Fighter Joao Carvalho has died due to injuries sustained in an MMA event at the National Stadium in Dublin last weekend. His death will force a massive conversation in Ireland about the safety regulations of the sport here, and inevitably, whether is MMA is a sport at all.
MMA is at times a brutal sport but it is very rare for a fighter to die due to injuries experienced in the ring. An infrastructure is in place - from organisers and referees down to medics and trainers - to assure that a fighter's injuries do not become dangerous to their bodily health. According to wikipedia, only four fighters have died in sanctioned MMA events in America. In Ireland, the likes of Ais Daly have campaigned to bring higher safety to Irish MMA via the Safe MMA movement.
Dr Dan Healy has spoken about the lack of regulation at MMA events in Dublin. Two weeks ago, in the Irish Times, he sounded an alarming note about safety provisions at a Cage Kings event in Tallaght and feared a fighter might die after witnessing thee fighters suffer brain hemorrhages in three years.
So what went wrong on Saturday night? The event was organised by promotion company Total Extreme Fighting, which is run by Cesar Silva. It was their first promotion.
Conor McGregor was at the fight to watch his SBG stablemate Charlie Ward fight against Carvalho. After the fight, he spoke to MMA Connect TV and told presenter Lydia Des Dolles that he thought the fight should have been stopped earlier and that referees "need to be on the ball a little bit".
McGregor also commented on the lack of regulation in the sport in his pre-UFC days. The interview was conducted before McGregor or anyone involved in the event would have had any sense of the scale of Carvalho's injuries.
Organisers had employed events safety group Eventmed to look after fighter welfare on the night. They had three doctors and seven medics on hand at the National Stadium. Eventmed owner Katarzyna Michlic told Peter Carroll of SevereMMA that every safety protocol had been met. She said that Carvalho was checked after every round, and was coherent throughout the fight.
“The doctors checked him between each round and each time he gave a full response to them. He responded to each question. He was asked where he was, what round he was going in to and what day of the week it was, and all of his answers were perfect.
Michlic added that a doctor had recommended that Carvalho have a CT scan after the fight and that is was only after Carvalho had left the ring that he began to show signs of illness. After vomiting and experiencing nausea, he was sent to Beaumont hospital, where he died last night.
In a statement, Silva passed on his condolences to Carvalho.
“We will give whatever support we can to Joao’s family," he said.
Carvalho's death will cast a shadow on all future MMA events in this country, and indeed, beyond.
