Gygax

I've been thinking about the lasting effects of taking a big KO. Now I'm not talking about medical conditions like post concussion syndrome (more on that later). I'm talking about the mental aspect of being knocked out. We've all heard how when you fall off a horse, you have to get right back on so you do not develop any fear. When you've been KO'd in a fight, its a much longer process before you can get "back on the horse" so to speak. Could that time off be pretty detrimental to the KO'd fighter? Let me explain.

Many people are saying how Wanderlei Silva didn't look himself and fought completely differently than he normally does. Now I understand he was a bit sick, but his interview on Sherdog was revealing. He talked about how he wanmted to feel out Henderson in the first couple of rounds and see what he had. He said he wanted "see the fight in the 1st" and feel Dan's power. He went on to say he figured he'd get the KO in the 4th or 5th round! Since when does the Axe Murderer take his time feeling out an opponent. His murderous aggression is famous and he barely gave opponents time to breath, much less feel them out. Now we must remember Silva's last fight was a devastating KO from CroCop. Did that KO make Wanderlei a little more hesitant and defensive, as witnessed by his backing up during the fight with Hendo, something almost never seen before?

Rampage Jackson was an absolute monster. Until he met Wanderlei Silva that is. Since that devastating KO by Silva in their second fight, Rampage has not nearly been as aggressive as in the past. Three decision wins including the disputed one with Lindland, a KO loss to Shogun, a TKO of an overmatched Yokai, and a rather lackluster win (by his own words) over Eastman. Is he still tentative over taking a big shot? That is also why I might favor Liddell over Rampage at this point, regardless of the previous fight. But thats a post for another day.

You could almost put Mike Tyson in this category. The KO loss to Buster Douglas was a devastating punch. Have we ever seen the sheer aggression of old Mike Tyson since that punch? I've seen every one of his fights, and to me the answer is no. Now I'm not saying that's why Mike became such a clown/freak, but that KO might explain the tremendous drop in aggression, one of Tyson's most effective tools in his youth.

Let's go to hockey. As some may know, I help run a huge site dedicated to hockey fights of all things. So I'm pretty on top of that subject with over 300 hours (yep, I said hours) of hockey fights on tape. Take a guy like Todd Fedoruk. Todd was the quintessential enforcer, always sticking up for his teammates. Then Todd suffered a devastating TKO and resulting broken orbital bone at the hands of Derek Boorgaard. Since returning to the lineup and fully cleared, Fedoruk has not been nearly the same enforcer, nevermind fighter. He stays very tight and is unwilling to open up as was his style prior to the KO. There are numerous other hockey players who I could point to as examples, but the point is made.

BTW, a small blurb on concussions. One of the things that helps make them so frustrating is a permanent side effect. After each concussion, even with a ful recovery, it becomes easier and easier to get concussed/KO'd again. In other words, once a guy gets KO'd he will never have quite the same chin as he once did. This may have also lead to Silva's startling KO loss. I'm not saying Henderson does not hit like a truck, just adding to the thoughts.

Of course not all fighters who suffer a KO may have this happen to them, but there are a great number of examples if one looks back.

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Crashsti

i think alot of fighters do get "shy" after a devastating KO. you mentioned several great examples of fighters that were once very aggressive becoming more methodical and often times less successful because of it. other fighters are able to just forget about it and get on with thier careers. Jens Pulver has a good attitude about it, he says losing by KO is'nt a problem for him. sure he does'nt like it but when you wake up the fight is over and you don't know what happened. i often wonder is a fighter like Silva watched tape of himself being KO'd by CroCop, or if Rampage watched tape of when Silva almost killed him? to me that would be like watching yourself almost die in a car crash, sort of like and out of body experience that maybe some people can't deal with seeing.

sitnspin

I find it really interesting when a pro athlete has suffered multiple concussions in his career, sometimes close together, and everyone thinks he should retire for his health -- everyone but him. Eric Lindross in the NHL (who of course has since retired), and who was that football player from Philadelphia? Same thing. He'd get creamed, and everyone would be wondering if that was the time that he'd go down for good.

We have this round table talk show on TSN (it's Canada's version of ESPN) called Off The Record (it's a bit like The Best Damned Sports Show), and one time they were talking about just this sort of thing -- guys who refuse to hang it up when the whole world is worried about their health. The pro athletes in the discussion were pretty much all in agreement that it's up to the individual and no one else should have the right to tell him he has to quit if he's still playing the game well.

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Gygax

Lindros is still on the Dallas Stars roster, having played 44 games this year. I believe he is currently on the injured list, but I could be wrong.

What makes Lindros' case even more interesting is his brother was forced to retire due to post concussion syndrome. Not only that, but Brett travels around warning people about the hazards of playing with PCS at seminars and press conferences around the US and Canada. I met him 5 years ago at a press conference in NYC that also featured Harry Carson, Al Toon, and Merril Hoge, three NFL players who were forced into retirement due to PCS.

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duke09

this is why i voted gygax for best poster. nice work.

i agree that there is an entirely mental side of getting hurt or having something go awry that can certainly effect a person. getting up on the horse may look easy and reasonably so from the outside looking in, but i firmly believe that each person's entire world is composed inside their own mind, so no matter how 'easy' it may look from out there, out there dont much matter.

great connection btw about silva's usual style and his performance on saturday. i usually only see wandy on you tube and stuff, but i thought it seemed a bit strange that his nickname is axe murderer or mad dog (in brazil) because he is so aggressive, but he seemed so tentative.

this is getting too long already, but what you guys think will happen to franklin?

duke09

what about pat lafontaine? didnt he retire for same reason??

i dont really watch hockey...dont tell the government, theyll boot me out of canada.

Gygax

Correct Duke. Pat LaFontaine also retired for that reason. I've met him and he's as nice of a guy as you could ever imagine.

