Babalu showing signs of CTE

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is one of the biggest issues in contact sports. The condition has been recognized for generations in boxing, where it was inescapable that some fighters developed a loss of cognitive and/or motor function, and became punch drunk.

Currently, CTE can only be definitively diagnosed postmortem by direct brain tissue examination, but symptoms of CTE generally begin 8–10 years after experiencing repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. First stage symptoms include deterioration in attention as well as disorientation, dizziness, and headaches. Further disabilities appear with progressive deterioration; including memory loss, social instability, erratic behavior, and poor judgment. Third and fourth stages include progressive dementia, slowing of muscular movements, hypomimia, impeded speech, tremors, vertigo, deafness, and suicidality. Additional symptoms include dysarthria, dysphagia, and ocular abnormalities – such as ptosis.

There is no cure.

During a recent interview with the Brazilian language PVT, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral detailed his condition. He fought 49 times between 1997 and 2013, going 37-12, challenging for the UFC light heavyweight title and becoming Strikeforce light heavyweight champion.

Today a fighter learns how to fight, he learns how to make money, but he doesn’t learn too much about how to manage his life,” said Sobral, as transcribed by Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. “I didn’t learn how to manage my life. I made several mistakes about money, about what I could have done with my career. I paid a price for being where I am.”

You start doing things you are not prepared to do, but you have to go. You have to fight in pain, fight while injured. You get knocked out in the gym, and you’re still fighting the week after. You have to fight. You can’t say, ‘I won’t fight’. It’s one blow after the other. And I’m [paying the price] now, right? I don’t know if I’ll be able to see my grandkids, enjoy my grandkids in a normal way, because I’m starting to slowly feel the effects.

Today I can’t walk a straight line, I lost sight of my left eye, which is a big price. I have no balance today, my balance is almost zero. When I’m fighting, when I’m in a jiu-jitsu tournament or in training, it feels that my balance is normal again, but it’s complicated on a daily basis. But the guys that start fighting have to know that the price to pay will come one day. For everyone. People only talk about the good things today, what they have accomplished, what happened, but what about what you’ve lost? What happened to you?”

I already have [chronic] traumatic encephalopathy, actually. People barely talk about it. You can do research – we have peaks of depression, we have seizures, you don’t listen that well. I don’t have speaking issues yet, but I lost the eye sight of my left eye, I have osteoarthritis on my entire body. My knee. I have 13 surgeries through my entire body. So, there’s a price. It’s not in there for free. I don’t even think it’s about glory, because it’s not for enough time.

If someone asked me if I would let my son fight MMA, I would say no, I wouldn’t. My daughter? No. I would hope she wouldn’t. I’d rather see her study. My daughter already is on the water polo ‘A’ team of her high school, she competes, but being a professional athlete? Any sport demands a lot from your body and you will have to pay the price in the future.