Gloves are they for safety of the fighters which is why modern heavyweights wear 12 oz gloves not 4-6 oz gloves like Dempsey wore which in case you didn't know actually increased the power in the blows and marginally aided the hand speed. On the other hard it can be argued the small gloves don't add much to defense, not that Dempsey focused on that much. Thanks, you made me think of the glove size thing a bit differently.
What little research has been done, shows that glove size makes next to no difference to punching power.
It may just be folklore, but I'd always heard that the initial impetus behind thicker gloves was to reduce the number of fights ending early due to cuts, and that arguably thicker gloves contribute to long-term brain trauma because they increase the lifetime number of blows to fighters who might otherwise have had more matches stopped on cuts. But, you know, over the years I've heard a lot of stuff that turned out to be bull****. I would be interested to see how all these theories pan out in, say, the UFC with their little gloves. My (non-scientific) perception is that it doesn't take nearly the number of solid punches to put a man down in the UFC as it does in boxing.
This research I'm afraid has given you bad information. By chance do you have a link? Heavyweights often spar with 16 oz gloves, but fight with 12 and 10 oz for lower for the lower weights. They went with with 12 oz in the lower weights for a while and the result was too few KO's/TKO's so they switched back to 10 oz. 2 oz made a difference. In MMA it doesn't take much to produce a knockout as their gloves are much lighter than boxing's. Am I suppoosed to believe that they hit harder with their fists in the MMA? That doesn't wash.
Absolutely agree. I remember when Duran was about to fight Pazienza the first time and Durans camp wanted 8 oz gloves and Pazienzas was reluctant to agree they did and Duran knocked him down twice and nearly out at one point. Of course in the rematch they used 10 oz again, I wonder why? Ray Mercer said when he fought in MMA he felt like he hit twice as hard as he did in the boxing ring all due to the light gloves. Bigger gloves soften the blows and thus a fighter can take more of them the danger is that the damage done internally on the brain. When guys used lighter gloves they wouldnt take as much damage and thus often had longer careers, they would usually have more scar tissue on their face but anyone would prefer that over brain damage.
Force isn't mass × velocity. You should know that, it's been taught in primary school. We know what force is for 350 years, but it seems that you still don't know.
But the force of a blow involves many more things, I like others laid out some of them. Another (often related to literally heavy hands) is having a thick bone structure, particularly wrists, so most of the force is maintained throughout the kinetic chain. Besides theory, you could not differ with my example of Foreman, not especially heavy in his first career-especially when Saddler had him weight gain-& nobody said his broad looping punches show a Speed Demon. Yet almost everyone agrees he hits at least Top Tier, some think about the hardest ever. If it was merely speed + mass he would not be top 1000.
Right. And Ray Mercer had an excellent chin in boxing. He said they hit twice as hard with gloves in the MMA. Am I supposed to believe the fighters just punch twice as hard in the MMA compared to boxing? And the athletes train far less in hitting with gloves on comparison to boxing. The Pazienza case is a good one, and Duran is not a true puncher.
With short punches and both hands Louis and Dempsey seemmed to be the hardest hitters; and yes hand speed with quick body turing have something to do with this. Both were the greatest ko artists ever seen as heavyweights
He's a LHW by modern standards. A damn hard hitting one, but it's a little difficult to compare him to true HWs.
Modern day, he'd be a terror of a LHW. Stick him up against modern 6'7" HWs though and he's going to have some issues.
Oh jeez, now we're pitting 185lb dudes against Fury? Dempsey would be giving at least 6in in height, 12in in reach, and 90lbs or so to Fury. If differences like this don't matter, might as well have Canelo fight Usyk, or Inoue fight Canelo.
Just as an aside, Dempsey with 30 seconds and two punches knocked unconscious and broke the jaw of Ben Wray pro out of Oklahoma who was 4 inches taller and in shape at 250 coming down from 280
