Bare knuckle boxing wouldn't be safer than boxing with gloves. The way the sport is today is the safest way possible when it comes to punching with gloves. The gloves not only protect the puncher's hands, but the amount of cushion they provide does in fact lessen the transfer of force. Also, the weight of the glove actually slows down the punch rather than adding force to it. As for "ring deaths" in bare knuckle, we cannot guarantee how accurate those records are and who knows how many "non-official fight" deaths there were. Bare knuckle may seem safer, but we are judging this by record not experience. According to "record" it is safer, less people died, there were less brain injuries, etc. But, if experience was applied, you'd would see that there is more reason to those records. For example, punches often didn't land with much force. The reason is because they didn't use much hip rotation or follow through; if they had, they would have been wrestled to the ground, which was allowed in the rules. That alone meant that many punches didn't do as much damage. If we got rid of gloves in boxing today,but kept the rules the same, then the only thing that would "slow the punches down" would be the boxer's own fear of hurting his hands. Rounds were also different back then as a round was over as soon as someone went down, which happened often because of the wrestling aspect. A round could last 10 seconds if they wrestled soon enough. As for the longer fights that lasted for hours, it was a combination of factors including wrestling, round times, fatigue, and lack of powerful punches. If gloves were removed today, they wouldn't have to worry about wrestling, round times would be set, and they could punch as hard as they wanted and likely do more damage to themselves and their opponents. I understand where you're coming from with the brain damage argument, but that isn't necessarily the glove that causes this problem. The problem is that fighters are allowed to continue. If they can get up within the 10 count, they can keep going. A boxer could easily have multiple concussions in one fight this way. Anyway, interesting read and I'm glad to share opinions.
Bare knuckle may seem safer, but we are judging this by record not experience. According to "record" it is safer, less people died, there were less brain injuries, etc. But, if experience was applied, you'd would see that there is more reason to those records. For example, punches often didn't land with much force. The reason is because they didn't use much hip rotation or follow through; if they had, they would have been wrestled to the ground, which was allowed in the rules. That alone meant that many punches didn't do as much damage. If we got rid of gloves in boxing today,but kept the rules the same, then the only thing that would "slow the punches down" would be the boxer's own fear of hurting his hands.
Rounds were also different back then as a round was over as soon as someone went down, which happened often because of the wrestling aspect. A round could last 10 seconds if they wrestled soon enough. As for the longer fights that lasted for hours, it was a combination of factors including wrestling, round times, fatigue, and lack of powerful punches. If gloves were removed today, they wouldn't have to worry about wrestling, round times would be set, and they could punch as hard as they wanted and likely do more damage to themselves and their opponents.
I understand where you're coming from with the brain damage argument, but that isn't necessarily the glove that causes this problem. The problem is that fighters are allowed to continue. If they can get up within the 10 count, they can keep going. A boxer could easily have multiple concussions in one fight this way.
Anyway, interesting read and I'm glad to share opinions.