No Holds Barred Tenth Anniversary: Dr. Margaret Goodman on Boxing, MMA, and Doping

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with Dr. Margaret Goodman, a neurologist, the former chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and the president and board chairman of VADA, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association.

This is another in a series of discussions celebrating the tenth anniversary of this No Holds Barred podcast, which began in March 2006. These interviews will focus both on the legacy and issues raised over the years on this show, as well as contemporary issues and the future of the combat sports and martial arts.

We spoke with Dr. Margaret Goodman by phone Monday.

There is hardly a day without a report, discussion, or analysis of doping in sports. Even a decade ago, this was not the case, particularly in the combat and contact sports. Yet today, issues like doping, as well as athlete safety, brain trauma, and CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), regularly appear in the headlines and are the main topics in the news and on discussion shows. It has taken time for public awareness of these issues and the crises for sport they entail to grow to a critical mass, but that is where we are today.

"I think that public awareness, and the public, the fans that watch these sports, asking questions, demanding answers to those questions, keeping on top of the sports, and even with the athletic commissions and the media asking questions, I think changes do come," said Dr. Goodman.

"The public is more and more aware of this," she said, and urged, "I think that it's really important for the average boxing fan and MMA fan to ask questions, to find out as much information as they can."

More and more transparency on these issues and more and more people asking questions, she said, "this is what really will evoke changes."

We discussed many specific issues, including that of the many suspensions of athletes for using the banned substance meldonium; why many of these suspensions have now been lifted; drug-testing in MMA including the UFC-USADA program; the World Boxing Council (WBC) working directly with VADA on testing fighters and the WBC Clean Boxing Program; the growing list of top-rated boxers who are part of VADA's anti-doping program; the lack of uniformity in drug and medical testing of fighters, both around the U.S. and the world; Bellator MMA's booking of Kimbo Slice for a fight in the U.K. right after he tested positive for using a steroid from his February fight and was suspended for three months and had his fighter's license revoked by the Texas commission; the dangers of brain injuries in. and the relative safety of, boxing and MMA; whether or not bare knuckle boxing can be safer than boxing with gloves; the ethics of watching and covering such dangerous sports as boxing and MMA; the need for a national commission for boxing and MMA, for MMA to be included in the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, and for international regulation of these sports; the importance of the recent film "Concussion" about Dr. Bennet Omalu; how repeated sub-concussive blows to the head must be examined and not just full concussions; an upcoming WBC webinar; and much, much more.

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No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

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Thanks, Eddie Goldman
EddieGoldman.com

If you like bare knuckle boxing how would you feel about adding some Vale Tudo elements to modern MMA?

Grappling and wrestling are the best.

This topic of bare knuckle boxing is a very interesting one. I definitely can see how bare knuckle boxing is safer than gloved boxing as an organized sport.

There are a number of key points to address.

Obviously bareknuckle boxing is not the same sport as gloved. Anyone who likes can go on youtube and watch organized bareknuckle matches among UK and Irish travelers.

When it comes to gloves and hand protection, it's not the gloves but the wraps which count. For that reason, BKB is simply the same, it's merely a different prize fighting platform with gloved fighters with hand wraps. MMA also has hand wraps of course.

A stronger argument is to be made for removing gloves in MMA. The reason is it won't fundamentally change the sport. Of course MMA was bareknuckle to begin with so the gloves are really a regression looked at that way. They also get in the way of grappling, so they are regressive in that sense as well.

So in short, I'm in favor of bareknuckle boxing (frankly I'm in favor of every and any combat sports platform and not against boxing with gloves) but bareknuckle boxing and gloved boxing are not the same sport. I'd love it though if bareknuckle boxing became more popular and there were sanctioned events. I also think it is both a purer and safer form of boxing.

So there of course is where you get to politics (equally in the case of bareknuckle boxing and removing the gloves in MMA). It's simply a matter of the social stigma around bareknuckle fighting. It is perceived as more brutal and (wrongly) as more dangerous. The reasons probably have something to do with the fact that the average joe is a lot less dangerous in a fist fight if he slips into some boxing gloves, so people don't make the distinction between a professional fighter and just a normal person.

Most grown men can knock someone out bare fisted if they clock them just right in the chin. With boxing gloves on, most average guys probably can't, unless they were to catch them with just a perfect shot (disclaimer alert: I'm not claiming to be other than an average guy myself). Obviously for a professional fighter it's a different story.

Bare fists are also more likely to open cuts. And then there is just the reputation that it carries. If you mention the term 'bareknuckle boxing' people are likely going to look at you funny. It has this veneer as an underground, underworld, nefarious type of activity.

My two cents: I'd encourage pushing for sanctioned events to take place of true bareknuckle boxing and/or true bareknuckle MMA, and try to do whatever possible to ensure that any and every such event runs smoothly, is without incident, and receives positive press afterwords.

It is all political. The commissions and politicians are clueless about combat sports. One of the supposedly respected legislators in NY argued this year against legalizing MMA because there were no gloves! Don't confuse them with facts!

And if it's political, that means it's really about money.

Meanwhile, I'm still much more interesting in the non-striking combat sports like catch and combat wrestling.

nhbnews wrote:It is all political. The commissions and politicians are clueless about combat sports. One of the supposedly respected legislators in NY argued this year against legalizing MMA because there were no gloves! Don't confuse them with facts!

And if it's political, that means it's really about money.

Meanwhile, I'm still much more interesting in the non-striking combat sports like catch and combat wrestling.

I am too (being a wrestler first like yourself ) but I love in particular boxing as well. Once again, I think grassroots level is the only way to make any kind of movement here. Bare knuckle events wouldn't fly in most jurisdictions. It'd probably have to start on Indian reservations, and that's sketchy in itself. Basically, as per my thinking, you wouldn't have the bureaucracy to deal with, but you'd still have a lot of the same stigmas. The goal would be (in my hypothetical thought experiment here) to get some type of stamp of approval for an event to take place, have top notch commentators who understand precisely the intricacies involved with removing the gloves and can explain it to the audience, and an overall clean and non-sleazy presentation. With the internet and live streaming and shit, there are a lot of possibilities, though it's still of course very murky waters (live streaming issues, etc.).

I could see such a thing as being possible to come to life.

In the U.S. and Canada, bare knuckle bouts in Native American and First Nations communities have to be sanctioned by athletic commissions. Plus, there have been reports that some of these events are very sleazy, so governance is a problem as well. But I'd like to see a well-run one.