Lawrence Epstein is chief operating officer of UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship, the premier mixed martial arts organization. Below is an edited transcript of an interview about safety issues:

What is the UFC doing now to address, monitor or evaluate concussions and brain injuries?

Let's just step back a moment and just so we're clear. When you compared mixed martial arts to other sports like American football and in particular boxing, there's a Johns Hopkins study that compares boxing and MMA and clearly boxing is the much more dangerous sport than MMA. The reason for that is sort of obvious. Our guys are not just punching each other in the head. That's not necessarily what they do in training. They're training in all sorts of martial arts and they're wrestling and all sorts of things.

If an individual decides that they're going to ignore that, I mean, I guess they do that at their own peril. These suspensions are not just for fun. They're based upon what are believed to be sort of, and have a medical basis I should say. And they should be respected. I mean, I don't know. At some point you gotta take responsibility for this stuff and once again, the suspension means no contact. It doesn't mean you just can't participate in an event.

The second thing I think you need to consider, though, (is that) it's not just a 90 day period and everything's okay. Most places will say you're suspended a minimum of 90 days and after that 90 day period you need to provide evidence from a medical practitioner that you're okay to participate in combat sports again. Whether a guy decides he doesn't want to listen to the suspension, I guess that's up to him. But at some point he's got to produce a doctor's note that says he's okay to get back in the ring. I guess if he's hurt himself while he's on suspension he's probably not going to get that letter.

Surely you're aware some fighters don't follow the mandatory medical suspensions. This can't be a surprise to you, right?

I personally have not heard it before, no. If I ever heard of a fighter who was training in the gym during a suspension I mean, I guess, I don't know, I would have to report it to the commission. I would. I don't know what else to say. No, I am not aware of that situation and guys shouldn't be doing that.

No, I get it. It's something we talk to guys about I'm sure in our seminars and say 'Listen if you're on suspension you're on suspension. You're on suspension for a reason. It's not some arbitrary period of time.' Guys shouldn't be doing that as I said. If I heard about it I absolutely would tell the athlete you can't do this and I guess I'd have to notify the commission. If they tell you not to do something you're not supposed to do it.

I wanted to talk about the training and sparring that goes on in the gyms. We've seen and heard that guys go pretty hard and sometimes fights in the gym end up more violent than the ones on fight night in the cage. Is there any concern about what's going on in gyms as it relates to sparring and hard training?

Let me just say a blanket statement: We're always concerned about anybody getting hurt. I don't want this to be, 'We have no concern about it.' Of course we do. We're concerned about everybody. We don't want anybody getting hurt.

All I can tell you is, in our events we're constantly telling our athletes, 'Make sure you train responsibly No. 1.' It's not necessarily about taking head trauma, but make sure you're not doing things that are going to have you blow a knee out or blow your ankle out or do something like that where you're not going to be able to fight.

Second of all, I've been around a lot of gyms. I don't know what gyms you're going to. But I'll tell you the good gyms don't allow guys to beat the crap out of each other. First of all, it makes no sense. If you're training for a fight why would you allow yourself to be in a situation where you could get hurt, you could get a concussion, you could hurt a knee, you could hurt your back, and then you don't get to participate in the event and you don't get the opportunity to make money.

So it doesn't make any sense that these guys would be brutally beating each other up in training camps. If they're doing that, they got bad trainers. That's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to get in shape, train properly and be ready at peak performance for the event. So I don't even understand the mentality of beating each other up in the gym. It just doesn't make sense.

But once again, all I can tell you is we're educating athletes to make sure that they train as responsibly as they possibly can because the last thing you want is an event to get cancelled. That's not something you want to happen as a promoter and as a fighter.

Well it seems guys train and spar hard because they feel that's what they have to do to prepare for the actual fight.

I don't know. I don't know what camps you've been at. I've been to a lot of them. I've watched guys like Anderson Silva, guys who are at the top of the food chain to guys who are just starting out. I've never ... seen anything in a mixed martial arts gym where guys were trying to hurt each other or trying to do real damage to each other. Maybe it makes sense because they're training for a fight. Maybe it makes sense if the guy's never going to participate in an event and just wants to train and he wants to fight people. But if the guy's a professional athlete and wants to participate in professional events like the UFC, what you're telling me makes no sense at all.

It's the dumbest thing you can ever do. You need to train for the event. But don't beat yourself up in the gym. You want to get in shape and you want to work on your techniques and you want to get ready to go. But the scenarios you're laying out for me make no sense at all. It's disturbing, frankly. I haven't seen it but if it is going on it just doesn't make any sense if you're a professional athlete.

