The difference between boxing and MMA is not just punches vs kicks.
For example, the two rulesets are different with regards to how a fight ends. In MMA there is no count if you get knocked down, you either show that you can defend yourself immediately after being dropped, or the referee will end the fight declaring a TKO. In boxing this doesn't normally happen, after a knock down the referee starts counting so you have a few seconds to "recover", and often you have to be knocked down more than once before the referee declares a TKO.
There is also a difference with regards to punches specifically, due to 4oz gloves being used in MMA (they allow grappling but they have less padding than the gloves used in boxing). Is it more damaging being punched once with little padding, or a few times with more padding? I've seen arguments one way or the other and since I'm not a doctor I don't know which ones are correct.
Anecdotally, Olympic boxing removed head protection gear a few years ago because they conducted a study where they observed that not wearing headgear, counter intuitively, resulted in fewer injuries[1].
I know nothing about medical topics but I'm curious and would like to read more studies about brain damage in combat sports.
It's also a lot less likely that you'll get kicked in the head though. Successfully getting a head kick off on someone is hard, especially when they are allowed to tackle and grapple.
Doubly so since you can't do various strikes against someone's head once they have three points of contact with the ground. No knees or kicks to the head when down like the early UFC days.
My intuition is that many less powerful strikes are worse for your health than one very powerful one. But I'm not a doctor and that's just a wild guess. I would like to see some studies about this.
I think the ratio of kicks to the head in the mean MMA bout and punches to the head in the mean boxing match is a lot more than 1:20; probably closer to 1:500.
For example, the two rulesets are different with regards to how a fight ends. In MMA there is no count if you get knocked down, you either show that you can defend yourself immediately after being dropped, or the referee will end the fight declaring a TKO. In boxing this doesn't normally happen, after a knock down the referee starts counting so you have a few seconds to "recover", and often you have to be knocked down more than once before the referee declares a TKO.
There is also a difference with regards to punches specifically, due to 4oz gloves being used in MMA (they allow grappling but they have less padding than the gloves used in boxing). Is it more damaging being punched once with little padding, or a few times with more padding? I've seen arguments one way or the other and since I'm not a doctor I don't know which ones are correct.
Anecdotally, Olympic boxing removed head protection gear a few years ago because they conducted a study where they observed that not wearing headgear, counter intuitively, resulted in fewer injuries[1].
I know nothing about medical topics but I'm curious and would like to read more studies about brain damage in combat sports.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/08/olympic-boxers-arent-wearing-h...