Does every fighter get some sort of brain damage?

Just because one study shows evidence of significant brain damage doesn't mean it is true. As someone who has worked in the psychology field, I know for a fact that an appalling number of researchers fudge their results. Also, "brain damage" is a subjective term. You could argue that anyone who has ever had a single concussion has brain damage, for example.

I can find evidence that goes against brain damage in boxing:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/625emqy0p3aaqwt6/


"A number of imaging techniques have been used to investigate changes produced in the brain by boxing. Most morphological studies have failed to show significant correlations between putative abnormalities on imaging and clinical evidence of brain damage."

 

What we really should be looking at for this are fMRI results. That is the technology that will give us the best answer, but fMRI is very new. I'll take a look when I get time for such articles, but there are just as many articles supporting a high degree of brain damage in boxing as there are supporting a low degree.

 

Never mind fighters.
Just look at the mind set of alot of users issuing comments on this forum.
Talk about brain damage ????

 

I think it depends how much accumulative damage you take and also if you allow yourself to recover from it. I don't know if anyone remembers; but when Evander Holyfield had that 18 month suspension where he wasn't fighting (and probably wasn't sparring a whole hell of a lot); he rapidly started to become understandable and more lucid seeming again. So I think that if you also allow yourself occasional breaks and allow your brain a chance to repair or recover a little bit at least the damage may not be so bad. That's the reason for the suspension rules in amateur boxing.

 

Well it's scientifically proven that blows to the head cause losing braincells. But that counts for blows in general... do you know how many cells a soccer player loses each time he hits the ball with his head?.. a lot as well.
But humans have like billions cells so even missing ten-thousands of them isn't a problem and you won't notice it.

But it also all depends on how hard the blow is and how well you can absorb it ( glass or iron chin).

There are many many factors and therefore it's very scientific to answer this question properly. I guess there have been done researches in the past about it so search the web and you might run into some numbers and statistics.

Peace !

 

Lawl

 

I was thinking "Meldrick" and typed "Jermain". :!:


(i've always made that mistake, so at least that wasn't due to boxing )

 

There is long and established evidence that boxing causes impairment. A lot of people would have to be fudging their results. Simply judging by the number of relatively young men who have become dysfunctional, it's pretty clear boxing has played a part in that, right?

Meldrick Taylor is a perfect example. He talks normally, and then years later, he can't speak English. I'm certainly not saying boxing is bad or should be banned, but we're kidding ourselves if you think it isn't ruining the brains of some people who would have been healthy otherwise.

 

It depends a lot on luck as well:

Look at someone like Wilfredo Benitez, defensive master, hardly ever got hit but ends up a wreck,

Then someone like George Foreman, gets beaten up by heaveyweights and shows no ill signs. Somebody like Foreman, with the bone structure of a dinosaur, could probably be hit by a truck and not notice.

 

Im fighting amateur for a year or so now...How much sparring a week should i do to stay healthy?

 

That's really an individual thing based on your own body. You're gonna get hit one way or another; I guess it depends how much you're actually competing.

 

I fight about once every two months or so...

 

Nopes, definitely not, not every fighter. How big is the percentage of retired fighters with brain damage against with none? And most of these early retired fighters got banged and hurt more than the names you have mentioned.

It's obvious. :hey

 

Then I would assume you would be ok sparring 2 or 3 times a week. I fight more frequently than that and I usually do 2 or 3 days a week, except maybe in a week where I box on 2 weekends in a row.

 

Would you please tell us more about those rules? Is their purpose to protect a fighter? How are they applied?