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It is wrong
to think that Toughman is no different from boxing or any other kind of
contact sport? It is wrong to compare Toughman to football, hockey or
soccer, because it is quite different.
According to
ringside physician Dr. Margaret Goodman, advisor to Nevada’s Boxing
Commission, she agrees that there are serious injuries in all these sports,
but boxers have unique circumstances
(http://www.secondsout.com/ringside/goodman_52687.asp).
Toughman participant, because they are novices, untrained, unconditioned and
are recruited from the audience, do not have a good chin tuck, strong neck
muscles, preparedness, good well-fitted mouthpiece, expertise, physical
aptitude, and the years of training and the learned skill it takes to get in
the ring. Her many years of experience as a ring doctor shows that without
these things, as in the case of Toughman, the boxer is going to be at an
increased risk of getting seriously injured.
Toughman amateur boxing
is not like any other contact sport. In all other contact sports like
football, hockey, soccer, and even wrestling, if you deliberately cause an
injury to your opponent, you are immediately disqualified, thrown off the
field, fined, and even banned from the sport, in Toughman you are declared
the winner.
Friday, September 26th,
2003 Inside Edition: Art Dore told Inside Edition that “Toughman”
is a sport like any other -- which comes with risks. “How many have died in
high school football? Hundreds. How about automobile racing? Any kind of
activity is dangerous. I mean we don't live in a bubble.”
Art Dore is trying to
misdirect you by making a false argument. The arguments that other contact
sports such as rugby or sky diving are as if not more dangerous are
specious, because in Toughman, it is the injuries, the blood, and
specifically the knockout that are the object of the activity. A knockout,
the primary purpose in Toughman, is an injury to the brain that causes the
brain activity to turn off. In all the other sports safety and reduction of
injury is of primary importance. In these sports, an actual injury is a
result of an accident and not from the fact that safety measures were
nonexistent.
Dr. Helen Grant, a
neuropathologist and former adviser to the International Olympic Committee
on the risk of brain damage in boxing, has described the comparison to other
sport as "indefensible", referring to a study of the dangers of boxing
compared with other sports. Neurosurgeons throughout the country were
polled on how many patients with brain damage they treated. A list of their
patients included 12 jockeys, 5 footballers, 2 rugby players, 2 wrestlers, 1
parachutist and 290 boxers. "When you consider the frequency of soccer or
rugby matches relative to how many times a boxer fights, then the figures
are pretty alarming." (http://www.globalideasbank.org/BOV/BV-493.html).
Death Rate
The argument that the
death rate in other contact sports is a lot higher than Toughman is wrong.
The truth is Toughman would like nothing more that for you to believe their
statement that they are safe. Look at the numbers, the statistics they
quote are skewed, and not normalized to the amount of time an individual
spends in the sporting activity. The statistics used by Toughman are
comparing apples to oranges with the intent to deceive and to mislead you
into thinking that Toughman is safe.
Understand the comparison
that a football game lasts one hour, compared to the three minutes in a
Toughman amateur boxing contest. The total amount of time in the activity
is a crucial factor in understanding the death and injury rates of the sport
in question. The amount of time spent in any sporting activity compared to
Toughman shows that Toughman has a significant death rate over all other
contact sports.
Truth: When you
compare apples to apples such as when you compare USA Amateur Boxing events
to Toughman Amateur Boxing, you find that Toughman has a death rate 10 times
greater than that of its counterpart per minute of actual boxing.
The following
information contained in the website is strictly
opinion and should not be considered as fact. Citations are
given to you for you
own purpose and ability to come to your own conclusion. These
references will assist you in answering
the question for yourself. Remember you should always question the
perspective of what is being presented. |
