Joe Doerksen is a veteran of the octagon, having compiled a 46-12 record in years as a professional mixed martial arts fighter.

During those 58 fights, the 32-year-old middleweight from Winnipeg has sustained “two or three mild concussions,” a few broken bones and assorted bumps and bruises. He’s never had an injury that required surgery.

“As a fighter, I’m a trained professional and when I get in there I know I’ve got one guy to worry about and he’s right in front of me,” Doerksen said in an interview from Winnipeg, where he’s training for his next bout in Ultimate Fighting Championship, the biggest brand name in MMA. “In hockey or football, there’s a number of guys who could hit me and I can’t necessarily see all of them.

“I feel like I’m involved in a fairly safe sport.”

Canada’s doctors disagree.

On Wednesday, 84 per cent of delegates to the Canadian Medical Association annual conference in Niagara Falls endorsed a resolution calling on provincial governments to ban professional MMA.

“We are concerned when people engage in activities the sole purpose of which is to pummel, kick, punch, scratch, whatever methods they use, until either somebody is seriously hurt or injured, or somebody cries uncle and submits,” Dr. Anne Doig, outgoing president of the CMA, told reporters in a conference call.

“This is an activity that leads to serious issues, including damage to people’s brains, and we must speak out against that.”

The call from Canada’s doctors comes less than two weeks after Ontario reversed its long-standing opposition to MMA and joined the growing list of jurisdictions allowing professional events. They are to begin here next year and be regulated under the province’s Athletics Control Act.

MMA is allowed in six other provinces and 46 American states.

Ontario Consumer Services Minister John Gerretsen said he welcomes the advice of Canada’s doctors. But he said the province’s move to regulate MMA is based on its widespread popularity as a sport, the experience in other North American jurisdictions and a desire to prevent it from “going underground” where it wouldn’t get the same medical, licensing and insurance rules it will under Queen’s Park’s eye.

Gerretsen, who just took over the portfolio in a cabinet shuffle last week, said he hasn’t spoken with officials from the CMA. But he said he has reviewed studies on MMA, including one from the British Journal of Sports Medicine which found “the overall risk of critical related injury appears to be low.”

Tom Wright, the head of UFC’s Canadian operations, said he was disappointed the doctors brought forward the motion to ban professional MMA without first consulting his organization or having the medical evidence to back up claims that competitors face extraordinary risk of injury.

“Clearly potential for injury is no different than it is in football and hockey, and indeed significantly less than it is in boxing,” Wright, the former commissioner of the CFL, told 680 News in Toronto.

Professional MMA, which features combatants taking each other on in a no-holds barred mix of boxing and martial arts, has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity over the past few years, especially among young male sports fans. Queen’s Park talked about the potential of $6 million in local economic activity in hotels, restaurants and other services from the staging of one major MMA event a year.

Wright said there have been no fight-related deaths in UFC and a couple in the broader MMA. By comparison, he said, more than 1,400 boxers have died from injuries sustained in the ring.

“I’m not saying that our sport is not a contact sport and not a combat sport,” said Wright, adding UFC would like to work with doctors “to promote health and safety” in their sport like the CFL and NHL do.

The CMA has advocated a ban on amateur and professional boxing since 2001.

Doerksen, who is next scheduled to step into the octagon at UFC 119 on Sept. 25, said unlike boxing where the only option is trading punches, in MMA you can also kick and wrestle your opponent. He said another “huge difference” between the two is the standing-eight count, which prolongs boxing matches by giving the weakened combatant a breather before they are typically subjected to more punishment.

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“If I get hurt with a punch and I hit the floor and get hit once or twice more, the fight’s over,” he said.

Doerksen said he’s still trying to figure out the beef doctors have with MMA.

“I understand if people don’t like it. Then don’t watch it,” he said. “There’s a lot of sports I don’t watch because I don’t like them but I’m not trying to get tennis banned because it’s not my favourite thing.”