Tag Archives: concussion
Football Injuries Among those More Dangerous Than Boxing Injuries
By: Ken Hissner
We live in a society that seems infatuated on violence. For years boxing has taken a bad rap for being a sport that was continuously getting criticism for violence. This brought about the increased interest in UFC and MMA. They do not have the skill levels of boxing but the head injuries exceeded boxing which the blood thirsty fans seemed to enjoy. In boxing a knockout normally issues a ninety day suspension before performing again.
A study that will be presented at next week’s American Academy of Neurology (AAN) meeting offers one of the most conclusive pieces of evidence yet of a definitive link between brain injury and playing football.
The researchers studied 165 deceased people who had played the sport in high school, college or professionally, and found evidence of CTE in 131 of them. The recent movie “Concussion” starring Will smith points out that tackle football as America knows it is doomed in the long run as parents become increasingly concerned about letting their children play. The study of 40 retired NFL players while giving them concentration and memory test showed players playing for an average of seven years had a reported an average of 8.1 concussions.
In football one can be injured from the back and any part of the body. In boxing the rules say “no hitting below the belly button” and no hitting behind the head or be penalized. When a fight breaks out in any sport whether its football or ice hockey the fans seem to thrive on it. You see unskilled athletes swinging wildly as in a street fight.
There have been nine reported deaths in the past ten years in boxing. They were Pedro Alcazar, Cho Hi, Becky Zerlentes, Benjamin Flores, Brad Rone, Martin Sanchez, Daniel Aguillan, Leavander Johnson and Yo-Sam Choi. Injuries in basketball and bicycling are two of the three highest in sports.
Boxing has reduced world title bouts from fifteen to twelve rounds. This was mainly the circumstance of the November 1984 bout when Ray Mancini defeated Deuk-Koo Sim who was 17-1-1 having never been stopped prior to their match. He had problems making weight and collapsed into a coma after the match that went into the fourteenth round when he got knocked down and stopped by the referee.
