rlShontayne Hape's caserl is anecdotal evidence, in the modern era. I expect he's at the tip of the iceberg.

With this kind of injury, you're stuck with observational studies for ethical reasons, as much as anything else ("Come 'ere, son - we're going to coat your twin in bubble wrap, then whack you in the head every couple of days for 20 years" may not get you past the ethics board). But, as you say, we know plenty about the cause-and-effect relationships between repeated blows to the head/whiplash/concussion, and the subsequent cognitive difficulties and brain damage. An expensive study isn't really necessary for that.

People engage in all manner of risky activities, and sometimes the risk profile is well-understood. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that more total collisions, more frequent collisions, and more energetic collisions might raise the overall risk of repeated small brain injuries that could lead to lasting damage. That could implicate not only collisions in a competitive match, but also collisions during training. As the intensity of training - as well as of competitive matches - has ramped up with professionalism, has the overall risk for a player also increased? Do we understand that risk profile in RL? I don't know.

But, with the GPS data that clubs are collecting routinely during training, it may be possible to relate results of cognitive tests (as a proxy for brain damage) to historical data regarding collision frequency and intensity - at least, for some professional players. It'd be observational and a bit messy, but maybe it might have enough power to detect an effect? A study like that might already be going on, for all I know.

Boxing will be fine. Like every sport it seems like the fans have been predicting it's decline for years but still it remains one of the most lucrative sports in the world.

Now that May-Pac is done, and Al Haymon is building his empire and getting boxing back on terrestrial TV in America, along with the bypassing of the alphabet soup governing bodies I think the next 5 years could well see a revolution in boxing.

I'm sorry - I thought we were talking about boxing in the popular sense - i.e. a globalised sport primarily centred in the United States of America.

If funding is up in the UK - great. If gates are up in the UK - great. However, this doesn't alter the fact that there are serious structual and systemic problems within the global sport of boxing.

Precisely where do you think half-assed sports such as UFC have stolen much of their substantial fan-base from?

As for measuring the health of a sport PURELY IN TERMS OF MONEY - Jesus Wept! By that rationale - Mayweather vs Pacquiao was the greatest fight in the history of boxing rather than a dreary afterthought.

Surely you can't be happy about the fact that old gimmers such as Hopkins have managed to squeeze out ten years or more at the top purely because - until recently - THERE WAS NO ONE OF ANY QUALITY TO STOP HIM .

High profile fights such as Calzaghe vs Roy Jones or David Haye vs Dr. K etc. etc. have been nothing short of embarrassments.

Too many belts. Too many over-protected fighters. Too little actual fighting.

I've heard all this before. The last time it was Golden Boy Productions (which, initially, did seem like it was putting together decent fights with good undercards).

Look how THAT worked out.

It's already happened