Many people still believe that with the introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry rules, boxing became safe and “civilized”, and cringe at the idea of ​​”fighting bare-knuckle”.

Just the word “bare fist” automatically triggers preconceived ideas of something that is extremely violent, even before they really know what is about to happen. Here are some facts that many do not know.

Despite what appears to be a fight, in most cases the gloves actually do more damage to a fighter than simply being hit with a bare fist. Yes, there are a lot more cuts, bruises and swelling to the face that will obviously occur from being the recipient of such blows, and there will be a lot more blood giving the impression that it is violent and dangerous. Let’s clear up this stereotype once and for all.

When hit with a glove, damage to the outside of the head seems to be safer. However, the damage occurs inside his brain. Of course, if you want a successful promotion where you can get a few more viewers besides the hardcore manic fans and generalize your product, it would be wise to give this “safer” image and go with the gloves.

In trying to sell a TV show, for some weird reason that never made sense to me, it was more important to make the product look safer than it was to re-educate viewers and actually be safer. God forbid we actually made boxing safer with crash helmets etc, that’s just for amateurs participating in events where a large percentage of the spectators are fellow students, friends and family, making it more of a “display ” than “the real deal”.

This is what all those politicians who have never been involved with the game in any way, shape, or form, MMA and similar contests saw, pressuring them to put on these little gloves that are not only more dangerous, but actually allow the participants to hit even harder without hurting their hands just to add to the deadly equation.

Without doing any homework, they abused their authority to make several of these MMA events more dangerous, which was the exact opposite of their original intentions. He can wreak havoc with a 6-8 ounce pair of gloves. You could kill someone fighting with something that is just above a pair of bag gloves that would cling for a split second on impact, causing the recipient’s head to absorb much more of the impact instead of partially deflecting when hit. slide after initial contact. , the one throwing the blow would not be afraid of injuring his hand or wrist due to the protection and could fire at will.

You do not believe me? Look around. How many people have gotten “drunk” on bare-knuckle mixed martial arts compared to the number of people who do boxing or kick-boxing? Why would professionally trained boxers get aggressive while a bunch of elementary school kids who fight every day on the playground would end up with no discernible brain damage when they’ve had a few hundred “bare fist” punches to throughout your school career? ? Not to mention that in MMA or in a street fight or in a bar, the fights don’t last as long, certainly not for 10, 12 or 15 or more rounds like in boxing.

I boxed for only a year (I wanted to work on protecting my head, kind of an extracurricular activity to add to my arsenal), several 3 minute rounds were the norm in sparring/competition. I’ve never been in or seen a fist fight that lasted more than a minute, and the few times it lasted around a minute (or seemed to last that long, but was probably much shorter), it was a long time, it felt like eternity. !

“Bareknuckle” and “No Rules”, scary? The idea of ​​gloves and lots of rules save me a lot more. “Rules to protect me?” Give me a break. The more rules you have, the longer the duration of the fight, the more damage you will take. Take a look at boxing, no elbows, no knees or kicks, no throws, no ground fights and no submissions.

Although the combinations can be endless, you are basically limited to a jab, a straight, a hook and a hook. There you have it, 4 moves. It takes longer to take someone out with such a limited collection of weapons. Truth be told, with the introduction of traditional pro wrestling rope breaking, Bushido-style matches lasted much longer than a typical MMA-style match, making it more difficult in many ways. Of course we needed to protect our guys, and we did our best to do that too. And I’m happy to say that no one was left crippled, paralyzed or maimed for life.

We’ve had our share of broken fingers, broken noses, broken cheekbones, damaged necks, dislocated joints, broken knees, etc. All I’m saying is that we were sensible enough to put enough rules in place to control the action so it didn’t get out of control. Since we were “pro-wrestling” we had the perfect excuse to put an end to the blows to the head. Nobody condemns boxing for not allowing kicks or submission holds, right? That resolved any controversy regarding bare fist vs glove issues, we removed both, at least on the UWFi.

Of course, we quickly discovered that heel strikes/open hand strikes in many cases turned out to be even more powerful than a punch, but still less damaging than repetitive strikes with a glove causing brain trauma. We had less serious injuries than boxing or other pro wrestling styles that are more entertainment oriented than the shooting style forms. We had protective gear on the shins of fighters who wanted to kick (it was in our kicking rules that “shooting shoes” or shin guards were required).

This was like a boxing glove on the shin, but it served as protection when blocking an opponent’s kick and eliminated much of the pain compared to a barefoot kick. What made this safer than a glove? Well, first of all, most of the kicks were low kicks.

Then came the middle kicks. Leg kicks were an indispensable strategy and an important part of “cutting” someone or setting up other moves, but there is much less chance of brain damage from a low kick than from repetitive blows to the head. We also had a point system that automatically ended a match if someone was being completely dominated, and in the few cases where this happened, the referee tended to stop him before he even got to that point. Yes, there were KOs from high kicks, but no repetitive kicks to the head.