Fighter’s Death Being Used
Jake Rossen Jun 30, 2010
The speculation over Monday’s death of debuting professional
fighter Michael Kirkham in South Carolina -- the second casualty of
organized mixed martial arts in the U.S. -- often involves the idea
of Kirkham being too reedy and fragile for the lightweight
division. At 6’9” and 155 lbs., his physique must have been little
more than bone. That’s not much armor.
Kirkham, like the preceding deaths of Douglas Dedge and Sam Vasquez, is going to get the perfunctory eulogies from fans and media, but the reality is that people and their tragedies are often viewed as pawns to push or oppose agendas. Already, the “mainstream” outlets reporting on his death are being tagged by comments that imagine Kirkham was mauled by tigers in a coliseum.
From Huffington Post readers: “I wish this would be banned… In the
cesspool that is MMA, egregious behavior is the whole point... This
"sport" is analogous to dog fighting and gladiatorial brutality
reminiscent of the Roman Empire.”
From Fox Sports discussion: “This is not a sport. It’s assault and battery.”
This is what it always boils down to: a human being volleyed around for political discussion.
What Kirkham’s death reveals is a considerable and continued revulsion at MMA, which remains the most superficially gruesome of any major sporting event. It’s impossible for people to accept these deaths as tragedy when the norm is flowing blood, swelling and brain interruption. It would be easier for them to swallow two or three casualties in football or baseball for the simple reason that it doesn’t look like anything should happen to those players. When someone dies in this sport, it’s the fulfillment of an expectation.
Michael Schwartz, MD, the chairman of the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, believes that anticipation is what continues to create problems for the sport. “When people ask how I work in the sport as a physician where the goal is to concuss the other person, I tell them to look at the outcomes, not the intent,” he told me this past spring. “There are so many more injuries in football than there are in boxing and MMA but because the ‘intent’ isn’t to knock the guy out, football’s okay. Well, when you look at the outcome, MMA is actually safer than auto racing, football, or skydiving. The intent in those sports is not to die, but guess what? People do.”
That perception smothers the reality: three deaths in seventeen years of frequent competition is a generous mortality rate. How many fights have been contested in that time? 10,000? 30,000? Fighters are far more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the arena.
Obviously, Kirkham’s family couldn’t care less about rationalizing their relative’s death: calling him statistically insignificant is a disgusting and callous comment. Instead of dismissing him as an anomaly, he should be a lesson that informs how we treat the thousands of athletes in the sport who need responsible supervision. Coaches might be quicker to stop athletes who have been KOed in training from competing, even if it means lost income or opportunities; athletic commissions might look at a fighter like Chuck Liddell -- who, in one of the saddest displays yet seen in the sport, argues that the UFC can still profit from his decline -- and tell him he no longer has the privilege to compete. Maybe Kim Winslow would have had second thoughts about allowing Jan Finney to continue after it was clear Cristiane Santos already had her head on her wall.
Those are the only positives than can come out of this man’s death. I’m beyond sorry for Kirkham’s family, who will suffer the frustration and sadness of a senseless loss. I’m even sorrier that he’ll be perceived as a point of debate instead of a human being.
Kirkham, like the preceding deaths of Douglas Dedge and Sam Vasquez, is going to get the perfunctory eulogies from fans and media, but the reality is that people and their tragedies are often viewed as pawns to push or oppose agendas. Already, the “mainstream” outlets reporting on his death are being tagged by comments that imagine Kirkham was mauled by tigers in a coliseum.
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From Fox Sports discussion: “This is not a sport. It’s assault and battery.”
From the Vancouver Sun comments: “I would not watch this disgusting
sport if you paid me.”
This is what it always boils down to: a human being volleyed around for political discussion.
What Kirkham’s death reveals is a considerable and continued revulsion at MMA, which remains the most superficially gruesome of any major sporting event. It’s impossible for people to accept these deaths as tragedy when the norm is flowing blood, swelling and brain interruption. It would be easier for them to swallow two or three casualties in football or baseball for the simple reason that it doesn’t look like anything should happen to those players. When someone dies in this sport, it’s the fulfillment of an expectation.
Michael Schwartz, MD, the chairman of the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, believes that anticipation is what continues to create problems for the sport. “When people ask how I work in the sport as a physician where the goal is to concuss the other person, I tell them to look at the outcomes, not the intent,” he told me this past spring. “There are so many more injuries in football than there are in boxing and MMA but because the ‘intent’ isn’t to knock the guy out, football’s okay. Well, when you look at the outcome, MMA is actually safer than auto racing, football, or skydiving. The intent in those sports is not to die, but guess what? People do.”
That perception smothers the reality: three deaths in seventeen years of frequent competition is a generous mortality rate. How many fights have been contested in that time? 10,000? 30,000? Fighters are far more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the arena.
Obviously, Kirkham’s family couldn’t care less about rationalizing their relative’s death: calling him statistically insignificant is a disgusting and callous comment. Instead of dismissing him as an anomaly, he should be a lesson that informs how we treat the thousands of athletes in the sport who need responsible supervision. Coaches might be quicker to stop athletes who have been KOed in training from competing, even if it means lost income or opportunities; athletic commissions might look at a fighter like Chuck Liddell -- who, in one of the saddest displays yet seen in the sport, argues that the UFC can still profit from his decline -- and tell him he no longer has the privilege to compete. Maybe Kim Winslow would have had second thoughts about allowing Jan Finney to continue after it was clear Cristiane Santos already had her head on her wall.
Those are the only positives than can come out of this man’s death. I’m beyond sorry for Kirkham’s family, who will suffer the frustration and sadness of a senseless loss. I’m even sorrier that he’ll be perceived as a point of debate instead of a human being.
