Question about boxing and hands

That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

Not to throw confusion into the subject or start a debate, but I wanted to add a few things to what you said.

First, the padded gloves are to protect both the fighter's hands AND the opponent from damage. A person with properly, and legally, wrapped hands can basically punch as hard as they want without hurting themselves. The wrapping is to help keep the bones in the hands in place, making it less likely of them to spread, and thus break, upon a heavy impact at the knuckles.

In other words, with wrapped hands and no padding, it would be like a bareknuckle match where the fighter doesn't have to worry about holding back/breaking his hands (unless he simply has small-boned, unconditioned hands), thus allowing for more dangerously forceful blows. Yes some fighters still manage to break their hands nonetheless, even with wraps and gloves. However, the wraps are the primary contributing factor to protecting the hands.

The padding not only helps further to protect the fighter's hands, it also deadens some of the impact to the opponent; much needed because of the now wrapped hands.

Also, without the padded gloves, fights wouldn't be nearly as tactful and entertaining because fighters wouldn't be able to take as many punches without being knocked out early (again, opponent protection). Gloves also prevent accidental eye gouging from loose fingers.

Lots of little, thoughtful reasons for them.

I disagree with the statement , "A boxing glove is NOT designed to protect the person you are punching," (alone) and as proof I offer the face of BC after the fight. I believe the gloves have 2 purposes, protecting the hands and limiting damage to the person being punched.

Punches are a concussive event. The blow, causes the brain to bounce around in the bony box where it resides. Damage to the boxers hands and the face/bones of the skull is not necessarily desireable. Theres nothing sweeter than a perfect punch and watching the lights go out. Bam.......... one, two, three...........

What I don't understand is how the referee, couldn't tell, by simply looking aty the gloves, or after a few rounds of seeing Collins tomato can-erized, AND Collins telling his corner, "this guys hands feel like bricks"....why the fight wasn't halted to examine the gloves. Collins was 14-0, and Resto 20-8-2, new it was now or never.

Resto and Lewis were lucky Collins didn't die in the ring. it would have been murder observed by 20,000.

As you can plainly witness, seeing the life style of Lewis and Resto towards the end of the film..... karma is alive and well.