Comparison Of Bare Knuckle Boxing/Pugilism & Traditional Martial Arts

[HeadBodyBodyBody]

Interesting article I found recently

Original article here:
http://bunkaijutsu.com/2017/10/compa...-martial-arts/


I was a little intrigued recently when I came across the picture below on Facebook depicting a bare knuckle prize fight that took place in 1877. What intrigued me was that the punch being delivered looks a lot more like a punch that we’d find in Karate/Taekwondo/some styles of Kung Fu, than it does a modern boxing punch! The back is straight, head up, legs are practically identical to our forward stance, hips turned square on and shoulder not turned in as much as a modern boxers. Even the non-punching hand is back on the hip (hikite) like a Karate/TKD punch.



Here is the description that came with it!

“Here’s a historical peek into just how vicious even a “cordial” scuffle could be. The following is from an account of a bit of Pugilism staged in Dodge City in 1877.
The bout featured Nelson Whitman and Red Hanley, who was billed in the newspaper as the “Red Bird from the South.”
In the 42nd round, Hanley implored the referee to call Whitman off so he could, and I quote “put his right eye back where it belonged, set his jawbone and have the ragged edges trimmed off his ears where they had been chewed.”
The referee declined, telling him to “Stick it out as long as he could and to squeal when he’d had enough.”
That was round 42 if you’ll recall. The gritty Red Bird from the South, gritted his broken jaw and waded back in.
He lasted for 23 more rounds finally squealing in the 65th round. Again, this was a sanctioned, civilized match at the time. What was going on out of the mainstream is far far wilder“.

A tad more brutal than today’s boxing I’d say! But although a “civilised match” (sport), on many levels it would be close to real world street fighting.

At around the same time as this fight took place and across “the pond” (the Atlantic Ocean in case you’re not familiar with that nickname) we Brits being even more civilised introduced the Queensbury Rules.

I’d like to quote here from the boxing website, The Art Of Manliness, on the impact of these new rules:

“Perhaps the most important of these new rules required pugilists to don gloves. The wearing of gloves drastically changed the nature of the sport. The bare knuckled fisticuffer stood upright, leaned back slightly, and held his arms with forearms facing outward. The gloved boxer leans forward and protects his face with his gloves. While gloves made the sport less brutal in some ways, they made boxing more dangerous and deadly by allowing fighters to punch with far greater strength (the bare knuckled boxer had to mitigate the impact of his blows for fear of winding up with a broken hand). The bones of one’s head are harder than those in the hand; thus, gloves helped the hitter and hurt the hittee”.

So the bare knuckle fighter (which more closely resembles a real fight) would be more upright with arms facing outward, which is more like traditional Karate, Taekwondo and Kung Fu! I have written about the differences in sport/self protection guards before, but it is interesting to explore this subject in a bit more depth!



Let’s take a look at another bare knuckle picture:



Interestingly, whereas in the first picture shows the attacker using almost a text book martial arts forward stance, in this picture (and the one immediately above) where both of them are squaring off to each other, they are both in almost text book back stance. Check it out, heels almost in line, feet almost like a capital letter “L”, back leg more deeply bent than the front leg and as discussed above the arms are more forward than the modern boxers.

Furthermore, the hands are held one in front of the other, rather than on either side as modern boxers do. If they opened their hands, it would look a lot like the Wing Chun guard where the hands are kept on the centre line. With the fist closed though, it also looks a little like Karate’s Wedge Block (Kakiwake Uke) as in Heian/Pinan Yondan!

Another picture I found interesting is this one:



The position of the attacker is practically identical to near the end of Heian/Pinan Yondon, just before the knee kick and Kiai (shout). If you’re not familiar with that Kata, here it is in slow motion. The move in question is at 1 minute 27 seconds in:



This is usually explained as grabbing the opponents head and pulling down onto the rising knee. However, I have had some doubts about this application as it can take a lot strength to pull down the head of a resisting opponent. I don’t think it would be easy either for the average person to lift another of the ground as shown in the picture above.

However, imagine if the attacker in the picture above (guy on left) were to follow up from this position with a knee attack whilst bringing arms down, (as in the kata), thus dropping his opponent’s groin onto his own rising knee! Using this movement as a strike or a grab (whether it lifts the opponent of the ground or not) is likely to cause a flinch reaction where they would lean back away from the attack. This leaning back leaves them vulnerable to a rising knee in the next movement of the kata which should make it relatively easy to deliver to the groin. I would respectfully suggest that this is far easier than trying to pull down the head of a resisting opponent which is the usual explanation.

