Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar has been a professional mixed martial artist for a third of his life. The 36-year-old New Jersey native made his debut in the sport in 2005. It was before the recent awareness of head trauma and brain injuries in contact sports. The first evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) was published in 2005.
Over the last 13 years, there has been numerous studies mainly focusing on football players. Those at the highest risk of developing CTE are football players, military servicemen and women, hockey players, and boxers.
In recent years, there has been an effort to track head injuries in MMA. The Cleveland Clinic, with cooperation from the UFC, conducted a brain study of UFC athletes. Edgar was not part of the Cleveland Clinic study, but believes MMA is much safer than football and boxing.
“I feel that it’s as safe as it’s going to be. But I mean, were hitting each other. People see us fight only two, three times a year. But I’m in the gym getting hit pretty frequently, too, to prepare for those fights. It’s something I definitely think about more and more as I get older,” said Edgar during an interview with Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports.
“I do think MMA is safer than both football and boxing. I just think the medicals and just the way they stop fights. In boxing, you get rocked, you get an eight count. They ask you, ‘are you good to fight?’ You’re a fighter, you’re going to say,’Yes, I’m good to fight.’ [MMA fighters], we don’t get that chance. We get rocked, we don’t get a chance to come back. Our brain shuts off and the ref stops it. So I think that’s a little bit safer,” he added.
Edgar has been in a few wars during his tenure inside the Octagon. While he did not participate in the Cleveland Clinic study, he has been evaluated.
“Actually, after the third Maynard fight… I felt fine… but (my wife) made me go get a head scan just to make sure. It all turned out fine, I didn’t get a concussion or anything. Either of those fights, I didn’t get a concussion, which was actually pretty surprising,” he said.
Edgar is expected to face featherweight champion Max Holloway in the UFC 222 main event on March 3 in Las Vegas. If he wins, he’ll join an exclusive club of two-division UFC champions. Randy Couture, BJ Penn, Conor McGregor, and Georges St-Pierre are the only fighters to accomplish winning UFC titles in two different weight classes.
