Independent combat-sports research

Research that answers to the fighter.

Fight Medicine Research Institute is an independent research initiative for boxing, mixed martial arts and bare-knuckle boxing. It sets its research priorities around the fighter, keeps a library of verified research, and is putting its rules in place before any study begins.

Explore Research Research Priorities

Our mission

Fight Medicine Research Institute exists to protect the lives, health, and futures of fighters through rigorous research grounded in the realities of combat sports. Inside the ropes, inside the cage, and beyond the final bell, the fighter’s experience and well-being drive every question we ask.

Our mission is to strengthen the evidence behind fight-stoppage decisions, emergency protocols, and standardized post-bout head injury assessment; advance research on brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE); and address mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide prevention. We translate research into practical improvements in fighter safety, emergency care, and lifelong health.

You don’t play this game. You live it.

Inside the ropes. Inside the cage.

FMRI’s research covers professional boxing, professional mixed martial arts and bare-knuckle boxing. The medicine reaches a fighter from every angle of the ring and the cage. This research is focused on the fighter, not the physician.

A pair of lace-up boxing gloves hanging by their laces from the top rope of a boxing ring. — Professional boxingGloves hung on the ring ropes.Photo: “Lace Up Boxing Gloves” by Danielaarceo123. CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown in black and white. Full credit.

A mixed martial arts cage on a raised platform beneath a lighting rig in an arena with empty seats. — Professional MMAA cage set up in an arena before an event.Photo: “GMC Octagon” by GMC-MMA. CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown in black and white. Full credit.

A wide view of a full indoor arena, with a roped ring lit at the centre of the floor and spectators seated at tables and in the stands. — Bare-knuckle boxingThe arena at a Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship event in Florence, Italy.Photo: “BKFC Florence 2025 Event” by KaoriKellyBarbie. CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). Shown in black and white. Full credit.

Research priorities

Six questions drive the program. Each one is a proposed priority. FMRI has not started a study, and it says so on every page where that matters.

Fight stoppage
Who stops a fight, on what signs, and with what authority. The call takes seconds. The fighter lives with it.
Proposed priority
Emergency response
What happens in the minutes after a fighter goes down and does not get up: the plan, the people, the equipment and the route to a hospital.
Proposed priority
Standardized post-bout head injury assessment
The same examination after every bout, in every venue, with the findings written down. A fighter’s care should not depend on who happens to be working that night.
Proposed priority
Repetitive head impacts and CTE
What years of head impacts in sparring and competition do to the brain, and what can be measured while a fighter is still competing.
Proposed priority
Mental health and PTSD
Depression, anxiety, trauma, and the pressure to hide all three. A fighter’s mind is part of fighter safety.
Proposed priority
Suicide prevention and life after competition
The final bell does not end the risk. This priority is about keeping fighters alive, during their careers and after them.
Proposed priority

Read all six priorities

Featured research

Every record names its authors, its study type, who was studied and whether the work has been peer reviewed. FMRI writes its own summaries and links to the source.

Standardized Post-Bout Ringside Concussion Screening in Combat Sports
Systematic Evidence Review and Development of the RACE1 Ringside Acute Concussion Examination
Casey C. Sears (2026). Combat Sports Regulation and Science, Report No. CSX-003.
An evidence review describing the development of a structured post-bout concussion examination for combat sports.
Study type
Systematic evidence review with instrument development
Studied
Combat sports under any rule set. The source states its evidence comes mainly from amateur boxing.
Status
Preprint, not peer reviewed
Rights
All rights reserved
Ringside Physician Stoppage Authority in United States Combat Sports Commissions
A Critical Clinical Review of Neidecker, John, and Wheelock (2025)
Casey C. Sears (2026). Combat Sports Regulation and Science, Report No. CSX-001.
A critical review examining U.S. commission stoppage authority through primary legal sources and its implications for fighter safety.
Study type
Critical review
Studied
United States combat sports commissions and the rules that govern who may stop a bout. Not a study of individual fighters.
Status
Peer reviewed, as stated by the publisher
Rights
All rights reserved

More in the library

The aftermath of boxing revisited
Identifying chronic traumatic encephalopathy pathology in the original Corsellis boxer series
Goldfinger MH, Ling H, Tilley BS, et al. (2018). Acta Neuropathologica.
Researchers reassessed tissue from 14 historical boxing cases and identified CTE pathology in seven using the diagnostic criteria applied in the study.
Study type
Archival neuropathology study, published as correspondence
Studied
Preserved brain tissue from 14 of the 15 boxers first described by Corsellis and colleagues in 1973.
Status
Published in a peer-reviewed journal
Rights
CC BY 4.0
Self-Efficacy and Depression in Boxers
A Mediation Model
Chen X, Qiu N, Chen C, et al. (2020). Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Higher self-efficacy and self-control scores were associated with lower depressive symptom scores.
Study type
Cross-sectional questionnaire study
Studied
231 Chinese boxers (144 men, 87 women), average age about 20.
Status
Published in a peer-reviewed journal
Rights
CC BY 4.0
Effect of Weight Class on Regional Brain Volume, Cognition, and Other Neuropsychiatric Outcomes among Professional Fighters
Bray MJC, Tsai J, Bryant BR, et al. (2021). Neurotrauma Reports.
The study examined weight class, brain volumes, cognition, depressive symptoms, and impulsivity in professional fighters, reporting different trajectories across weight classes and sports.
Study type
Analysis of a longitudinal cohort of professional fighters
Studied
53 professional boxers and 103 professional MMA fighters enrolled in the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study.
Status
Published in a peer-reviewed journal
Rights
CC BY 4.0
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—features and forensic considerations
Byard R, Tiemensma M, Buckland ME, et al. (2023). Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology.
A commentary describing CTE pathology, autopsy examination, and assessment of repetitive head-trauma histories.
Study type
Commentary and pathology reference
Studied
Not a study of participants. Its scope is wider than combat sports: contact sport in general and other groups exposed to repeated head trauma.
Status
Published in a peer-reviewed journal
Rights
CC BY 4.0

Search the research library

Rules before research

Fighters depend on the people who license them, book them and pay them. Research that ignores that is not safe. FMRI has written its rules first.

Independent ethics review
No study recruits a fighter until an independent external review board has issued a written determination. Investigators cannot clear their own work.
No price for saying no
Declining or leaving a study must not touch a fighter’s licence, bouts, purse, ranking or medical care. Nobody who controls a career may do the asking.
Money and interests in the open
Funders and conflicts are disclosed beside the research. A conflicted person does not decide the matter that creates the conflict.

Proposed founding policies — adoption pending. No governing body has been seated, no review agreement has been signed and no approval is held.

Governance & Ethics Participant protection

Fighters set the questions

FMRI’s proposed charter creates a fighter advisory council. Fighters hold the majority of its seats, and it includes both active and retired fighters. The council has not been seated yet.

Its role is written down. The council is consulted on:

which questions FMRI studies first;
what a study asks of the fighters who take part;
the words used to recruit them;
how findings are reported back.

FMRI records each recommendation and what it did about it, and publishes that record.

How fighters can contribute

Tell FMRI what you want studied: the call that ended your fight, the night nobody checked you, the years after the last bell. Those accounts shape the priorities.

FMRI has not yet published a contact address. The route for sending in priorities opens when the address is in service, and the Contact page will carry it. Do not send medical details.

How the council works Fighter Health