Attitudes towards mixed martial arts sports medicine coverage

摘要

The attitudes of physicians towards sports medicine coverage of combat sports may vary. Somephysicians may feel that, as in all sports, sports medicine coverage of combat sports may be needed.Some may feel more revulsion towards covering such sports which may be viewed as “barbaric”(KalinaandBarczyński, 2015). Mixed martial arts (MMA) may be viewed with such an attitude byphysicians, just as how bare‐knuckle boxing was viewed in general in the 19th century (Gorn, 2012).MMA is a combat sport that involves submission grappling, boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing(Bishop, La Bounty,andDevlin, 2013). MMA techniques include kicking, strikes with the knees,elbows, punching, and takedowns. MMA is very similar to “pankration,” a sport that combinedwrestling and boxing, created in 649 BC, first introduced in the original Grecian Olympic games(Kim, Greenwell, Andrew, Lee,andMahony, 2008). The striking and grappling aspects create clearercompetition rules for modern MMA, which also combines these moves with aspects of non‐traditional martial arts (Bishop, La Bounty,andDevlin, 2013).