Canadia who doesn't watch hockey?!? I'll send your IP to the Mounties immediately!

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sitnspin

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I only watch baseball and fights.

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vegas mma

well let me tell you a surfing story.
about 10 years ago i was one of the best surfers at my local spot. i rode waves upto 15ft, i've wiped out worse then you see on videos.
i took a 10ft wave on the head and got held down for 2 waves, came up and another was there, it took me over a min to get back to my board and get out of the impact zone. didn't faze me at all. went back out and surfed another 3hours

one day i was surfing some 6ft waves, a bigger one was coming in way outside everyone started paddling out FAST i got caught and my board was ripped out of my hands.
usually when you lose your board you feel it tugging on you foot, i felt nothing so i thought my leash broke.
as soon as my face came out of the water my board came flying at me tail first and hit me in the face. knocked me out, next thing i remember was laying on the sand.... under 10 feet of water, i climbed up my leash and got hit by another wave. when that wave passed i saw blood all over my hand so i paddled in. i ran up to my car and found 3 cuts on my face, 2 from fins and one from the tail of the board. on fin cut my lip right thru. about 3/4" long all the way thru to teeth
the other fin cut my eyebrow open, and the tail of the board hit my head and just cut it a little.

i didn't go surfing for about a week well my cuts were healing a little.
ever since then i've been a little "scared" to surf, after that day i surf like crap, i haven't been in 2 years cause i'm in vegas, but before i moved i had a hard time catching waves that were over 5ft, i'm pretty sure that it's from the ko. i came to underwater, it was one of the worst feelings i've ever had

oh and all wave heights are the back of the wave, so the face of the wave is about double the height

so i'm gonna say getting ktfo can effect you mentally even 5years after my ko i'm still reliving it....
sorry for the long post hope you enjoyed it

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I'm thinking Arby's

vegas mma

i don't like to watch hockey but i love going to the games
you should go to a game some time. it's alot of fun

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I'm thinking Arby's

sitnspin

Hahahahaha. Clearly we live in very different parts of North America. Toronto is a first class hockey town. This city lives and breathes the Leafs. The entire season is 100% sold out way before the first game of the year, so if you want tickets, you have to go through scalpers and they know they have you by the balls. Even for reasonably decent seats, it's not uncommon to have to cough up two or three hundred bucks per ticket.

With that said, I do manage to luck into tickets maybe once every year or two, and it's always fun.

Baseball in Toronto's a different story. You can get field level seats for just about any game of the season for around $40 or $50 each, and you can see pretty much any game for as little as $10. The damned stadium holds fifty thousand and you'll be lucky to see twenty thousand at an average game. It fills up when Boston or the Yankees or Cleveland are in town, because they run bus trips up from those cities. It's downright humiliating to see your team at home and get drowned out by the visitors' fans.

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vegas mma

there has to be a minor league somewhere around you, try that out, tickets for vegas' team cost about $15 only about 5-6k people at each game
i know it's not pro but it's still fun

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I'm thinking Arby's

sitnspin

Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of 2nd and 3rd tier hockey around here and I could go see their games whenever I want. I guess because I'm not a huge hockey fan I forget about stuff like that.

I'm also not a huge basketball fan, but the Raps are in first place in their division and we got free tickets from a car rental agency to see them play the Bucs this weekend. Looking forward to that.

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Crashsti

i have a similiar experience with BMX. i used to love riding ramps and dirt jumping and one day i had a pretty bad crash that put me into the ground. i was'nt KO'd but i did hit my head and was left with that feeling in your gut when something bad happens. i continued to ride for awhile but never really got back the desire to have my feet leave the ground again, i have'nt ridden BMX in about 10 years. it got to the point where i was'nt comfortable hitting even the smallest ramp or jump. its funny that i have moved on to fighting but at least my feet stay on the ground, aside from maybe oneday getting caught in a Matt Hughes style slam.

I8URV8

I wonder if there is any examples of fighters suffering the effects of a big KO that eventually come back around and return to the aggressive fighter they once were...

Crashsti

CroCop after Randleman KO'd him. i am not saying that CroCop was suffering the effects of the KO but he did come back to fight just two weeks later and had that terrible showing against the japanese fighter who's name i can't remember. it was so bad that people were concerned that CroCop might be suffering mentally from being KO'd. Shogun Rua beat the same guy in only a few minutes.

Gygax

Great stories guys. All very true to the point. Recovering from the mental aspect of a serious injury, be it a knockout/concussion or a blown out knee (torn ACL) or whatever, seems to be about half my job sometimes. Getting the athletes to deal with it and move on with no ill effects is very difficult. Thats why when you see athletes coming back from a major injury and they just are not the same player, its often not from the lingering physical effects (and repair) of the injury as much as its recovering from the mental apects of having suffered the injury.

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Crashsti

i always felt that the worst part of the injury is'nt the injury itself, its the pain of going through the recovery. its a tiring process to go from being able to do whatever you do and suddenly you're going to a PT instead of practice. there are alot of athletes that feel if they miss training due to injury or any other incident that they are losing ground to other players or fighters.

Gygax

Oh, I'm sure there are. Terry Martin took a huge KO from James Irvin's knee. KO'd him out cold. He's looked to have suffered no ill effects in his 6 fights since then. If we think about it, there are probably just as many examples of a full mental recovery as there are of the reverse. But it could help explain some of the performances of some fighters over the years.

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Saskabush

Loiseau is in the same boat. Although he wasn't knocked out by Rich he took a bad beating and hasn't looked the same since.

And since we are telling stories, I sprained my knee really bad on a trampoline about 10 years ago and I still refuse to use one lol. There is just something in the back of my head that won't let me start bouncin'.

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