A 12-Year Cohort Study of Doc-Stoppage in Professional Mixed Martial Arts

Abstract

Purposes: To determine actions during bouts that generate serious enough injury to stop the bout; verifying the injury incidence, types, and prevalence of doctor stoppages (doc-stoppage); and identify potential risk factors by analyzing technical-tactical profiles for injury in sanctioned mixed martial arts bouts taking place over a 12-y period. Methods: This research analyzed 440 paired mixed martial arts matches separated by doc-stoppage (n = 220) and no doc-stoppage (n = 220) from 2002 to 2014. Technical knockouts for doc-stoppage were diagnosed and managed by attending ringside doctors, and the time–motion variables were categorized into total combat time separated by low- or high-intensity activities per round, stand-up, or groundwork actions, P ≤ .05. Results: The main cause of injuries in doc-stoppage situations was due to facial injuries (>90%), with 87.1% occurring after striking actions during the second round. Lacerations were the leading type of injury, which occurred with 80% frequency. The results showed differences between doc-stoppage and no doc-stoppage for standing combat with low-intensity actions (130.6 [8.5] s vs 83.3 [6.9] s for first round; 115.7 [10.5] s vs 100.1 [9.6] s for second round, and 121.5 [19.5] s vs 106.3 [11.7] s for third round) and total strike attempts (34.5, 23.0–51.8 vs 25.0, 12.0–40.8); in standing combat, head strike attempts (21, 10–33 vs 11, 4–21) and body strikes (2.5, 1.0–5.8 vs 1.0–2), and in groundwork combat, head strikes landed (0.0–3.0 vs 0.0–5.0). Conclusions: This research showed higher values of strike attempts with 2 main orientations, namely the head (on the ground and in stand-up actions) and body (in stand-up actions), and may provide important information regarding the technical knockout and when it can be called by officials supervising mixed martial arts bouts.