By Gina Antoniello, M.S.
In October 2019, 27-year-old American fighter Patrick Day willingly climbed through the ropes and into the squared circle of a boxing ring. During his match with Charles Conwell, Day was knocked out and remained on the mat for several minutes before being taken out of the ring on stretcher. The traumatic brain injury Day experienced in the bout resulted in him slipping into a coma and passing away four days later, becoming the sport’s latest fatality and fourth recorded death within the last year resulting from injuries sustained in the ring.
Similarly, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters enter the octagon donning four-ounce gloves fully prepared to throw and take punches with full force at their opponent’s heads knowing that head trauma, unconsciousness, facial injuries, and broken bones are a likely reality. Despite its widespread reputation for brutality, MMA properties such as UFC, Bellator, and Professional Fighters League have seen far fewer deaths than the sport of boxing. With MMA competitions, the opportunity to attack the extremities with arm bars and leg locks and the possibility of extended periods of grappling arguably serve to lessen the risk of traumatic brain injury. When technical knockouts (TKOS) are compared, proportions between professional boxing (38%) and MMA are similar, according to a publication assessing risk of injury in professional boxing (Bledsoe et al., 2005).
With all of the above taken into consideration, discussions keep returning to the idea that professional fighting is inherently dangerous, and fighters depend on the rules and effective referees to prevent the worst possible injuries or even death from occurring. While the head trauma inherent to other sports such as football and hockey has come into the collective consciousness of society in recent years, only in MMA and boxing is creating head trauma an objective in order to win a match.
Even though a fighter may sustain long-standing injuries or even die at the hands of their opponent, there are no legal repercussions or recourse for either participant since all must sign a waiver of liability, agreeing that in the dangerous sport, injuries are likely to happen. In worst case scenarios, participation in these fights may lead to death, like in the most recent case of Patrick Day. There was no day in court for his family, no insurance claims to be paid out to cover funeral costs from a governing league or commission, and certainly no closure to claim from the opponents, the trainers, or the doctors who stood by during the match. The referee in particular allowed the bout to continue after Day had already been knocked down twice, and he only stopped the fight in the 10th round after a third knockdown. That third knockdown marked the moment Day was knocked unconscious, taken from the ring in a stretcher, and lapsed into a coma and succumbed to his injuries four days later.
Less extreme than banning fights entirely is the reasonable option to further standardize guidelines to protect participants in boxing and MMA. These sports will always be inherently dangerous despite the steps taken to set forth new standardized rules and codes of conduct for boxing and MMA alike. Even with efforts to regulate what happens in the cage or ring, the fighters are not covered by general liability with respect to negligence or recklessness, that exists in other sports, and fighters and properties alike look to referees to have a greater responsibility to ensure fighters’ well-being while in the ring.
In any given sporting event, participants owe a duty of care to one another and in order to show a breach of that duty, conduct must fall below the standard required of a reasonable participant in similar circumstances. Given that, the test for negligence in the sporting world is a high threshold to meet because there is an assumed risk inherent to the nature of sport. Although the participants assume the risks of ordinary injuries resulting from expected contact aligned with that given sport, participants do not assume the risk of an injury caused by another’s deliberate violation of a known safety rule or general standard within the level of play.
Fighters should have legal recourse in the case of referees failing to do their jobs (e.g., allowing late stoppages that lead to serious injuries that require long-term care and recovery). Fighters rely on referees as the only authority within the ring that can intervene in an effort to use reasonable judgment to stop the fight or call a TKO, before the dominant fighter delivers what could be severe damage to an unprotected and vulnerable opponent. Even though there are doctors both ringside and stationed in designated medical areas monitoring the fights on up-close, the real-time reactions of ringside officials can often determine a fighter’s fate.
Wilson (2011) outlined that the focus should be on negligence rather than recklessness in MMA, and explains that a high-pressure situation like the heat of a fight is not the place for fighters to have to think and analyze whether their actions within the cage are legal. Rather, it is the referee’s job to make sure that the fight does not escalate to the point where long-term damage is sustained by a fighter due to excessive force after the opposing fighter is already in a vulnerable position. Mayer (2005) examines the responsibility referees have to players during competition, and ultimately concludes that recklessness should be imposed on referees who find themselves in the situations where they are forced to make a decision that could drastically alter the course of a fight.
In addition to legal considerations, it is time that fighters unite and educate themselves on the process of unionization, and what that could mean in terms of gaining protections that are involved in the bargaining process. Despite the passing of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act (the Ali Act), which is a federal law designed to protect the rights and welfare of boxers, aid state boxing commissions with the oversight of boxing, and increase sportsmanship and integrity within the boxing industry, the sport is a far cry away from other leagues that provide employee benefits to its athletes.
With boxing in particular, the sport is fragmented so there is no one league or single major promoter, which would make it difficult for boxers to unionize since they are most closely characterized as independent contractors, as opposed to employees. If boxers can prove they are employees of a certain entity, such as a league, they can voluntarily be recognized under the National Labors Relations Act (NLRA), and their employers would have a legal obligation to bargain in “good faith” with the union over terms and conditions of employment. Typically, a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) will contain protections with regards to wages or compensation, comprehensive healthcare included within, post-employment benefits such as a pension or 401K, and drug testing. Furthermore, fighters can also ask for additional subjects of bargaining, such as travel reimbursements, and further set the terms and conditions of employment, as opposed to promoters and/or commissions simply implementing what they choose to.
Whenever there has been a debilitating injury or a death in the ring, media coverage spikes and languishes in a few news cycles, the fight community mourns the loss of their fellow fighter, and their families are left reeling in the wake of tragedy with no avenues for legal recourse or financial relief. Before Patrick Day was even buried, his promoters were already out announcing and marketing future fights. Day’s family relied on the kindness and sympathy of other boxers who helped pay for funeral costs and medical bills. This cycle will continue if fighters do not begin to cultivate a grassroots alliance amongst themselves, and advocate for their rights to be recognized as employees. If a name like Conor McGregor in MMA or Deontay Wilder in boxing began leading the charge to form an association, the visibility and credibility they would undoubtedly bring to the table would empower other fighters to support that cause. Perhaps even undercard fighters who may have remained silent for fear of being cut by their manager or promoter would join the cause. If the commissions, MMA brands, and promoters continue to choose not to protect the interests of fighters, the onus is on the fighters to get to the bargaining table and fix the profession.
Gina Antoniello is Sport Management Ph.D student at Troy University specializing in research related to athlete activism and social justice in sport and society. For her work in developing social responsibility programming, Gina has been honored as a Congressional Capital Flag recipient and has been recognized by the National Basketball Association for developing SR programs that have earned top League honors. She is currently the Head of Communications for the New York Guardians of the XFL and is Associate Adjunct Faculty at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, of which she is an alumna.
References
Bledsoe, G. H., Li, G., & Levy, F. (2005) Injury risk in professional boxing. Southern Medical Journal, 98, 994-998.
Mayer, M. (2005). Stepping in to step out of liability: The proper standard of liability for referees in foreseeable judgment-call situations. DePaul Journal of Sports Law, 3(1), 50-102
Wilson, U. S. (2011). The standard of care between coparticipants in mixed martial arts: Why reckless should ‘submit’ to the ordinary negligence standard. Widener Law Journal, 20, 375-416.
