The reason for boxing gloves seems obvious enough.
To protect the person getting hit.
Bare knuckles would obviously do more damage, so the person on the receiving end needs protection.
That’s common sense.
The problem with common sense is it isn’t always right.
In fact the real purpose of boxing gloves wasn’t to protect the opponent at all.
Quite the opposite.
It was to protect the fighter wearing them.
Before boxing gloves, bare-knuckle fighters suffered broken hands, specifically the little finger.
The head is a hard object for a hand to connect with.
That’s why a common injury at hospital A&E departments on Saturday nights is a broken little finger.
In a pub everyone’s drunk, a fight breaks out, someone throws a punch and, with no protection for their hand, they break their little finger.
Bare-knuckle fighters knew this, so they avoided punching to the head.
They’d try to win with blows to the body.
Punching away until they broke their opponent’s ribs, or one of them was exhausted.
So fights went on for hours and hours, and each round lasted until someone went down.
Because of the danger of hurting their hand, and because there was no time limit, most of the bout was spent circling each other waiting for an opportunity.
Obviously, several hours of this got pretty boring for spectators.
So the rules were changed to make it more exciting.
The Marques of Queensbury Rules.
Each fight was a maximum of 15 three-minute rounds.
No one was allowed to help the boxers up.
Not getting up for 10 seconds was considered a knockout.
And the boxers had to wear padded gloves.
The time limit meant the boxers couldn’t spend hours wearing each other down.
The definition of a knockout meant more punches to the head.
And the protective gloves meant boxers could punch a lot harder.
Now there was nothing to stop them punching their opponent’s head as often and as hard as they liked.
So boxing was much better to watch.
And nowadays most punches are to the head.
A punch is the equivalent of a cushioned hammer hitting the head at 20 mph.
That’s why 15% of retired boxers have some form of brain damage.
That’s why 400 boxers have died in the last fifty years.
But the most amazing thing for me is the gloves.
What I always assumed was a humane way to soften a brutal sport was actually a way to make it more brutal.
More exciting to watch.
It was for the benefit of the audience not the boxer.
Which is a great lesson for those whose business it is to predict the way the mind works.
A great lesson for everyone in our business.
Our minds can take a fact and misinterpret it by 180 degrees.
Simply by joining up the dots in the wrong order.
Ali almost never broke his hand in the ring.
The one time he punched someone outside the ring – no gloves – his hand broke.
So gloves protect the boxer.
And because they are tight around the wrists, they also prevent the wrists from breaking)
But gloves do protect the opponent.
Because gloves have a bigger surface area, the impact is vastly reduced.
(Also why some martial bare-knuckle martial arts don’t clench their fists.
But just bend the fingers)
Here’s a favourite of mine in the same vein (puns not intended):
In 1842, the British government passed a law banning women and children under 10 from working underground in coal mines.
A commission into children’s safety in the mines was called when a flood killed 26 of them. However, it wasn’t safety concerns that got the law passed – which is the natural assumption for us to make, and it’s what most kids learn in school.
The head of the commission, Lord Ashley, knew that parliament and the public wouldn’t care about poor kids in remote parts of the country dying.
So he focused his report on something that nobody would never consider today, because it would seem completely trivial.
Conditions in the mines were sweltering hot and both men and women worked partially naked.
When Victorian society was made aware of this, there was a moral outrage and the act passed overnight.
Excellent J, I may have to nick that
As a child growing up during the Cold War I always believed that the USSR (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic) was a Communist state. It was pumped into our brains by the press. Red Ted, Arthur Scargill and the Miner’s strikes, especially of you read the Daily Mail or the Express. One day I had a conversation with my wife about this when she asked me why all the tube drivers were striking in London. She thought it was most odd and told me this would never happen in Russia. I laughed and said “Well you Communists should know all about strikes didn’t the idea of striking originate from you?.” She replied “No, in my country if someone strikes the Police come out and send them all back to work or they get sacked”. I said “But your country is where the Trades Unions idea and Communism came from surely?” Again she said: “No, we have never been a Communist country. Communism was an ideal, The idea that we would not use money came from Karl Marx and Lenin but we never achieved it. We were always a Socialist state where the state provided for the most important things but we have always used some form of currency.
That’s great Kev, really fascinating.
Surely you know the trade union movement and the idea of communism originated in England, Kev?
After the Election Result yesterday John, I wonder if I know where any idea originates from!
Love this photo
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I enjoyed that, in blog order, this post led onto the previous one – “Brains are a hindrance”.