"The Half-Guarded Truth"
By: Mike Coughlin
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Karo Parisyan and a growing problem within MMA
Some battles are more difficult than others. Saturday night saw the unsuccessful return to the UFC of Tito Ortiz, the sensational debut of Rogerio Nogueira, and the beginnings of a debate centered around who is more worthy of fighting Georges St. Pierre: Dan Hardy or Josh Koscheck. What we didn't see on Saturday, however, was Karo Parisyan fighting. At the last minute, Karo pulled out of his scheduled fight with Dustin Hazelett. The last two years of Karo's life haven't been very good. He lost to Thiago Alves by KO in April of 2008, had a win earlier this year over Dong-hyun Kim ruled a no contest when he failed a drug test, testing positive for prescription painkillers, and now this. If Dickens were writing, these would be the worst of times for Parisyan.
The reaction to Karo has been almost universally negative. UFC President Dana White's immediate Twitter reaction was, "Karo Parisyan has fucked over the UFC, the fans and his opponent again!!! He will not be fighting saturday[sic] or ever again in the UFC!!" A brief glimpse at any MMA message board shows one fan after another condemning Parisyan. It's easy to do too: Karo was supposed to fight, he pulled out, and then cited a laundry list of excuses. What's more, this is the second time he's done so, last pulling out of a scheduled bout against Yoshiyuki Yoshida at UFC 88. This becomes all the more angering because Karo's public persona is not a sympathetic one. On The Ultimate Fighter, he was portrayed as a prima donna, walking around with his chest puffed out, demanding that people recognize him as being the end-all be-all of MMA. He looked like an ass. Hell, he probably is an ass! Couple that with a series of dull fights and this was the perfect storm: ass of a fighter, with boring fights, chickens out of fight at the last minute, leaving fans everywhere disappointed. Screw you, Karo!
Yet, a part of me can't commit to hating him. I don't know Karo. I've never met him and probably never will. I've long been annoyed with Parisyan and have openly expressed my disappointment with the Judoka's past performances inside the Octagon. I don't buy for one second that he's afraid to fight; you don't get in there with the likes of Nick Diaz, Diego Sanchez, and Georges St. Pierre and then lose your backbone. He's been fighting in the UFC since 2003, I doubt he's suddenly become a coward. Drugs are an obvious culprit for his behavior, and reports are that he's battling a prescription drug addiction. That's sympathetic, but still something I don't go out of my way to cry for: there are plenty of folks in the world not abusing drugs who would love to be in the UFC. However, something caught my eye and it made me refrain from adding to the chorus of jeers: panic attacks.
As far back as August of 2008, Karo began opening up about his battle with anxiety and the crippling panic attacks that accompanied. At the time, Karo told UFC.com, "Basically, eight months ago, I was diagnosed with panic attacks.” Karo said he "felt girly" upon hearing the news.
Following the events of last week, Parisyan told mmaweekly.com: "Everything is over, bro. I'm just going to go home. Everything is fucked up."
Panic attacks are part of a new breed of ailments that the medical community - and society in general - are coming to terms with: mental illness. All of us are comfortable diagnosing a broken leg: you get an X-Ray, the leg is in two pieces, it's pretty obvious something's wrong. Illnesses that are largely mental in nature are always more tricky. I think part of it is that they can be faked (to a degree). If I tell you that my leg is broke, but the X-Ray says it isn't, that's that. If I tell you that I have suicidal thoughts and I don't - if I'm just saying it to get out of work/school/whatever - you can't really prove me wrong. If people are willing to pretend to have a cold you better believe they'll pretend to have a condition that really can't be disputed. But I believe there's also this uncomfortableness we feel with the idea that our very thoughts aren't completely our own. Part of societal freedom is that you're responsible for your actions. You act bad, we punish you, end of story. When mental illness creeps in, suddenly it isn't as black and white as we want it to be. We now have two classes of bad guys: those who are jerks and should be punished accordingly, and those with something unbalanced in their head who need real help. We get even more concerned when mental illness seemingly becomes this giant shield/excuse for bad behavior.
We still want to be able to hold Parisyan accountable for what happened. "No one is to blame" isn't a response anyone wants to hear when it comes to human actions. This isn't a hurricane or an earthquake, this is a guy not "sucking it up" and "being a man." And maybe that really is all there is to it. Maybe society has gotten so soft that the normal pressures our grandparents used to eat for breakfast are too much for us little "girly men."
Or maybe we're now realizing that a lot of people are suffering from things we don't fully understand.