Conclusion

Although pugilism/bare knuckle fighting was technically a sport, it was back in it’s day very close to real street fighting with even less rules than today’s MMA. As mentioned above, the introduction of Queensbury rules and gloves made a big difference to the way they punched, their guard, the way they stood and the distribution of their body weight. I think it’s fair to say that the early American and European pugilism/bare knuckle fighting:
- was a very effective form of self defence as very few rules separated it from the real thing.
- has more in common with the traditional Eastern martial arts than it does with modern Western boxing.

[The Old LefHook]

Nice find. Sounds like a fair conclusion. Would it be your opinion that for a glove-less street fight, the dated looking style of forearms facing forward might be more appropriate than the modern boxing stance where large gloves are worn? Or are you sure of it? I am just trying to get some perspective. My dad had a great friend who street fought out of one of these old stances I believe the old time boxers may have employed merely for the purpose of posing for early photographs, with the forearms pointing upward. Do you know anything about that one? This individual was so strong and tough against normal men that what would seem to be the built-in stylistic disadvantages of his affectatious stance never appeared to matter to the results of any of his many encounters. He always wore long sleeved shirts because he was not overly into showing off his muscles, so bullies never realized what they were stepping into whenever they decided to dry gulch him, which seemed to happen regularly. He was not even into athletics. He never worked out a day in his life, other than hard work itself. He was not even into muscles. He liked to try and joke his way out of a fight first. I am wondering if he for the wrong reasons wound up with a stance that accidentally worked better than it seems like it would in street fights, in view of his undefeated record. Or was it more because of that peerless body (I never saw any boxer's body that could match him for strapped). I flat never knew anyone out of whose doubled-up wrist a marble sized muscle would squeeze through between the tendons and pop out of either wrist, to give you some idea of the level of muscularity we are talking about. He took punches and had stamina to match his strength. I remember him in his twenties and in his sixties. Built like that with those attributes, it will be hard to know what his weird stance might have contributed to his successes in the street, unless you could identify it as something that might not be as bad as it looks.

Until I read your article and saw your pictures, I always figured Bob's stance was a mere disadvantage, a handicap that he overcame without even knowing it. I figured those other attributes are the ones that got him through successfully undefeated. I still figure it was the chin, the strength, the stamina and the courage. The only thing he seemed to be afraid of was being shamed. My dad asked him why he always let the bad guys get in the first punch? His quick answer belies a frightening mentality. He said he would feel awful bad if he hit them first and still lost.

That he made this method work successfully for him even during an era when country boys only punched without kicking in street fights, always seemed pretty amazing to me.

[HeadBodyBodyBody]

Nice find. Sounds like a fair conclusion. Would it be your opinion that for a glove-less street fight, the dated looking style of forearms facing forward might be more appropriate than the modern boxing stance where large gloves are worn? Or are you sure of it? I am just trying to get some perspective. My dad had a great friend who street fought out of one of these old stances I believe the old time boxers may have employed merely for the purpose of posing for early photographs, with the forearms pointing upward. Do you know anything about that one? This individual was so strong and tough against normal men that what would seem to be the built-in stylistic disadvantages of his affectatious stance never appeared to matter to the results of any of his many encounters. He always wore long sleeved shirts because he was not overly into showing off his muscles, so bullies never realized what they were stepping into whenever they decided to dry gulch him, which seemed to happen regularly. He was not even into athletics. He never worked out a day in his life, other than hard work itself. He was not even into muscles. He liked to try and joke his way out of a fight first. I am wondering if he for the wrong reasons wound up with a stance that accidentally worked better than it seems like it would in street fights, in view of his undefeated record. Or was it more because of that peerless body (I never saw any boxer's body that could match him for strapped). I flat never knew anyone out of whose doubled-up wrist a marble sized muscle would squeeze through between the tendons and pop out of either wrist, to give you some idea of the level of muscularity we are talking about. He took punches and had stamina to match his strength. I remember him in his twenties and in his sixties. Built like that with those attributes, it will be hard to know what his weird stance might have contributed to his successes in the street, unless you could identify it as something that might not be as bad as it looks.

Until I read your article and saw your pictures, I always figured Bob's stance was a mere disadvantage, a handicap that he overcame without even knowing it. I figured those other attributes are the ones that got him through successfully undefeated. I still figure it was the chin, the strength, the stamina and the courage. The only thing he seemed to be afraid of was being shamed. My dad asked him why he always let the bad guys get in the first punch? His quick answer belies a frightening mentality. He said he would feel awful bad if he hit them first and still lost.

