Adam R Mundorf
Level 6 Valued Member
A rather eye opening and sad look into the reality of contact/combat sports.
BKBBKB is probably safer over the long run.
True, with padding you can throw hay makers with no thought to hand health/bone breaks. Bare knuckle boxing looks bloodier but is actually safer.Yes, bare knuckle. The fights tend not to run as long, and power shots to the head are far less frequent - tho in general a lot more bloody.
Yes, bare knuckle. The fights tend not to run as long, and power shots to the head are far less frequent - tho in general a lot more bloody.
Interestingly in the bare knuckle era fights often went for a very long time indeed (50+ rounds) because headshots were so infrequent due to the disparity between the hardness of the bones of the hand versus the skull. Boxers would slug it out in a bruising war of attrition based on body shots, primarily targeting the heart, with the head shot strictly reserved for the finish of a boxer on his 'last legs', due to the serious risk of a broken hand.
Those stats are a little misleading. Under older rules, a round ended when someone fell down. Considering that those rules also permitted a much wider range of throws and trips...falling down was much easier to achieve. Which isn’t to say there weren’t some long, hard fights, but they weren’t doing 50 modern boxing rounds either
Also you have to look at the origins of Rugby - at it's inception it wasn't played by full time athletes with bodyweights of 200-300lbs who strength training daily/weekly and eat a family's worth of food.Those of us from rugby playing countries tend to look at the NFL in horror, as an example of what not to do, as equipment designed to keep players safe actually becomes weaponised in the tackle to the opposite effect.
In risk management it is referred to as moral hazard when a person is free to behave in a way that endangers others because they are protected from the consequences of their own actions. For example studies have shown drivers wearing seat belts drive faster and with less care because they are protected in the event of an accident, shifting the risk of their unsafe driving to other road users including unprotected pedestrians.
The equipment in NFL means players can tackle in ways and with impacts that would be unthinkable if, like in rugby, where players are unarmoured, their primary focus in the tackle had to be to protect themselves. Of course rugby has other player safety rules too, penalising contacts above the shoulder, shoulder charges, lifting etc.
On a related issue headgear is being eliminated in male amateur boxing as studies have shown it increases the incidence of concussion.
Don’t know anything about rugby, but American football changed quite a bit over time. If you watch really old film, you’ll see the blocking and tackling was quite different. With hard protective gear the game has changed. Now the NFL is trying to change the rules for player safety, making an already complicated game worse. I’m not sure they can get that genie back in its bottle. Plus, the gladiatorial violence is what the fan base is paying to see.