Pro Bare Knuckle Boxing

Oh sure. But from a promotional point of view hand damage is not a "good" result in a fight. It's not "satisfying". Either for the injured party, their opponent, the promoter or the audience.
That is of course if you're interested in the result of a prize fight (which of course you aren't).

 

That's the common history of bare knuckled boxing, right?

By powdered I mean you had to go to the doctor to get fixed up. There's no study out there to dismiss that part of boxing.

 

You'd choose bare knuckle? I doubt it.

 

We're having a nice conversation and all, but asserting that your opinions are self-evident while everyone else's require statistical evidence puts a bit of a sour taste on it.

Not exactly what I wrote, but doubt away. Having seen how stressful, burdensome and ugly dementia can be for one's family, given the choice I would take whichever option mitigated that risk the most. I'd happily be left unable to play guitar or use a phone if that were the choice.

As it is, I've punched pads quite a lot, and bags quite a bit without gloves over the past 20 years, and I'm a lot better at playing guitar now than I was 20 years ago. I know what being cut from a bare knuckle punch feels like, and to me it is not worse than being rocked by a gloved punch.

Your mileage may vary, etc. etc...

 

Sure but you haven't bare knuckle boxed as a profession, either right? Neither have I, but I'm pretty sure neither of us should.

These aren't my opinions really, they are the positions of the world mainstream boxing community. You need studies to show why wearing gloves is important in boxing? Pro boxers don't fight without gloves for several reasons. Fighting of any kind can give you CTE long term, that includes many fighting sports like Judo, Karate, you name it. Fighting without protective gear in a competitive setting? Seems stupid, unnecessary, and bizarre to me.

Fighting without gloves in a boxing ring looks just like fighting with gloves, so really the difference is drawing crowds, making extra money, and what "bare knuckle" means to fans. When I asked you for statistics, I meant whether was you said was really true (about protection equipment in boxing, brain damage etc). You said you had a bunch of "expert opinions" and wanted to know what you meant, that's all.

 

I'm in agreement with experts that gloves allow more energy to be transferred to the brain, and that head gear increases shearing forces, again increasing energy transferred to the brain.

As I'm not interested in competition fighting, I am taking this information as it applies to longevity in training and safety in sparring. Besides allowing more force to be put behind head shots, boxing gloves also add a pound of mass to the fist. Swinging with an empty hand versus swinging while holding a bag of flour is not a negligible difference in terms of force.

Oh, and bare knuckle fights don't look exactly the same as with gloves - there are generally less head shots and those shots are not as hard. Though I'm not saying that it isn't still a big risk for CTE.

 

Eh, sparring without gloves, because you can punch harder without injury with gloves on in training, is not a very clever way to look at training.

Why not wear big gloves and go 75% intensity, and then wear smaller gloves and go 37.5% intensity.

Also in my limited experience, the extra mass of a glove doesn't help at all, the larger size just makes it easier to see coming.

 

I wasn't saying no gloves at all, just light gloves. MMA gloves or lighter are fine, and you can still grip effectively with them.

The idea that you can go harder because of bigger gloves is a false sense of security. Better to feel shots more so that you're not rattling each others' brains so much, IMHO.

 

Mma sparring gloves or mma fight gloves?

Having too smaller a glove all the time also means you don't get used to hitting hard, and also rely on people not hitting you hard back.

Using the full continumum at different times is best.

Unfortunately getting good at striking will always mean some contact, and contract has an associated risk.

Which is why wrestling/judo/bjj are so good, you can get good at two thirds of unarmed fighting ranges, without getting brain damage.

 

Why?

 

Because you know it'll hurt your partner.

It's the sane with fake knives, if you use a real knife for weapons defense your partner will always pull they're attack.

 

Ramping up the contact hurts, but if that's what you've agreed with your partner then I don't see how bigger gloves really changes that, other than the false confidence of protection.

As for fake knives, you can't really stick people even with the rubber ones. You have to pull stabs; it's impossible to have exactly the same action that a real stab would have because they don't go inside people. Slashing attacks are closer, but still not quite the same.

 

A) less chance of cuts
B) you literally can't spar with much contact, that often, in mma fight gloves, that's why mma sparring gloves were invented, and even then, their most useful for ground and pound work, and lighter contact sparring.

So to use the knife analogy, do you only use live blades in training? Or do you use a selection of different tools for the job?

 

I was talking about MMA sparring gloves.

All you're doing is swapping felt and seen damage for unfelt and unseen damage. I'd rather use worn padding and armour for the rest of the body than heavy gloves, as you still have to work exact alignment and punching form, but there is no way to protect the brain with gloves or armour while still having some semblance of realistic movement.

Personally, I find the dizziness from being rocked by a headshot a lot more unpleasant and disturbing than pain or cuts from a lighter glove.

If you want to hit something really hard, that's what pads and bags are for. They are the correct tool for that job, IMO. Though of course this is from my perspective of longevity in training and MA being something that enhances your life for a lifetime, not limited to a career as a competition fighter.

 

I think we're agreeing more then disagreeing on this BUT

"butthere is no way to protect the brain withgloves or armour while still having some semblance of realistic movement"

Isnt true, if it were, then all the people who are ex pro boxers would be getting smoked at bare knuckle, but they're not.

If your regularly getting cuts in sparring, your face is going to be a mess in a few years.

I'm not sure if I'm either reading too much into your posts, or your posting things you have a very limited experience of?

 

"Though of course this is from my perspective of longevity in training and MA beingsomething that enhances your life for a lifetime, not limited to a career as acompetition fighter."

Thats also a really lazy false dichotomy, pro fighters don't want to be injured, and there's plenty of old sportswomen and men who could handle everyone here quite easily.

 

I'll be training and teaching a long time after I'm done fighting.

 

I meant armour for the head. Boxing headgear does nothing other than increase shearing forces. To protect the brain you need to take the force away form the neck to stop the brain rattling around, like this:

But if you take away the elbows, do MMA fighters get more cuts than boxers?

More evidence that heavier gloves do not make a sport safer:

Boxing vs. MMA: Which is safer? - Fighters Only

It's true that I've not met many retired fighters, but I'm struggling to think of any I have, or even any I've heard interviewed, that did not mention some form of chronic injury or another as a result of a long career in fighting. Which I don't find surprising considering they are getting battered for a living.

 

Bas Rutten could handle any of us easily. How many operations has he had as a result of his career?

 

If your only paying attention to interviews with top level fighters, who have been injured, then that's a two massive selection bias's straight away.

There's plenty of people who train, have a few fights, maybe even pro, and then retire and still train, BJJ is full of people who have a few MMA matches, and then carry on training after retiring.