It’s easy to take a little blood money when it’s not your blood.
Massachusetts is very close to becoming the 41st state to sanction mixed martial arts. By early 2010, you could see Boston arenas from Agganis to the Garden, even Fenway, vying for a visit from an Octagon. There are just a few more political hoops to negotiate, but lawmakers drooling over the 4 percent the state would reap from ticket sales and the thousands from TV deals are dropping those hurdles to well below Edwin Moses’ level. They may or may not be able to get casino money around here, so this is the next best bet to warm the coffers.
There’s one problem, one little thing that could or should gnaw at these politicos late at night when it’s very quiet. It is their state, their fair city, that’s telling us how tortured these athletes will become.
We’ve discussed in this space before the work being done at the Boston University School of medicine, and its Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.
It’s studying the brains of deceased ex-NFLers and producing horrific findings. Forty-year-olds are dying with the gray mater of 80-year-old dementia patients. Multiple concussions shrugged off in their playing days likely contributed to depression, dementia, rage, confusion, even suicide.
We don’t know what awaits the gladiators of mixed martial arts (MMA). It’s too new. We’re just now learning about the effects of football, and the gridiron has existed for 100 years.
It could be two or three decades until the hell of a retired MMA fighter is evident, but doesn’t common sense dictate there is little difference between a helmet-to-helmet hit and a knee to the helmet-less?
More and more, the science and sheer observations are revealing what common sense should have years ago — the human brain was never meant to hammered. The reason we made it to the top of the food chain is we were smart enough not to get our heads beaten in. And while proponents can argue the knockout rate is less than boxing, or even football, it is not simply blackouts that must be feared but trauma, concussions, jarring and impact.
No one is forcing MMA fighters to crawl into the cage — except perhaps the parasitic managers, trainers, and promoters, as well as the specter of a paycheck most fighters need and have no other means to achieve. For generations, when there is a buck to be had, we’ve taken advantage of desperate men.
And now we add the elected to the above list. Just be sure, when this inevitably passes, do not thank a politician. Thank the fighters. It’s their blood on that dollar.
