the extremely least, a compelling statistic.
Methodology –
I reviewed the results from the numbered UFC events from UFC 1 to UFC 50. Where only a KO was noted without any accompanying info as to the cause of the KO, I reviewed the bouts to determine if the KO was from punches or other strikes. In the early competition style UFC’s I excluded any type of alternating bouts as video footage was not easily accessible to evaluation any type of ambiguously reported knockouts. TKO stoppages were not included in this study.
Results –
Gloves ended up being a required part of the sport at UFC 14. For this reason the research study broke these events down into two categories, the events from 1-13, as well as 14-50. In the very first 13 events a overall of 101 bouts occurred. Of these only 4 knockouts by punches were noted. However, 3 of these occurred with the champion using gloves. The only bout with a knockout stoppage noted from punches with the champion not using gloves occurred at UFC 3 with Harold Howard defeating Roland Payne with a KO at the 0:46 mark.
This leaves a margin of one glove-less knockout via punches out of 98 bouts, a frequency of about 1%.
Moving on to UFC 14 – UFC 50 the data exposes a overall of 279 bouts. Of these 27 ended via knockout noted by punches. This is a overall of approximately 10%, a tenfold boost in the rate of KO by punches.
Removing gloves from MMA will boost the rate of fractured hands as well as superficial lacerations to competitors. “Bare knuckle” fighting is likewise likely to be satisfied with resistance by government regulators so the likelihood of the removal of gloves from the sport is slim. That said, the above shows that the removal of gloves from the sport can reduce head trauma. If government as well as MMA stakeholders evaluation the rules of the sport with brain injury in mind the data is relatively remove that gloves protect the hands, not the brain.
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