On April 11, mixed martial artist João Carvalho passed away after two days in hospital following his third round TKO loss to Charlie Ward.
The loss of Carvalho’s life serves as a tragic reminder to the very real dangers of combat sports, as well as the very real risks athletes face when they compete in MMA. It was only his third professional bout.
UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor was at cageside (supporting his teammate Ward), posted on Facebook following the news.
“To see a young man doing what he loves, competing for a chance at a better life, and then to have it taken away is truly heartbreaking,” McGregor said. “We are just men and women doing something we love in the hope of a better life for ourselves and our families. Nobody involved in combat sports of any kind wants to see this. It is such a rare occurrence that I don’t know how to take this.
“It is easy for those on the outside to criticise our way of living, but for the millions of people around the world who have had their lives, their health, their fitness and their mental strength all changed for the better through combat, this is truly a bitter pill to swallow. We have lost one of us.”
As usual when such a catastrophe occurs, it’s the ones that McGregor labels as ‘those on the outside’ who rise to the top. Debate once again has begun over the nature of MMA, with members of the Irish media hurling accusations of brutality, arguments that feel like throwbacks to the days when the UFC was consistently referred to as ‘human cockfighting’.
For example Johnny Watterson, a sports writer for the Irish Times, used his platform to label the death of Carvalho’s as ‘a legal killing’.
Taking time from covering the gentle sports of rugby, hockey and boxing, one only needs to note the language Watterson uses in his article, to see stuff typical of MMA critiques.
“The death of Joao Carvalho plays out to the back drop of an orchestra of screaming, excited fans, many of them children. Some leave their seats to run up to the wire mesh surround. Holding it with both hands they howl into The Octagon,” he writes.
“There is no precedent in organised sport where punching a defenceless opponent nine times on the ground when he has collapsed but conscious is acceptable. It is crossing the line.”
Ignoring the faux concern for children, it’s the same old story. While he’s right that there isn’t a precedent for striking an opponent on the ground, there is a precedent for allowing barely conscious, already concussed athletes to stand back up and receive more punishment to the head. Something that has been proven repeatedly to be more dangerous for the athletes well being and long term health.
Shame on Watterson and his ilk for using a tragedy to push an already formed agenda onto a misinformed public, acting as if this is the standard, instead of treating the anomaly it is.
Because of this outdated view of the sport, Irish MMA is in somewhat a precarious position. It’s still a country that has yet to truly overthrow the image of ‘Cage-Fighting’. Indeed, if it wasn’t for McGregor’s popularity, it’s hard to tell just how far back Carvalho’s death could push the sports image.
Dublin, after all, is a city that failed to acknowledge arguably it’s most successful athlete of the last year until over 20,000 signed a petition.
In the end, all of the media chatter should be irrelevant. The MMA community know that we must take this for what it is; a tragedy.
That’s why we should take it, and we should use it to concrete the respect we have for fighters. They do this, amongst other things, to entertain us fans. Perhaps some people should pay that some thought next time they try to tell Daniel Cormier he’s a pussy on Instagram.
If you would like to offer your support to the family of João Carvalho, a gofundme page has been set up to help with the costs of funeral arrangements.
You can find that page here: https://www.gofundme.com/mhyqmbpg
