Is Fighting About Sport or Head Injury?

If there's more to boxing/MMA than head shots, why not require head gear during matches? If there's more to boxing/MMA than knockouts, why not ban head shots the same way punches below the belt are banned?

I've seen a lot of data on head injuries, concussions, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE, or what's alternatively called dementia pugilistica and "punch drunk"). It's not pretty. Severe head trauma should be an unacceptable "risk" in any sport.

It's central to boxing and other forms of fighting. Boxing glorifies the knock out, of making an opponent fall to the mat or be unable to continue because of disorientation or an inability to fight back. This is primarily due to head injury, though there are situations where fighters physically wear down opponents (and then frequently "finish them off").

The NFL is addressing the way player who suffer concussions are handled with respect to playing time. This is a good move, but it's still short-sighted. Recently, four players have died at tragically young ages due to severe brain injury from repeated concussions and other head trauma.

I mention the NFL as an analogy. Boxers face far more head trauma in shorter amounts of time. Worse, the kind of trauma boxers are exposed to is targeted, unprotected, and repetitive. The lethal effect of such beating isn't necessarily acute -- boxers can sustain a horrible beating and even win a fight. It takes years for symptoms to appear. Sometimes, it's acutely tragic and there's a ring death. More often than not, though, the result appears over time in the form of diminished capacity and early death.

Many boxers exhibit Alzheimer's-like behavior at relatively young ages. Some of them become so impaired by their 40s and 50s that they're unable to take care of themselves or their families.

The Quarry brothers, Mike and Jerry, both died of CTE in their mid-50s. Jerry's foundation works to make boxing safer and to increase public awareness of pugilistic dementia/CTE.

I asked the questions above because research shows that repeated head injury is a danger regardless of sport. It appears that it's central, though, to boxing and (perhaps less so) to MMA. Football players wear helmets and get some protection. Boxers and other fighters don't.

I think fighters should be required to wear protective head gear, and I even more strongly believe head shots should be grounds for disqualification. People don't recover from head trauma and brain injury the way they can injuries to other areas. Including below the belt.

So here's the question that matters: What's the important point of fighting -- the sport itself or the incapicitating head injury that results in a knock out or TKO? If it's the sport, mandatory head gear and rules against head punches are certainly in order -- that's right, ban head shots. If it's incapiciation from knock out or even TKO, then it's not a sport at all. And then maybe it should be banned the same way other forms of assault are banned.