Bellator President Scott Coker has been in the combat-sports industry for more than 30 years, but never did he consider it his job to facilitate the trauma of fighting.

Instead, he considers it a chance to promote the growth of martial arts, which is why new data on the brain damage fighters suffer over their careers is worrying.

“It just makes it so alarmingly real,” Coker told MMAjunkie.

The longtime promoter supports a move by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to require regular brain health tests at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, which is currently conducting a long-term study into the effects of combat sports on brain function.

Some 650 participants are currently participating in the study. Coker said he’s also sent to the clinic two fighters, whom he declined to name, after noticing changes in their speech patterns.

“As a friend, I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to fight you any more. You’ve got to go get checked out. If the Cleveland Clinic clears you, we’ll bring you back,’” Coker said. “And I have yet to hear from the two athletes we sent over there.”

At a press conference Tuesday in Washington D.C., Coker presented alongside other supporters of the Cleveland Clinic Professional Fighters Brain Health Study, which included Sen. John McCain, Spike President Kevin Kay, former NFL great/Strikeforce fighter Herschel Walker and former pro boxer Larry Holmes.

Spike also renewed its financial support to the clinic with a donation.

Study author Charles Bernick presented new data that shows fighters with more ring or cage time show measurable changes in balance. The Cleveland Clinic has introduced an iPad application, Cleveland Clinic C3 application, that will be used during fighter testing.

If a Bellator fighter participates in the study and starts to show characteristics of long-term damage, Coker said the promotion will intervene.

“That’s when we have that conversation with the athlete, saying, ‘Hey, maybe it’s time to move on and find the next career,'” he said.

Of course, fighters will get hurt when they step into the Bellator cage. There will be dislocations, lacerations and concussions, which have emerged as a major health issue over the past six years as research into the effects of brain trauma have become known to the public. Unless he quits his job, Coker won’t be able to sidestep the consequences of promoting MMA fights.

But with the NSAC taking steps to prevent the symptoms associated with long-term brain damage, there may now be a more accurate way to judge the point at which a fighter’s health and safety is endangered by stepping into the cage. That information might not be beneficial to Bellator in the short term, but Coker believes it’s important part in the evolution of the sport.

“We’re still going to go by the athletic commissions in how they want to test and how they regulate the sport,” he said. “This goes above and beyond that. This is going to have to be a situation where we have to look at the athletes and say, if you’re an athlete that’s been knocked out twice, maybe you should get studied by Dr. Bernick. It’s available to you – why wouldn’t you want the real information?”

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