Boxing and brain issues

X · 08-04-2017 03:30 PM

I suffered from lots of hand injuries throughout my amateur career, and always sparred with heavy gloves.

Having punched lots of people, and been punched by lots of people with different gloves for over 12 years I found big differences.

Bigger gloves protect the hands better, so I was always throwing more punches as I was less concerned about catching the guy's elbow or forehead and damaging my hands. I always felt a bit more 'thud' when I hit people with bigger gloves but stoppages were mainly the ref stepping in or as a result of cumulative punches. Bigger gloves are heavier, so fighters tend to drop their hands a bit more in the later rounds too.

Smaller gloves made me target my shots more carefully, so maybe they were just better aimed punches, but I got more one punch knockouts and fight ending single shots with them. Lighter gloves definitely cause more facial damage. I preferred the lighter gloves in competition (but heavier ones in sparring, as I said)

so, I reckon heavier gloves are more likely to protect your hands, but are more likely to give you cumulative brain injuries. Lighter gloves lead to more explosive KOs and facial (plus hand) damage.

Some people swear that gloves like Grants are 'punchers gloves'. I never bought into that. I liked Reyes as they had just the right amount of weight at the front of the glove. I always thought Grants had too much weight on the wrist part ...... though they always made a big noise when you hit something, so they sounded good!! I think lots of people (including fighters, fans and judges) are suckered by the noise.

I did Taekwondo for five years too. Tournament gloves had open fingers but really thick foam padding over the knuckles. It was nigh on impossible to knock someone out with a punch (which I don't think they wanted anyway), but ironically the footpads were quite thin so you would see umpteen devastating knockouts by all sorts of kicks, broken faces, lost teeth and multiple busted toes and shins too!

I never did MMA so I wouldn't know about their gloves, I've never even tried one on.