Gonna Fly Now: The Positives and Negatives of Combat Sports

Abstract

Background: Combat Sports like boxing and Mixed Martial Arts have taken the world by storm as a form of entertainment for viewers around the world and a job for those who fight; however, it is a very dangerous job, and these sports can lead to long-lasting physical and mental complications that have led to individuals becoming outraged over the violence and see these sports as mentally poisonous. However, individuals who box or are involved in any other sports do not use it to fight; instead, they use it to stay in shape, which has been shown to have exceptional benefits for a person’s physical and mental well-being.

Objective: The goal is to show that while competing in fights can be dangerous, practicing can be such a great way to stay active and to show that it could be a great way to practice discipline and control.

Design and Method: My research method is based on peer-reviewed articles and scholarly literature. The sources I used address the positives and negatives of combat sports and how they can affect a person’s body and mind when you are either doing it for a positive change or going into a fight to give people a show. I wish to answer a couple of different questions in my research. Those questions are: How do combat sports positively affect the human body? How do combat sports negatively affect the human body?

Results: A study like this is important because there is much skepticism about practicing combat sports and if there is any benefit at all when in reality, there are a ton of benefits, but using it as a job and competing can cause irreversible damage if not careful, and the sooner we realize the dangers, the sooner we can make these sports safer because they are too popular to ban completely, so the best we can do is make it safer, and to the first step is to acknowledge the dangers.

Conclusion: While many different studies prove the benefits of combat sports, it is not enough to stop some individuals from seeing them as poison to individuals, especially the youth, and as for the competitive side, there is enough science and common sense in the world to know that we could do more for these competitions to make them safer for everyone involved.

Keywords: Combat sports, competitions, practice, positives, negatives, human body.