Fighting Foundation Publishes First Video of CTE Series
The Fighting Foundation just published its first video that looks to help educate athletic commissions and fighters about the risks of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). It is a risk all athletes in contact sports have to be aware of but is often overlooked. Their first video, “Fighting Foundation White Belt” covers some basic awareness and education on the matter.
Rose Gracie and Carla Duran have been looking to help educate the combat sports community about the risks of brain injury for a while. Erik Magraken who runs the Combat Sports Law blog has also volunteered to help them in educating fighters, coaches, and anyone in a fighter’s corner about CTE and concussions. He posted the video and some more details on his website when the video was released.
Promotions like the UFC are partnered with the Cleveland Clinic to help support the study of brain health in professional fighters, but other than publicly announcing the partnership it seems not enough awareness is being presented to the parties that need to be educated about the risks.
In June, Magraken was on the Coast-2-Coast Combat Hour podcast where he said that the Kansas State Athletic Commission was going to add it to adopt the practice of educating licensed fighters and that Colorado was also looking to adopt it as well. He also added, “We’ve got a neurologist that put together a curriculum to educate fighters. We’ve got a whole bunch of MMA and boxing fighters delivering that curriculum, and we’re going to have this video free for use for all the athletic commissions.”
The video is featured above and on their YouTube channel and make sure to subscribe as well for more updates. Along with Gracie, the video features Mackenzie Dern, Rayron Gracie, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Keanna Klay, and Ian McCall. The Fighting Foundation website is still being developed but fighters and anyone that wants to be involved can sign up now at fightingfoundation.org.
