A lot of people still believe that with the introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry rules boxing was made safe and "civilized", cringing at the thought of "bareknuckle fighting".
Just the very word "bareknuckle" automatically triggers off preconceived ideas of something that is extremely violent,
even before they really know what is about to actually happen. Here's a few facts that many are not aware of.
Despite what a fight appears to be, in most cases the gloves actually cause more damage to a fighter than simply getting hit with a bare fist. Yes, there are many more cuts, bruises, and swelling on the face which will obviously occur from being on the receiving end of such strikes, and there will be a lot more blood giving off the impression that it is violent and dangerous. Let's clear this stereotype once and for all.
When being hit with a glove, the damage on the exterior of the head appears to be safer. However, the damage is taken on the inside your brain. Of course if you want a successful promotion where you can get a few more spectators besides the hardcore maniac aficionados and go mainstream with your product, it would be wise to give off this "safer" image and go with the gloves.
When trying to sell a TV program, for some odd reason which never made sense to me, it was more important to make the product appear safer than to actually re-educate the viewers and actually be safer. God forbid we really made boxing more safe with protective head gear, etc., that's only for amateurs who participate in events where a great percentage of the spectators are fellow students, friends, and family making it more of a "exhibition" than "the real deal".
This is what all of those politicians who have never been involved with the game in any way, shape, or form viewed MMA and similar contests, pushing for them to put on these tiny little gloves which not only are 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 have abused their authority to actually make several of these MMA events more dangerous, which was the exact opposite of their original intentions. You can wreck havoc with a pair of 6 to 8 ounce gloves. You could kill someone fighting with something just a cut above a pair of bag gloves which would cling for a split second on impact making the recipient's head absorb that much more of a shock as opposed to being partially deflected when it slides off after the initial contact, the one throwing the punch would not be afraid of hurting his own hand or wrist because of the protection and would be enabled to blast away at will.
Don't believe me? Look around. How many people have gone "punch-drunk" from barefisted MMA compared to the number of people in boxing or kick-boxing? Why is it that professional trained boxers would get punchy while a bunch of kids in grade-school getting in fights every day on the playground would end up without any noticeable brain damage when they have had a few hundred "bareknuckle" bouts throughout their school career? Not to mention that in MMA or in a street fight or bar room brawl for that matter the fights do not go nearly as long, certainly not for 10, 12, or 15 or more rounds as in boxing.
I did boxing for just one year (wanted to work on protecting my head, sort of an extra-curricular activity to add on to my arsenal), several 3 minute rounds was the norm in sparring/competition. I've never been in or seen a fist fight which lasted for more than a minute, and the few times it went about a minute (or seemed to go that long but probably was much shorter), that was a long time, it felt like eternity!
"Bareknuckle" & "No Rules", scary? The thought of gloves and many rules scare me much 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 receive. Take a look at boxing, no elbows, no knees or kicks, no throws, no ground fighting or submissions.
Although the combinations may be infinite, basically you are limited to a jab, a straight, a hook, and an uppercut. There you have it, 4 moves. Takes a longer time to put someone out with such a limited collection of weapons. To tell you the truth, with the introduction of the traditional pro-wrestling rope break, the Bushido style matches went on for much longer than a typical MMA style match making it tougher in many ways. Of course we needed to protect our guys, and we went to great lengths to do this as well. And I'm glad to be able to say that no one was crippled, paralyzed or maimed for life.
We did have our share of broken fingers, broken noses, cheekbones, bad necks, dislocated joints, blown out knees and so forth. All I'm saying is that we were sensible enough to put in just enough rules to control the action so it did not get out of hand. Since we were "pro-wrestling" we had the perfect excuse to do away with punches to the head. No one condemns boxing for not allowing kicks or submission holds, right? That solved any controversy regarding bare fist vs glove issues, we did away with both, at least in the UWFi.
We of course quickly found out that heel of the hand/open hand strikes in many cases turned out to be even more powerful than a punch, but still less damage than repetitive strikes from a glove causing trauma to the brain. We had less serious injuries than boxing or other styles of professional wrestling which are more entertainment geared than the shoot-style forms. We had protective gear on the shins of the fighters who wanted to throw kicks (it was in our rules that in order to kick "shooting shoes" or shin guards were mandatory).
This was like a boxing glove on the shin, but it did serve as protection when blocking an opponent's kick and did take away a lot of the sting compared to a barefoot kick. What made this any safer than a glove? Well, first of all, most of the kicks were low kicks.
Next came the middle kicks. The kicks to the legs were an indispensable strategy and a major part of "chopping" someone down or for setting up other moves, but there's a much less chance of getting brain damage from a low kick than repetitive gloved punches to the head. We also had a point system that would automatically end a bout if someone was being totally dominated, and in the few cases that this happened the referee would tend to stop it before it even reached that point. Yes, there were K.O.'s from the high kicks, but not repetitive kicks to the head.
-end of Part I-
To be continued.