MMA is a young sport and it hasn't been around long. Do you fear that years down the road some of our MMA fighters will develop brain diseases, sort of like how former NFL and NHL players, boxers and pro wrestlers developed diseases from repetitive blows?

I think the protocols are in place based upon what we know right now, with the state commissions, the way they handle concussions. Like I said from the outset, the most stringent rules and regulations when it comes to concussions of any sport that's out there. But you know, you raise I think a fair point and that's exactly why we are participating in the Cleveland Clinic study because what we don't want to do is stick our head in the sand and wait 20 years and maybe something bad happens.

What we're trying to do now is figure out (if there are) early indicators to brain injury that we should be looking at. Are certain people, based upon their physiology, just more disposed toward brain injury and thus they should not be licensed?

I think we are constantly trying to get smarter and get better. This is a bit of a moving target and we want to have as much information at our disposal to make sure that we're providing the absolute safest environment for our athletes. That's why we're doing the Cleveland Clinic study.

Some people are critical that the UFC and other promotions offer "Knockout of the Night" bonuses, which some say entices concussions. What are your thoughts on that?

Listen, at the end of the day it's a contact sport and it is a sport where you can win by knockout. Obviously we have "Fight of the Night" bonuses that don't necessarily have to do with knocking people out. We have submission of the night which of course is something that's not focused on knocking somebody out. It's just something that's just part of the sport. Some people might not agree with it. But it is truly part of the sport. I think it would be sort of silly for us to deny that it's part of the sport. It's a part of boxing too. These are elements that are part of the sports. I don't know what to say other than it's part of our sport and something our athletes have liked as part of the compensation they get.

One of the reasons why MMA is safer than a sport like boxing for example. What happens when a guy gets a concussion in a boxing event? They stand him up and he gets counted to eight and he gets more punishment. As you know from our events, they're stopping very quickly. Once a guy goes down and can't defend himself the fight's over with. So there's not this standing somebody up so he can clear the cobwebs and then just sort of go back at it again. That's the other thing. When a guy gets knocked down he probably has a brain concussion. In boxing he's stood back up. In our sport the fighting's over at that point.

But I've watched enough MMA fights to see that when a guy gets dropped with a punch he often times absorbs several more blows before the fight is waived off. A guy who gets knocked down often will grab his opponent's leg, hold on tight and try to avoid more blows and try to clear his head and shake the cobwebs. And yet the fight goes on. How is that any better or different than a standing-eight count in boxing?

It's certainly possible, but I think if you look, we can probably do a statistical analysis to show you what happens after a guy gets knocked down. For example, the Frank Mir fight, the guy gets caught with a knee, they stop the fight. That's more of the rule and not what you were describing which is more I think the exception. He got caught with a knee, he dropped to his knees (and) they stopped the fight. It was our last event.

Do you guys really care about your fighters' health? You look at a guy like Wanderlei Silva who's been knocked out several times, many people think he's taken enough punishment and should have retired long ago. But he's still fighting in the UFC.

I'll just give you one example, I think it answers the question very well. We have a fighter who you've probably heard of by the name of Chuck Liddell and Chuck Liddell was the biggest star we've ever had in the history of this company. He was probably the first MMA athlete to really and truly cross over into the mainstream. Whether it was on "Entourage." Whether it some of the stuff he's done with sponsors. He lost three fights in a row and he lost them by getting knocked out. We could have literally as a company made millions and millions of dollars with Chuck. But we just felt it was not the right thing to do. He probably could have gotten a doctor to say he's okay. I don't know if he could or couldn't have. But I think he probably could have. We just felt like he wasn't competitive anymore.

Whether or not his brain was okay was one thing. But we just felt he wasn't competitive enough anymore and we didn't feel like it made sense for him to take punishment. So there's a specific concrete example where our company literally walked over tens of millions of dollars in profits to do what we believed was the right thing and to go to a guy and say, 'Listen. We think your career's over. We don't think you're competitive anymore. We don't want you to get hurt.' And Chuck's now an executive in the company and he works with us and he does lots of promotional stuff and he's a great guy. All I can say is that if that doesn't answer the question, I don't know what does.

From talking to several top doctors, we're told standard MRIs and CT scans cannot detect concussions or cumulative brain trauma. Is that a concern?

I'm not a doctor so if there's new technology out there we're all for it. The only other thing and you should probably talk to Dr. Bernick about this is the other thing that these MRIs are revealing is sort of shrinkage, which is a very important factor in determining brain injury. I think that's something they focused on, the shrinkage in the brain. But to answer your question, if there's better technology out there we're for it. We're relying on the Cleveland Clinic to guide us when it comes to those type of issues.

Anything you want to add?

We've got a great situation right now with the athletic commissions around the world that have treated concussions seriously and I think have the highest standards of any sport.