Originally Posted by
marbleheadmaui
And you'd have to be crazy to think boxing gets the same quality athlete it got 50+ years ago. And since one can't make the skull or brain stronger? If figghters are stronger? How come there aren't more deaths today? I mean there oughtta be dead fighters all over the place, right?
1) Rules and sanctions have changed (less rounds, quicker stoppages, ect ect) over the last 50+ years to make it "relatively" safer. That, coupled with the fact that boxers are having much less fights (thus, less brain injury) than fighters of yesteryears. I reckon that would explain the drop in deaths.
2) Go back and look at the deaths in boxing. How many of them have been brutal early KO's? I can't think of one. Deaths/serious brain injuries have occured when fighters have taken a multitude of blows over a longer fight. Over the past several years, its been determined that its not only the concussion blows that take its toll on the brain, but also the subconcussive ones. One is much less likely to die from a brutal early KO than from a prolonged beating that lasts into the later rounds.
So if fighters today are much stronger (and thus scoring more early KOs), then it stands to reason that there would actually be LESS deaths than if they didn't punch as hard and had to punish their opponent into the the later rounds to get a KO.
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