Yeah. Your last paragraph. There's a massive difference between this kind of thing and going to an organised club where you have to take a swing at a stranger who has a good capacity to hand your ass to you.
I get what they're trying to do but there's no comparison between playfighting in someone's garage and training up as a boxer and sparring in a ring in terms of the benefits for your esteem and confidence (as well as fitness).
Also, I've done a fair bit of boxing in and out of clubs, and I'd _never_ swing on someone unless they had headgear and I was in gloves. If you know what you're doing, you understand a handful of landed punches is going to leave some decent damage on a person. The problem when you don't know what you're doing is you're just as likely to fluke a shot / not pull a punch up early enough from doing some serious damage.
Kudos in spirit, but just join a club and work with professionals ffs. You lose so many psychological and physical benefits taking this approach.
Ironically of course, headgear and gloves are known to be the reason more boxers are affected by long term problems than people who bare knuckle spar.
You also wouldn't hit someone in the head with your fist if you know what you are doing because you would probably shatter a knuckle, hence, historically, bare-knuckle bouts were about slowing and draining your opponents energy until they couldn't get up from heavy body blows than knockouts.
It allows you to absorb a larger number of heavy blows to the head without showing any outward damage. There is an argument that the risk of brain damage is therefor greater because the bouts go on longer. I personally haven't read any studies on the matter so I can't comment on the medical validity. In practice I prefer to fight without headgear. This is completely subjective but I feel sharper afterwards, whereas 6-8 rounds with headgear leave me foggy for a day or two.
It is interesting. Technically it should be the same amount of energy transferred but without localised damage (eg, concentration of force through a knuckle into an area of bone or tissue). The head will still be jarred, so your point is pretty solid.
Regardless, though, in this specific example - if one of these guys throws a stray fist to the mouth or jaw (not so much for body shots because they're not exactly doing much of a job of it), its likely to break something, and if they are boxing in a training only setting or socially they're not going to be taking enough blows for concussion / brain damage to be a real issue.
I get what they're trying to do but there's no comparison between playfighting in someone's garage and training up as a boxer and sparring in a ring in terms of the benefits for your esteem and confidence (as well as fitness).
Also, I've done a fair bit of boxing in and out of clubs, and I'd _never_ swing on someone unless they had headgear and I was in gloves. If you know what you're doing, you understand a handful of landed punches is going to leave some decent damage on a person. The problem when you don't know what you're doing is you're just as likely to fluke a shot / not pull a punch up early enough from doing some serious damage.
Kudos in spirit, but just join a club and work with professionals ffs. You lose so many psychological and physical benefits taking this approach.