Can you become an ATG with weak hands?

Well, you’ve answered your own question. There are plenty of great fighters whom have had fragile hands.

 

Yes? You don't need power to be great like hmmm I don't know wille pep.

 

Too many variables. But it’s undeniable people with fragile hands have gone on to be great fighters.

 

Jeff Fenech did his best. His hands were a continual problem, a big one apparently.

 

Gerrie Coetzee broke his hands all the time ...

 

I wonder if it’s more the exception to the rule not to have any hand issues given industrial use - training and actual fighting.

Of course we all know Ali suffered with bad hands throughout his career - one fight he said he couldn’t even train much on the heavy bag in preparation.

Liston, Foreman and Shavers oversized hands that you could guess lent to their punching power but also perhaps made them less prone to injury.

Ali and Floyd are examples of ATG’s dealing with the “handicap”’ with the help of pain killers.

In Ali’s case, I how wonder much his hands played a part in his power apparently being dampened at times.

I understand Ali’s hands were the best they had been for along time in Zaire and it really showed in terms of his power punching display which is often underrated in deference to the effectiveness of the rope a dope strategy.

 

Tommy Hearns broke his hand on Hagler’s head - but that spoke more for Marv’s concrete cranium than Hearns having any hand issues in particular.

 

That and how hard Hearns hit. Really big punchers can sometimes smash their hands up as a result of their power regardless.

As an aside and in a different discipline, there was a guy called Igor Vovchanchyn that retired unable to make a fist anymore. He hit unbelievably hard for his size (5'7) and routinely smashed his hands to smithereens.

OK I can't resist. Here's some old school MMA highlights with none of that humping:

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The striker wins all these matches

 

Hearns had a fair bit of trouble with that right hand. He broke it or bent it right back on Benitez and had it in a cast after that for a bit. He went quite a few rounds without it. I reckon there's at least one other occasion too but my memory is failing, maybe a training mishap as well.

 

Savage! Cheers, never seen that guy before. MMA gloves don’t protect the hands as well boxing gloves though. But yeah, when you’re bringing the heat, it’s gonna come back on you upon impact in some measure.

 

Thanks JT. I had a nagging feeling Hearns had some hand trouble otherwise - but a quick google enquiring same before I posted didn’t turn anything up.

Once there’s a break or what not, I guess a hand(s) might forever be compromised - or least more prone to further fractures and breaks going forward - especially when you’re in the business of punching heads.