Mcgregor plays high-risk roulette
As Conor Mcgregor steps on to the Las Vegas canvas tomorrow, the paying public will be hoping for a modern-day Rocky spectacle – the underdog having his day against a legend of the ring. For some, more medically-minded observers, a more sombre concern will hang over the arena: that this fight could be a risk too far for the rookie boxer. Boxing, despite a real lack of epidemiology data, retains its reputation of being one of the most dangerous sports in the world. The question, therefore, has to be asked: is Mcgregor playing roulette with his long-term health, and sending out a dangerous message to the wider public and amateur game?
There is very little publicly available data about injuries in boxing. A recently published study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine looked at injuries in British boxing over a five-year period between 2005 and 2009.
Its conclusions was that more injuries affected the hand than any other body location, and the incidence of concussion is comparatively low.
In contrast, a much bigger Canadian study of nearly 2,000 fighters from Floyd Mayweather’s world of boxing and Mcgregor’s world of Mixed Martial Arts brought more attention on the injuries that we really worry about: traumatic brain and facial injuries. MMA involves a more diverse physical interaction between athletes than boxing, with its laws permitting punches, kicks and grappling, with attacks focused more on the opponent’s body rather than head. It has a greater overall injury rate in combat sports, however the majority of these injuries came mostly in the form of minor soft-tissue damage, contusions and bruising.
The study found that boxers are exposed to a greater threat of serious injury. They are more likely to experience concussions or head trauma involving loss of consciousness or eye injury such as retinal detachment. Alongside this, there have been no MMA deaths in the United States, and the knockout rate in MMA appears to be lower than the KO rate of boxing matches. So, how can Mcgregor avoid serious damage? Mayweather may be regarded by many as one of the greatest boxers of all time but he will have deconditioned both through a lack of action since his last fight in September 2015 and his advancing age. His likely reduced physical endurance should, in theory, reduce the risk of injury to Mcgregor.
The Irishman is younger, taller and boasts a reach advantage over Mayweather which should allow him to take the fight into the extended rounds.
Fighting a 40-year-old coming out of retirement, and who tends to win on points rather than knockout, may lower the risk of injury, but the time Mcgregor will have spent in developing enhanced and chaotic movement capability will be the area that gives him both the skill to avoid punches, and allow him to take up positions in the ring from which to attack Mayweather. He has been working with Ido Portal, an athletic movement specialist who works by the mantra: “Live life dynamically. Move. More”.
Yet, while licence holders have worked hard to make boxing safer than it has ever been, the key players in avoiding tragedy in Las Vegas tomorrow night will be the referee and Mcgregor’s corner, who will need to sensibly throw the towel in before serious injury is inflicted.