🥊👊Punches to the Back of the Head Rabbit Punches

Analysis by Pro fighter D Hamaguchi🥋🥊👊48 kg
US Natl Judo Chmp 45 kg

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In striking, taking hits to the back of the head is a very serious issue. This can happen in practice, and of course, it can also happen in an actual fight. Now, I have definitely experienced both. So we'll start a I'll start speaking about taking blows to the back of the head in a fight. My first experience of this was actually in the amateurs, in I think my second amateur fight ever. Here's the interesting thing. This was an open stance fight, as they call it in MMA. In boxing terms, it's a righty, I'm an orthodox, so I'm a righty, versus a lefty. That's called open stance. And in that stance, it's far more likely for somebody to get hit in the back of the head because both fighters' lead hand is on the same side. So for example, I'm right-handed, so my left hand is my lead hand, my left hand is forward. By contrast, my opponent's lead hand is their right hand. So now both of our lead hands are on the same side of our bodies. That means it's easier for her to throw a right hook and land to the back of my head, and vice versa. It's easy for my left hook to wind up landing on the back of her head because both of our bodies are turned towards each other, meaning the back of our head is a little more oblique to the other person. Now that said, any referee worth their assault should be aware that in this open stance fight, they're gonna have to watch out for blows to the back of the head and stop the action and warn the fighter. Look them in the eye and say, watch the blows to the back of the head. Now, when it when a blow to the back of the head lands in an open stance fight, it's not necessarily done intentionally. But if one fighter figures out that they can land that type of punch, it's called a rabbit punch. If they can land that, I won't say easily, but if they realize that they can land that punch, they might start doing it repeatedly just because they feel it gives them an advantage. At that point, the referee really is going to have to enforce the rules. Here's why. That rabbit punch to the back of the head back here, that's part of what we call that mohawk area. UFC linguini necks, pencil necks, linguini arms were getting really upset about Cyril Ghan issuing elbows to the back of Alex Pereira's head. One troll on YouTube even offered to elbow me to the back of the head just so I could feel it. But that's another story. Now, here's my experience with getting hit in the back of the head in an amateur boxing fight. It's not so much that it hurts. It doesn't really hurt, but you can literally feel yourself in that moment getting stupider. Here's what I mean. It's as if there's a brain-body disconnect when you get hit back here in the mohawk area, right on the back of the skull. You know you're aware that you're supposed to be doing something, but you're not able to do that. So for example, I know and I'm thinking, oh, I gotta keep my hands up, but then my body is not cooperating to keep my hands up. The exact same thing can happen in practice in sparring. Hopefully, your opponent was wearing bigger gloves than they would be wearing in a fight. And also, hopefully, your sparring partner's not doing this intentionally at all, then they're not putting a lot of power on that shot. If you wind up sparring somebody who does things like that intentionally, you should just not spar them again ever. Or just hopefully your corner will figure that out and they can just stop the sparring session immediately. Now, the same thing applies to blows to the top of the head that's still part of that mohawk area, which is illegal in both boxing and MMA. And there's even less of an excuse for somebody hitting you on the top of the head, especially in boxing. There's no hammer fists allowed. You can't whack somebody on the top of the head. I've also had that happen in sparring, not in a real fight, in sparring because I'm always sparring people who are much taller than me. And so some figure that since I level change or I'm already shorter than them, if I level change down to their body, I'm even lower. And then they figure, well, they my head is exposed, they take a shot. But those are the types of people I avoid sparring once I realize that that's their mindset. Now, can a blow to the top or back of the head automatically will that automatically result in a subdural hematoma? I'm not so sure about that. I don't think you can draw a direct line between a blow to the back of the head, top of the head, which are legal. It should not happen. You can't say with certainty that that's what causes a subdural hematoma. I think the subdural hematoma can happen from blows to any part of the head. Are these areas, the back of the head and the top of the head, more vulnerable? Yes, absolutely. That's why it's illegal to hit somebody there. But I've seen uh unfortunate circumstances where the person who suffers a subdural hematoma is simply taking tons of blows just to anywhere on the skull, very hard blows over a certain duration of rounds. Again, that's not automatically going to result in a subdural hematoma. I do think there's some pre-existing conditions that make a fighter more susceptible to a subdural hematoma. And then when you add on top of that just the repeated concussive blows, I think that's what does it. So my point here is that I don't think we can automatically blame a blow to the top of the head or the back of the head as the specific reason that a subdural hematoma happens in the person who got hit. I think there's still a ton of research that needs to be done in terms of combat sport safety with regards to strikes to that mohawk area. And in addition to that, I think we need much more research on the cause of subdural hematomas in combat sport athletes. Now notice that this happens far more in boxing than it does in MMA. We can make, we can express our opinion about why that is. You know, people are happy to say, well, that's because in MMA, somebody would already have gotten knocked out. So that's why they don't suffer through even more punches like they do in boxing. People also say, well, in boxing, because the ref gives an eight count, it prolongs the damage that fighter can take. Now, I'm not sure how to really dissect all of this because boxing, yes, you have shorter rounds, three minutes, you have more rounds, because up to 12, but you're also wearing bigger gloves. I don't think it's as straightforward as it sounds. I don't think, you know, in many ways, the MMA community kind of wants to vilify boxing a bit, saying, well, MMA is way more safe than boxing because nobody's died in MMA, people have died in boxing. Yes, and boxing has been around for much longer than MMA. So, bottom line, I conclusions saying A cause B, B is the subdural hematoma. I think we need more research in brain health in combat sport athletes. Fortunately, the Lou Rubo Center for Brain Research, which is based out of Las Vegas, they are conducting a long-term brain health study on combat sport athletes, which includes both boxers and MMA fighters. If you happen to be either a current or former combat sport athlete, especially if you're female, they are looking for more data, particularly from female fighters. So you can try to reach out to them and see if you want to become part of that study. I have participated in that study. I've been to the Lou Google Center for a few visits, and I will continue to participate in that study because I just want to do my part to contribute to their research. So if we have any medical experts out there, particularly if you are involved in brain research, we'd love to hear from you. And we want to become more informed about brain trauma in combat sport athletes. Thank you.