By Shawn Schatzle, Esq. of Havkins Rosenfeld Ritzert & Varriale, LLP
It was May 25, 2013 in Las Vegas, the mecca of combat sports. T.J. Grant, then a 29-year old native of Nova Scotia, was riding a four-fight win streak into a lightweight bout with former title contender Gray Maynard at UFC 160. Having competed in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and wrestling as a teenager, Grant began fighting in 2006 and had compiled an impressive record of 20-5 by the time he stepped into the cage in Vegas that night. Maynard was a respected veteran who had almost become the UFC’s Lightweight Champion on two occasions, only to fall just short in bouts against Frankie Edgar. Otherwise, he was undefeated in every bout he had competed in and was the favorite heading into UFC 160. Despite the underdog status, Grant stopped Maynard with strikes inside the first round. It was only the second time Maynard had been defeated. Grant was dubbed the top contender to the championship. All of his hard work had finally paid off.
Shortly after his stunning victory in May of 2013, Grant was booked against then-champion Benson Henderson in a UFC Lightweight Title bout that was scheduled to headline UFC 164 in Milwaukee. It was not to be, however. He suffered a concussion in training and was pulled from the bout. He was replaced by Anthony Pettis, who defeated Henderson and went on to become a star for the UFC, even appearing on a Wheaties box. As for Grant, the win against Maynard would be the last time he would ever compete in mixed martial arts.
Realizing that he needed to find a way to support his family if he was not going to be competing, Grant spent time working in a potash mine in Saskatchewan. Headaches lasted for at least a year after the initial head injury. Even after they subsided, he still experienced short-term memory loss, sometimes forgetting why he went to a particular room in his house.
Grant is certainly not the only mixed martial arts athlete who has suffered a head injury, but a recent medical study indicates that the statistics are largely unknown. Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto recently published an article in the journal Trauma, which analyzed 18 studies involving 7, 587 patients with head injuries from mixed martial arts competition. Following their review of the studies, the authors of the article concluded that “the rate and potential risk of traumatic brain injury in mixed martial arts remain unknown due to a lack of regulation and protocols surrounding such injuries,” according to a press release from the hospital summarizing the article. The authors found that there was “no consistent definition of head injury, concussion or traumatic brain injury or consistent protocol for how [such] injuries are reported and medical clearance [for] return to play.” There was no information regarding long-term follow-up of injured fighters available to the authors.
The lack of relevant statistics was noteworthy in light of the possibility of head trauma in the sport. For example, the researchers found that a significant portion of mixed martial arts bouts ended in stoppage due to strikes. More specifically, it was found that contents ended in a “technical knockout” or “knockout” at a rate ranging from 28.3 to 46.2 percent of all matches, with some studies finding that there was a lifetime average of 6.2 technical knockouts or knockouts in an individual career. No information was reported relating to head trauma sustained during training, however, which is notable, especially considering Grant’s story.
The researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital noted certain regulations generally in place relating to head injuries, although they highlighted deficiencies with such regulations. In Ontario, for example, fighters who sustain a head injury are suspended for a fixed period of sixty days, regardless of ongoing symptoms. Athletes can be cleared early by any physician with a normal CT, MRI or electroencephalogram.
A root issue may be the fact that mixed martial arts is not regulated by any single sanctioning body. Although organizations like the UFC and Bellator are well-known, they are merely promoters of the sport. Regulation is left up to individual states in the United States and provinces in Canada. Outside of North America, local athletic sanctioning bodies or commissions oversee events, or promoters are left to regulate their own events. This creates a logistical hurdle in setting forth comprehensive protocols for head injuries.
There have been attempts at setting forth uniform protocols by the Association of Boxing Commission (“ABC”). However, any regulations set forth by the ABC are not binding on individual member athletic commissions. When the ABC issued certain changes to the unified rules of mixed martial arts in August of 2016, for example, representatives of the New Jersey commission expressly stated that their state would not adopt the new rules in full. Nevada has yet to even vote on whether to implement the new rules.
With that said, the individual athletic commissions who objected to certain portions of the new unified rules of mixed martial arts largely did so on the basis of fighter safety. New Jersey specifically objected to a rule change relating to the definition of a grounded fighter on the basis that it could potentially increase head strikes. This indicates that individual commissions may very well welcome a discussion regarding uniform protocols for dealing with head injuries in mixed martial arts. Perhaps the ABC will take up the topic in the near future. Any new protocols issued by the ABC regarding head injury regulations would then need to be voted on by each individual member commission.
For its part, the UFC has not been silent on the issue of fighter health. For example, in October of 2017, heavyweight contender Mark Hunt was pulled from a bout in Australia due to troubling comments he made in a published article. Hunt complained of sleeping and memory issues, and noted that he was starting to stutter and slur his words. He opined that these issues were “the price of being a fighter.” The UFC removed him from his scheduled bout and refused to book him again until he underwent a series of medical tests with specialists in Las Vegas. He apparently passed and is now scheduled to compete against Curtis Blaydes on February 11, 2018 in Australia.
The UFC has also enacted a comprehensive drug testing program through a partnership with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (“USADA”), the goal of which is to police and hopefully minimize the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the organization. This program does not directly relate to the issue of head injuries, but it is evidence of the promotion’s ability to tackle important issues when it elects to do so. Now may be the time to take on the issue of head injuries.
