Long-term effects of combat sports

I’m going to be direct about which combat sport I’m talking about: kickboxing. I used to compete, and I was actually pretty solid at it. Right before one tournament, I cut back on my food intake—I was sitting at about 190 lbs at the time—to make sure I didn't carry any extra weight. I ramped up the intensity of my training sessions, and that's when things went sideways. I started dealing with dizzy spells and nausea, and I just felt completely weak... I had to stop training entirely. I went through every medical test imaginable, and according to the doctors, everything came back perfectly fine. There wasn't a single underlying illness or physical issue found. Now, I'm looking to get back into the ring, but I need to know the actual risks of getting sick or injured in amateur boxing. By "amateur," I mean the version where fighters wear headgear, groin guards, shin guards, and mouthguards! Basically, the protective gear is dialed up to the max. Please take this inquiry seriously; I am seeking professional advice. What are the long-term health consequences of participating in amateur kickboxing?

The human brain just wasn't designed to handle constant, violent jolts of acceleration and deceleration. In nature, those kinds of forces only happen when something goes wrong—like if you take a hard spill on concrete.
Coaches can talk all they want about "conditioning" or whatever, but let’s be real: boxing and everything in that orbit isn't a healthy sport. And as for the whole point of it? Just hitting people? I don't think I need to explain why that's a problem.

Look, here’s the deal... your nose is definitely going to be shaped differently after something like that. Beyond that, it really just depends on the individual. I know some guys who can take a hell of a beating and walk away without a scratch. But then you’ve got cases like this one my old man used to tell me about—he knew a guy who got jumped so bad his nose was completely shattered, and it triggered meningitis. He ended up passing away because of it. Honestly, the guy probably wasn't exactly at the top of his game to begin with.