bare knuckles...

[pr0ne2gr8tness]

does any1 know y they switched from bare knuckles to gloves? was it to protect the hands or a opponents head?

 

[mschatz]

hands

 

[fightingrabbit]

lol i say both.

Theres that one picture of Joe Louis in the B&W photo thread..and i dunno man...His fist just looked like a..fucking boulder.

Im pretty sure my skull woulda caved in before his fist did. But thats all just speculation.

 

[BootyDaddy]

Originally I it was hands.

With the gloves around today however they greatly protect both. In a street fight even between two bums outside a kebab shop, there is usually claret spilled. Knuckles are sharp when hitting bone and who wants to see a fight stopped after a few minutes due to a shitty cut?

 

[MMAmouse]

I can only imagine how bloody some of those old school bareknuckle fights got back in the day. I've never heard of a single cut stoppage from back then.

 

[mschatz]

lol i say both.

Theres that one picture of Joe Louis in the B&W photo thread..and i dunno man...His fist just looked like a..fucking boulder.

Im pretty sure my skull woulda caved in before his fist did. But thats all just speculation.

It was originally meant to protect a fighters hands.

 

[joe kurtz]

I can only imagine how bloody some of those old school bareknuckle fights got back in the day. I've never heard of a single cut stoppage from back then.

Have some fun & go to your local library or bookstore to have a look at some books on boxing's history. The better, more detailed ones should have several pages of vintage woodcuts & drawings done of fighters in the aftermath of some of the classic barenuckle contests of the day. Talk about gruesome!

In fact, just poke around online. I'm certain many of them should be available for a look see.
I remember being amazed by them back when I first became fanatically interested in the sport as a kid of 14 back in '76. I checked out & devoured every single book on boxing in my middle school & public library.

 

[Tim Turner]

anyone who knows shit about boxing knows it was to protect hands.

 

[amhlilhaus]

anyone who knows shit about boxing knows it was to protect hands.

and that wasn't the sole reason. gloves were originally used to protect the FACES of the aristocracy that frequented and supported the boxing masters. they were used to protect the students, but real contests for another hundred years was with bare knuckles. ultimately john l. sullivan went to using gloves so he could make money, he could fight more often in his exhibitions if he didn't smash up his hands, there also was widespread opposition to boxing by the authorities due to it's brutal nature. boxing with gloves was seen as less violent, and that had a very important part to play also.

 

[Kid McCoy]

and that wasn't the sole reason. gloves were originally used to protect the FACES of the aristocracy that frequented and supported the boxing masters. they were used to protect the students, but real contests for another hundred years was with bare knuckles. ultimately john l. sullivan went to using gloves so he could make money, he could fight more often in his exhibitions if he didn't smash up his hands, there also was widespread opposition to boxing by the authorities due to it's brutal nature. boxing with gloves was seen as less violent, and that had a very important part to play also.

That

 

[pr0ne2gr8tness]

lol i say both.

Theres that one picture of Joe Louis in the B&W photo thread..and i dunno man...His fist just looked like a..fucking boulder.

Im pretty sure my skull woulda caved in before his fist did. But thats all just speculation.

sweet lord... with his hand speed and power no wonder he makes the best of lists

 

[Spartan-125lbs.]

Like it was said before, to protect the hands. However some say that with gloves the mass of the hand increases and one can hit harder with gloves on.

 

[DnBLoxy]

Like it was said before, to protect the hands. However some say that with gloves the mass of the hand increases and one can hit harder with gloves on.

Same surface area + more weight will give more damage (such as balling up a fist with a roll of quarters in it). This isn't the case with gloves vs bare-knuckles though. Modern day gloves (especially) increase the surface area way to much. You aren't going to do near the damage as you would hitting someone with just your pointer and middle finger knuckles.

Some people get the impression that they are hitting harder with gloves on because of what they observe with a heavy bag. It's a "push" effect, caused by the much larger surface area, that makes the bag move more. With bare knuckles you are generating similar force, but concentrating the damage on a much smaller location. This concept is applied everywhere.. bullets taper for better penetration, needles have a point as small as possible... It's why knives cut and blunt objects smash things.

P=F/A
Pressure (what causes damage) = Force/surface area where force is equal to mass times acceleration. As you see mass does effect the damage, but if the increase in mass causes the surface area to increase too greatly.. you will see a very negative effect in power. (the difference in surface area between gloves and two bare knuckles is huge) I'd also like to mention that hand speed comes into play here too since acceleration is involved.

Some people have fragile hands.. I myself have never had anything worse than bruising from any fight, bare-knuckled or gloved. The tighter the fist is at impact, the less of a chance of it breaking. The larger the surface area (gloves).. the chance of a break is reduced even further. Once again.. some people have fragile hands.

@ Kid McCoy: Nice info. I almost forgot about that technique! There is another movie that uses it called "Gladiator" (not Ridley Scott movie). It's an 80's (IIRC may have been 90's) boxing movie with Cuba Gooding Jr.

 

[VinnieCane]

Hands but the head and ribs have felt better ever since the change was made also.

 

[FatAndUglyBoi]

interesting read

 

[pr0ne2gr8tness]

lol i say both.

Theres that one picture of Joe Louis in the B&W photo thread..and i dunno man...His fist just looked like a..fucking boulder.

Im pretty sure my skull woulda caved in before his fist did. But thats all just speculation.

the amazing thing looking at following stats is that Joe louis had one of the smallest fists of HW champs. its intereresting that regardless of size all of the past champs had huge fists

Heavyweight Tale of the Tape

 

[amhlilhaus]

the amazing thing looking at following stats is that Joe louis had one of the smallest fists of HW champs. its intereresting that regardless of size all of the past champs had huge fists

Heavyweight Tale of the Tape

talking about targeting the eyes with bareknuckles, there's some mma fighters who've been accused of that.

 

[GlassJaw]

the amazing thing looking at following stats is that Joe louis had one of the smallest fists of HW champs. its intereresting that regardless of size all of the past champs had huge fists

Heavyweight Tale of the Tape

Alot of times they would even do a comparison of hand sizes between fighters.

Same surface area + more weight will give more damage (such as balling up a fist with a roll of quarters in it). This isn't the case with gloves vs bare-knuckles though. Modern day gloves (especially) increase the surface area way to much. You aren't going to do near the damage as you would hitting someone with just your pointer and middle finger knuckles.

Some people get the impression that they are hitting harder with gloves on because of what they observe with a heavy bag. It's a "push" effect, caused by the much larger surface area, that makes the bag move more. With bare knuckles you are generating similar force, but concentrating the damage on a much smaller location. This concept is applied everywhere.. bullets taper for better penetration, needles have a point as small as possible... It's why knives cut and blunt objects smash things.

There is also the "break your hand factor" which comes into play with this. The same idea is applied to Rugby/American football hits. As "sports science" showed, protection in key impact areas allow for greater and more consistent force to be thrown. I've never seen a guy throw out even 50 thudding punches without gloves on, and doubt it's possible without great injury to your hands/wrists.

Bare-fisted strategy of the early 19'th century boxer wasn't to "knock out" the opposition, but to hit them with grazing/cutting shots and keep their hands intact.

 

[BobbyBrez]

Aren't bare knucke fights still prevalent in Bakersfield?

 

[Maverick34]

The Pikeys copyrighted it and threatened to sue the knickers off anybody who stole their idea.