What Is Worse For The Brain: Football or Boxing?
By: Jace Garcia
In Boxing, the brain trauma is evident and guaranteed, because it is a fight and the objective is to knock your opponent unconscious. There are other problems in boxing that are bad for the brain, starting off with the ten count, whenever someone is knocked down (actually knocked down not
a slip or just caught off balance) the brain trauma is evident, they were hit so hard they lost control of their body and fell to the ground, then you have the ref counting and forcing the fighter to get to their feet by the time the ref gets to 8 and if you are standing by that time and are able to respond to the ref, that suggests you ready for more trauma to the head, and depending on
the state, and the rules. To lose, there has to be 2 other knockdowns within the fight to be called off, unless the ref is smart enough to tell when enough is enough and call the fight off.
Also, what makes boxing worse than MMA is that the only place where you can hit someone is either the body or the head, and when it’s a fight, and you are trying to knock them unconscious it makes for more head hunting and a higher volume of strikes to the head. Another reason boxing is bad for the brain and also better than MMA is because of the padding on the gloves. There is a lot of disagreement when it comes to the discussion of the gloves, but you are adding 8–16 extra ounces of what you are getting hit in the head with, and it is going to slow down how fast you are getting hit in the head, but adds to the force due to the increased weight of what you are getting hit with. The extra padding on the gloves also gives a sense of protection. You can throw a punch with a glove harder than you can without because you are not worried about hurting your hand, the gloves protect the hands of who is throwing the punch, rather than the head of who is getting punched, a similar argument can be said for the padding in football.
With football, the whole body is padded and gives players a sense of security, so they can run full speed at another player from yards away and throw their whole body at them, including their head, causing much more force than a punch can generate. The argument for football and against boxing with that, is in boxing, they are getting hit repeatedly in the head, when in football the record for most tackles in an NFL game is only 24 times and they only play once a week.
However, the linemen on the football field are the ones who are in the most danger. Lining up play after play, getting hit a lot of the time head to head in short bursts in an NFL average of 64- 84 plays per game, assuming the offense and defense are split down the middle, that is an average of 17–42 short bursts of head to head contact a game for the linemen, who average the longest careers in the NFL with an average of 3 years and 8 months, where the total average career length in the NFL is only 2 years, assuming they start playing in high school (most start playing earlier than that in peewee league football), so that is 11 years and 8 months of weekly brain trauma a lineman endures.
Both sports are unsafe and that adds to the allure of each, as we want to see people put their bodies on the line to see who is the best. Their brains are sadly a casualty, and in some instances, the brain trauma might be worth the fame and multi-millions of dollars, but not every athlete is getting paid enough to do what they do to their brains and just love the sport. Football has tried to make football safer, and boxing is still very old school, but as long as these athletes love the sport, who are we to tell them what is best for them.
Throwing Jabs Boxing Podcast: https://throwingjabspodcast.com/
JawingAbout the G-Men Podcast: https://jawingaboutthegmen.transistor.fm/
Hard Hittin’ College Football Podcast: https://www.hardhittincfb.com/