Karo spit out a bunch of excuses for why he wasn't fighting. From drug use to an athletic commission fine needing to be paid, it all came out. I didn't see Karo as a guy lying to get out of fighting. I saw a guy that was suffering from a mental disorder that made his brain stop functioning properly. I would guess it went something like this: Karo felt the onset of a panic attack. This caused him to feel an irrational anxiety. Worse, he knows this is irrational and that bothers him even more. He now feels "stupid" because he's panicking when he has no reason to panic, so he then starts to panic about panicking. Telling friends and family, "I'm having a panic attack" doesn't work, because it's showing weakness (ordinary people have this worry - imagine how a professional fighter feels), so he starts looking for excuses. Even if people know he suffers from anxiety, they don't really know and so he doesn't fully trust them to understand. He wants to tell people an "acceptable" reason for not fighting. Money works, injury works, even drug use works. (And some of that drug use is probably a legitimate reason for "messing up," because he's self-medicated over the years.) So, he spits out one "excuse" after another for what happened because the truth doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to others and it barely makes sense to Parisyan. He wants a "normal" answer as much as the next guy, maybe even more.
The good news it that Karo's been taking medication for a while now to combat this problem. The bad news is that unlike traditional physical ailments, mental illness is as much art as it is science. Again, if you break a leg, you get a cast; if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, it could take a very specific cocktail of drugs and therapy to help you get over things. All legs may be made the same, but not all brains are.
And the elephant in the room is that Parisyan is a professional fighter. Listen to any UFC broadcast and you'll hear Joe Rogan (proudly) say that Karo has been fighting grown men since he was in high school. At 27 years old, he's been a professional fighter for nine years, and he had an amateur career before that. Parisyan spent his formative years getting punched in the head and has made a living while having his brain concussed. Common sense tells us that getting hit in the skull too often will affect a man. Historical anecdotes, such as Muhammad Ali's current state, confirm those beliefs. But the scientific progress made lately in this area is illustrative.
Dr. Ricardo E. Jorge of the University of Iowa looked at mood disorders following traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Amongst his conclusions was the following:
TBI has been associated with an increased frequency of psychopathological disorders in both civilian and military populations. Disruption of prefrontal circuits regulating mood and emotional processing is an important causative factor in the genesis of these syndromes. In addition, mood and anxiety disorders account for a significant part of disability resulting from TBI of varying severity. (Psychiatric Times. Vol 25. No. 7)
Many are becoming familiar with Chris Nowinski. The former Harvard grad-turned WWE star-turned leading authority on traumatic brain injuries in sports has been leading the charge to examine how severe blows to an athlete's head impacts the rest of their life. His work has been instrumental in the NFL taking a closer look at the role concussions play in an athlete's well-being. It appears that those in charge are listening. Economically, it makes sense, as teams want to protect a multi-million dollar investment. More importantly, it makes sense from a health perspective. You can live a largely normal life if your leg is a mess. You don't need a working arm to enjoy a sunset or a grandchild's smile. But you've only got one brain and if it goes, nothing else matters. On Sunday, Pittsburgh Steeler's quarterback Ben Roethlisberger left a game following a feared concussion. The talk is that he may sit out in excess of a week until he can be fully cleared to return. A generation ago, Roethlisberger would've been told to rub some dirt in it, get up, and finish the game. Progress is being made.
Should the UFC do something similar? I don't know. Athletic commissions already suspend fighters for a certain number of days following a knock out loss, but there's no real way to enforce those suspensions. I imagine that most, if not all, of those suspended fighters are back in the gym, training hard as ever, just days later. That's the nature of the game: fighters don't want to be called pussies, they don't want to be out of shape, they don't want their technical progress to slow, and they don't want to miss another payday.
The sport already does a great deal as far as minimizing the excessive shots to the head a fighter takes (eliminating soccer kicks, stomps, and knees to a downed opponent). With a few exceptions, most referees do a fair job of stopping a fight once a fighter is taking unanswered blows. But, the bare truth is that MMA is a dangerous sport, one that will ultimately leave some men in ruins. We could prevent people from getting punched in the head, but then we'd eliminate the very nature of the sport itself. We can educate fighters as to the risks they're facing, but - to be blunt - these are grown men getting into fights for money: they probably didn't start out as the brightest bulbs on the proverbial Christmas tree. If Karo's problems really were exacerbated (or outright caused) by years of fighting, he won't be the last. Others will suffer. This problem isn't going away. It isn't getting better on its own. All of this may just be something we all have to live with if we want MMA to continue. Some men will be sacrificed at the altar of our entertainment.
I hope Karo Parisyan gets the help he appears to need. If he has to quit the sport in order to save his brain life, so be it. There are other things a guy can do to make a living, and at only 27, time is on his side. This isn't a 50 year old man who has done one thing all his life and now he's being asked to learn a new skill. 27 is young. At 27 you can still start over. I wish Karo all the best.
If you or a loved one think you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder, you're not alone. There are a number of excellent resources available for you. There are exciting new advances made every day. Consult your local doctor for more information or visit http://www.adaa.org/
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