(Despite being held in a cage, MMA is safer than high school football)
With today’s news that 30-year-old fighter Michael Kirkham died as a result of injuries sustained in a sanctioned MMA bout Saturday night in South Carolina, many fans and pundits are worried that the implications will mean U.S. states like New York and Canadian provinces like Ontario could refuse to sanction the sport as a result of the latest tragedy.
Although Kirkham’s death, which came as a result of a brain hemorrhage — the same fatal injury that took the life of the only other fighter on record to have died from fight-related injuries, Houston’s Sam Vasquez in 2007, it is still unclear whether or not if he brought any pre-existing neurological disorders or injuries into the cage with him on Saturday night.
A proper pre-fight medical, like the ones most athletic commissions require, that include regular CT scans, blood work and MRIs could have caught any abnormalities like the one doctors discovered in Thiago Alves prior to his UFC 111 fight with Jon Fitch.