‘This must be done right, so we don’t lose the income’: Medical care and commercial imperatives in mixed martial arts

Medical staff are typically employed at MMA events to provide immediate, cage-side care following such injuries, as well as perform pre- and post-fight medical screening. However, in the UK, the exact nature of their work is not formally mandated by any overarching governing body – indeed there is no effective regulation of the sport in the UK at the time of writing – and instead rests on what any given show promoter asks (or permits) them to do. As such, this gives rise to considerable variation in actual practice across the sport, as was recorded throughout our fieldwork observations. In what follows, we discuss how this variation manifests with respect to the wider structural organisation of MMA, commenting on how the commercial imperatives currently shaping the sport either facilitate or constrain the medical care that athletes receive. We do so in two distinct sections, concerning firstly ‘regional’ and secondly ‘international’-level shows.