On saturday night I volunteered as a fight inspector for CSAC at a local MMA event. The duty of the inspectors is to enforce state regulations and make sure that athletes are not cheating. I was amazed at how many details there were to be mindful of.

The first thing they had me do was inspect the cage and make sure that it was safe to compete inside of, also making sure that the stairs going into the cage were stable and that the tables surrounding the cage were the proper height. I then learned the evacuation route and walked through it with the medics making sure that there was enough space to safely evacuate an injured athlete. While the athletes were preparing for their fights in the locker room I learned how to do “bag checks”, inspect hand wraps, and drug test the athletes.

As I watched my mentor do a bag check I was amazed at how thorough the process was. He asked to see the fighters shorts, cup, mouth pieces, nails and asked the cutman to see all of the medicines he would be using to treat cuts. As the fights began all of the inspectors were assigned fighters to shadow. When that fighter went out to compete the inspector went with them, sat in their corner during the fight and went in the cage with their corner in between rounds. During the fight the inspector has to make sure that the coaches behave appropriately (no standing, putting fingers inside cage, no taunting or disrespecting other fighter) and in between rounds the inspector watches the fighter and corner interact making sure that the fighter is responsive while not blocking the doctors view of the fighter. If the fight ends in a knockout or some kind of injury it is the inspectors job to make sure nobody touches the hurt athlete before the doctor. If the inspector is shadowing the athlete who won they have to make sure that athlete does not jump around the hurt athlete or do anything that could further injure them.

Overall I thought the job was pretty fun. I learned a lot and enjoyed working at the event even though it was stressful at times. It felt very strange having that much authority at an event like that, especially since I was just a volunteer. It’s really fascinating for me to see all of the behind the scene stuff in a sport that I have been a fan of for a long time.

Coach Danny