The Fight Within: MMA and Depression
The physical injuries that go hand-in-hand with being a mixed martial artist are plainly visible. Not so obvious are the…
The physical injuries that go hand-in-hand with being a mixed martial artist are plainly visible. Not so obvious are the emotional demons that haunt a small subset of fighters. October saw two very different fighters (and people) make news for comments and behavior that have nothing to do with a head kick or a rear naked choke.
This season of The Ultimate Fighter saw coach Rashad Evans chastise Rampage Jackson for leaving his guys alone in the cage after a loss. Evans went on at length about the depths of depression a fighter can fall to after losing and how important it is for fighters to have support from coaches and peers. That point was reinforced by the actions and statements of two prominent fighters, and no, FIGHT!’s TUF blogger Matt Voices in my Head Mitrione wasn’t one of them.
Junie Browning, 24, again made headlines for the wrong reason when it was revealed that the TUF 8 alum was admitted to a Henderson, Nev. hospital for taking 16 doses of an anti-anxiety drug called Klonopin in an apparent attempt to harm himself. Unfortunately, this was the latest example of unstable, disturbing behavior MMA fans have witnessed since we first laid eyes on him on TUF but probably has much deeper roots. By his own admission, Junie comes from a troubled past, not unlike many other fighters who have successfully used MMA to escape similar histories and has, in his words, a lot of problems.