What are the odds of a boxer getting brain damage?

Question

Or punch drunk syndrome

Answer 1

it depends on how long they box. I believe if Ali would have retired alot sooner instead of boxing for so many years that he would have been less likely to have Parkinsons disease. George Foreman is fine, the odds are still there though, i would say about a 35% chance.

Answer 2

A very good book about this is SPORTS NEUROLOGY..(forget the authors' names) and also PREVENTABLE BRAIN INJURY by Richard Drew and Donald Templer. These are somewhat older books that should be easy to locate, and contain some fascinating data about Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury studies in boxing, and other contact sports....worth the time for anyone really interested....and not sure if they really want to fight themselves.

Answer 3

Well you could argue the odds of having brain damage BEFORE getting into the sport are very high.

And then anyone who is in it for more than a few months has brain damage.  Head shots are tough on the noodle.

Answer 4

Take enough shots to the head, and it is inevitable.  It all depends on how hard and how many times a boxer gets hit.  The odds increase the longer a fighter's career continues, and if you have a guy fighting professionally into his 40's the odds are he is going to suffer some amount of damage, age greatly increased the likelihood of such injury.

Answer 5

I think every boxer has a risk of getting some type of brain damage. And of course the more you get hit the more at risk you are, if your one of those take two punches to land one type fighters I'm sure that won't help. And I think it was more common in the old days when the fights were 15 rounds, and a lot of the time they went the full 15 rounds because the guys were so tough. How many of Ali's fights could have been stopped because he was just pounded the guys but they were still standing and the ref let it go? Sadly late in his career the same happened to him. Because it was him no ref wanted to stop Muhammad Ali so they let the fight go on. I'm sure that didn't help him any now, poor guy. They have done studies to show that repeated blows to the head can cause Parkinson's and brain damage..Look at Freddie Roach now too, he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's also. What I  was also going to say buy got side tracked is have you ever listened to Joe Frazier, Tommy Hearns, some of he old school fighters talk now? You really can't even understand them anymore. So  

long answer to your question is the odds are very high of a boxer getting brain damage.

Read this if you haven't already..Great article

http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news?slug=ap...

Answer 6

Apparantly research suggested that 75% of boxers who have 20 or more professional fights will sustain neurological damage.

Don't take that at face value though. Generally, if someone has 20 professional fights, it will be preceeded by an amateur career in excess of 50 fights; often more then 100.