Stat rocky balboa

[Christopher R. Rice]

Well there you go.

[Kalzazz]

I'd also be interested in how bare knuckle fighters handled it then . . . . some of those fights lasted an exceptionally long time and didn't involve gloves

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Don't forget that boxing gloves are actually designed to reduce the felt blow from a punch, not add to it. This makes modern boxing less lethal than the bare-knuckle boxing from the 19th and early 20th century that preceded it.

This is actually not true. Gloves primarily protect the hands, making it possible to hit much harder without injury--especially to the head.

You don't see a lot of concussions or knockouts resulting from brain injury in the bare-knuckle era. Most knockouts were body blows. As a result, there were actually fewer deaths from the 200 year history of bare-knuckle firefighting then there have been in the 100 years of modern gloved boxing.

[Bilanthri]

Originally Posted by aesir23

This is actually not true. Gloves primarily protect the hands, making it possible to hit much harder without injury--especially to the head.

That's a little misleading. The function of the over-sized, padded glove is to spread out the contact area, which does lessen the pounds per square inch of a blow. True, that means a fighter can hit harder with less chance of hand injury, but it also means that, given the same force behind the blow, the damage done with be less. Head blows are an important caveat because, if the surface area of the blow was smaller, the skull would be more likely to fracture, which absorbs some of the energy and prevents it from reaching the brain. However, with the increase in surface area, the energy won't be localized enough to cause a skull fracture, so shock absorption then relies on the neck and shoulders as well as the fluid surrounding the brain.

TLDR: Brain injury can be increased while the damage done to the body overall is decreased.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Bilanthri

True, that means a fighter can hit harder with less chance of hand injury, but it also means that, given the same force behind the blow, the damage done with be less. Head blows are an important caveat because, if the surface area of the blow was smaller, the skull would be more likely to fracture, which absorbs some of the energy and prevents it from reaching the brain.

Except that, generally speaking, the skull is much harder and stronger than the knuckles. The risk of a brain fracture from a punch is much less than the risk of broken bones in the hand from the same punch.

But with gloves on, that same punch could cause a dangerous concussion while leaving the hand healthy to throw the next one.

[Bilanthri]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Except that, generally speaking, the skull is much harder and stronger than the knuckles. The risk of a brain fracture from a punch is much less than the risk of broken bones in the hand from the same punch.

But with gloves on, that same punch could cause a dangerous concussion while leaving the hand healthy to throw the next one.

Right, so from a GURPS standpoint, that's because you're striking an object with DR (the skull) with your bare hands.

The gloves certainly protect the hands, allowing a stronger punch than would normally be safe, but they also spread out the area of impact, which decreases the PSI, effectively allowing more of the target's tissue to absorb the impact. That means that the target would suffer the same initial shock of the impact, but the actual damage being done would be lessened.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Why not just say that boxing gloves reduce damage by -2 or -1/die (or even -4 and -2/die)?

Why does it help to have more punches that experts in the Real World rate as effective do nothing in Gurps? This wasn't the complaint about boxers killing each other in 20 seconds.

If both sides consistently do zero damage then there's no point to doing anything other than land those zero damage punches to the Head and hope for somebody to fail his Very Fit and Hard to Subdue boosted HT Roll.

It seems clear enough to me that while few punches do a Gurps-approved full point of lethal damage they do have a cumulative effect. That s something that doesn't happen in Gurps. It's zero or 1 but never anything in between.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Why does it help to have more punches that experts in the Real World rate as effective do nothing in Gurps? This wasn't the complaint about boxers killing each other in 20 seconds.

If both sides consistently do zero damage then there's no point to doing anything other than land those zero damage punches to the Head and hope for somebody to fail his Very Fit and Hard to Subdue boosted HT Roll.

It seems clear enough to me that while few punches do a Gurps-approved full point of lethal damage they do have a cumulative effect. That s something that doesn't happen in Gurps. It's zero or 1 but never anything in between.

My issue here is that some folks who play RPGs don't realize that an actual altercation isn't anything like combat in a game - especially GURPS. There is a lot of give and take in a fight, lots of seeing what the other guy is doing while you do nothing but watch. The sweet science is a lot like that. Any ol bruiser can punch until the cows come home, but it takes someone who knows what weaknesses to look for to win. Sheer strength will get the job done, but that's for guys like Tyson (who probably has a striking ST of 16 or 17) who can knock someone down to half HP in a second. But most professional boxers are unlikely to have a ST of 13 - with household names going 14 to 17 (maybe a bit more).

That said, even Roll With Blow (GURPS Martial Arts, p. 86) is going to be useful for bouts and why not use the rules for Tournament Combat (GURPS Martial Arts, p. 134)?

Edit: Though I do kind of see what you are saying: damage is a bit much for most folks in unarmed combat. I wonder if you could just say "Punches do thrust-2 (or whatever) damage and kicks doe thrust-1."

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Bilanthri

Right, so from a GURPS standpoint, that's because you're striking an object with DR (the skull) with your bare hands.

The gloves certainly protect the hands, allowing a stronger punch than would normally be safe, but they also spread out the area of impact, which decreases the PSI, effectively allowing more of the target's tissue to absorb the impact. That means that the target would suffer the same initial shock of the impact, but the actual damage being done would be lessened.

Gloves also add mass, which increases the overall force of a punch (coming from a fighter strong enough to accelerate the glove to the same speed as a bare fist.) This also increases the momentum, which in turn effects how much the head rocks back and shakes the brain.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Doug talked about this before.