Worried about CTE talk ruining boxing? Media likely Overstating dangers

[MDPopescu]

He’s a proven fraud. Do your research.

He claimed to have coined the name CTE, which has been proven to be a lie amongst many other things he spews.

Maybe he is...

But "chronic traumatic encephalopathy" is a fraud also?...

[6ixsidesniper]

Maybe he is...

But "chronic traumatic encephalopathy" is a fraud also?...

Read my post before that about how I feel about CTE.

[Eff Pandas]

Idk about all that. I mean maybe CTE itself is overhyped, I wouldn't bet on it doe, but anyone thinking getting hit in the head isn't doing some life altering sh^t is being naive &/or hasn't seen a lot of combat sports athletes after 5, 10 or 20 years in the game.

Go look at guys like Meldrick Taylor or James Toney talking at the beginning of their career & then look at their most recent speech. Something bad is happening to these cats regardless if it's CTE, some other sh^t or some combo of several things that can happen after a million punches to the head.

[Eff Pandas]

CTE affects the vast majority of boxers who have a good amount of fights (say, some amateur background and 25+ pro fights), at least in some way or another. Some boxers are lucky and manage to escape relatively unscathed, but those are the exception to the rule.

For example, look at somebody like Michael Hunter. Only 20 fights, won nearly all of them, very nice guy, yet if you watch recent interviews you can clearly see the affect boxing has had and is continuing to have on him. Another easy example is Jarrett Hurd. He's had 24 fights, won all but one and he already sounds punch drunk, slurring his speech. It's sad.

Head trauma is real. Boxing is an extremely dangerous sport and almost nobody leaves it in the same condition they entered it. Floyd Mayweather is rightly considered one of the greatest defensive boxers of all time. Now listen to him talk in interviews compared to say, eight years ago. And it's only gonna get worse over time...

Interesting. I've never really compared Floyd back in the day til now, but it's not surprising & Imma have to look into that more just for my own personal curiousity. I know I did notice Sweet Pea showing this later as well & to most of us he's right there with Floyd as a defensive wizard in the ring.

The thing that often gets overlooked with guys winning or high level defensive guys like Floyd or Sweet Pea I feel like is that you don't get that good at boxing in official fights without a lot of work in the gym where you aren't always looking as good as when fans see you. And looking bad in boxing means taking punches to the head. I suspect guys are taking 20x to 100x more shots training for fights in their whole pro career than they do when they are being paid to take punches & I don't doubt I could be off & it be even wider a number.

[dannnnn]

The thing that often gets overlooked with guys winning or high level defensive guys like Floyd or Sweet Pea I feel like is that you don't get that good at boxing in official fights without a lot of work in the gym where you aren't always looking as good as when fans see you. And looking bad in boxing means taking punches to the head. I suspect guys are taking 20x to 100x more shots training for fights in their whole pro career than they do when they are being paid to take punches & I don't doubt I could be off & it be even wider a number.

Absolutely. Teddy Atlas brings up this point fairly often with the emphasis on the injustice of a bad decision causing a fighter to not only work his way back into position through two or three fights but more importantly all the added punches they will suffer in sparring as a result.

For as many pro fights as Toney had, I doubt he'd be even half as affected mentally had he not been sparring day in, day out. Same goes for Shane Mosley.