Is Ultimate Fighting Safer Than Boxing?

For those of you that have not followed the popular fight-sport of ultimate fighting, here is a brief summation. Essentially, ultimate fighters are allowed to either use striking forms of combat (kicking, punching) or grappling forms of combat (choke holds, limb breaking/injuring holds) to get their opponent to either give up or go unconscious.

Sounds safe, right?

Well, let's put it in context. Ultimate fighting is a type of mixed martial arts (MMA) that combines various fighting styles into one cohesive approach. Ultimate fighting comes in two dominate forums: the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) in the United States or the Pride fights in Japan.

The original premise behind ultimate fighting was to compare fighting styles. In the ultimate fighting format karate, judo, boxing, wrestling and other fight experts could compare their skills to others. Would karate beat judo? In ultimate fighting you could find out.

Up to the point of the inception of the UFC and ultimate fighting as a whole, boxing was the predominant popular fighting sport. With a decline in top promotional names in the boxing arena of late, the popularity of ultimate fighting has been on the rise.

But is boxing or ultimate fighting safer? There are several reasons that ultimate fighting may indeed be safer regarding severity of injuries than boxing. There are also some very clear statistical analyses that indicate that ultimate fighting is indeed safer than boxing. What follows is a list of these points.

1. There have been a much higher rate of deaths in boxing than in ultimate fighting. According to statistics, boxing averages roughly 11 deaths per year (see "boxing deaths" in other resources section). In an unsanctioned ultimate fighting bout outside of the US there has been one recorded death that was related to ultimate fighting. This has been the only fatality ever recorded regarding ultimate fighting.

2. Even American football has more deaths per year than ultimate fighting (see "football deaths" in extra resources).

3. Ultimate fighting provides the "face saving" ability to say "uncle" by "tapping out." In boxing a fighter has one of three options available: either win, go unconscious or have "the towel thrown in." Usually the last two options can cause a great deal of brain trauma not to mention superficial injuries.

In ultimate fighting, a fighter can at any point in time concede victory by simply tapping the mat (or his opponent) with his hands or, if hands aren't free due to grappling, feet. Tapping out is considered relatively honorable in an ultimate fighting event. It simply indicates that the fighter has had enough.

The boxing equivalent of throwing in the towel is not decided by the fighter and is not nearly as frequently used as tapping out.

4. The gloves in ultimate fighting are designed to protect the hand. In boxing the gloves are designed to protect the opponent from serious injury. Oddly enough this seems to have the counter effect. The gloves in ultimate fighting allow for quick knockouts and superficial injuries thereby decreasing overall strikes to the head. The gloves in boxing tend to allow for more "jarring of the brain" over time thereby producing a greater amount of strikes to the head. This can of course, lead have a great many long term repercussions (see "long term" in extra resources).

5. Ultimate fighting rounds are shorter and the officials are very aggressive. Because of the lack of padding and the greater amount of options available to the fighters (relative to boxing), officials will have to frequently, aggressively end fights to prevent further severe injury.

It seems that Nick Lembo, counsel to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, summed it up well when he said that there had been no major injuries since the sport of ultimate fighting was sanctioned there in 2000.

"In MMA, you're going to see there's more violence in their advertising and marketing, and to the casual observer it does seem more primitive and more violent," Lembo said. "But in terms of serious injuries, it seems safer than boxing." (quoted from www.fitfriends.com).