That he made this method work successfully for him even during an era when country boys only punched without kicking in street fights, always seemed pretty amazing to me.

I'm quite ignorant about bareknuckle fighting, hell, my boxing knowledge isn't too hot either haha! They don't make 'em like Bob anymore, though, I figure that much. He sounds like a hard man

As far as I know, I think the old-style depicted in those pictures, and by Bob's methods, would be a better way to box on the streets. From a blocking point-of-view, having your hands close to your head, as in modern boxing, probably means a greater risk of broken bones in the hands from taking punches. And from a punching point-of-view, I've heard it said that punching upwards from the old-stance is a solid way to land a bare-knuckle punch, with a lessened risk of breakage

My gf is a karate-nut so we often debate which is better, karate or boxing. Obviously there are various forms/styles for both disciplines, but I've typically thought boxing to be superior. However, I'm starting to wonder how useful boxing would actually be in a streetfight, given that many of the techniques rely on gloves being there. One guy, in particular, comes to mind, a very good boxer who got badly beaten in a street-fight. The other guy was throwing elbows and knees, etc., and we later found out he trained MMA. Say what you will about the traveller communities, their bareknuckle code of honour is admirable

Another tangential aspect of the comparison between boxing and karate that I find interesting is that I have often considered boxing, in its purist forms, to be a martial art. Discipline, honour, inner peace, connecting with the earth's energies, all that jazz... there is something extremely beautiful about boxing when it is done in the right spirit. It's not just about hurting people, it's about hurting people if/when it is appropriate. This is a part of boxing that is extremely underplayed, whereas something I like about karate is that it brandishes itself as an exercise in cultivating an almost spiritual state of being, aiming constantly to be in touch with Reality. Perhaps adding gloves has diminished boxing in that respect

[ShoulderRoll]

I'd like for bareknuckle boxing to become an active sport again. Just to see what works and what doesn't.

For sure I think the punching of modern boxing will have to be modified for no wraps and gloves. But I believe the less upright stance and head movement of today's fighters would prove very useful in that environment. As would the footwork.

[Dempsey-Louis]

Interesting article I found recently

Original article here:
http://bunkaijutsu.com/2017/10/compa...-martial-arts/


I was a little intrigued recently when I came across the picture below on Facebook depicting a bare knuckle prize fight that took place in 1877. What intrigued me was that the punch being delivered looks a lot more like a punch that we’d find in Karate/Taekwondo/some styles of Kung Fu, than it does a modern boxing punch! The back is straight, head up, legs are practically identical to our forward stance, hips turned square on and shoulder not turned in as much as a modern boxers. Even the non-punching hand is back on the hip (hikite) like a Karate/TKD punch.



Here is the description that came with it!

“Here’s a historical peek into just how vicious even a “cordial” scuffle could be. The following is from an account of a bit of Pugilism staged in Dodge City in 1877.
The bout featured Nelson Whitman and Red Hanley, who was billed in the newspaper as the “Red Bird from the South.”
In the 42nd round, Hanley implored the referee to call Whitman off so he could, and I quote “put his right eye back where it belonged, set his jawbone and have the ragged edges trimmed off his ears where they had been chewed.”
The referee declined, telling him to “Stick it out as long as he could and to squeal when he’d had enough.”
That was round 42 if you’ll recall. The gritty Red Bird from the South, gritted his broken jaw and waded back in.
He lasted for 23 more rounds finally squealing in the 65th round. Again, this was a sanctioned, civilized match at the time. What was going on out of the mainstream is far far wilder“.

A tad more brutal than today’s boxing I’d say! But although a “civilised match” (sport), on many levels it would be close to real world street fighting.

At around the same time as this fight took place and across “the pond” (the Atlantic Ocean in case you’re not familiar with that nickname) we Brits being even more civilised introduced the Queensbury Rules.

I’d like to quote here from the boxing website, The Art Of Manliness, on the impact of these new rules:

“Perhaps the most important of these new rules required pugilists to don gloves. The wearing of gloves drastically changed the nature of the sport. The bare knuckled fisticuffer stood upright, leaned back slightly, and held his arms with forearms facing outward. The gloved boxer leans forward and protects his face with his gloves. While gloves made the sport less brutal in some ways, they made boxing more dangerous and deadly by allowing fighters to punch with far greater strength (the bare knuckled boxer had to mitigate the impact of his blows for fear of winding up with a broken hand). The bones of one’s head are harder than those in the hand; thus, gloves helped the hitter and hurt the hittee”.

So the bare knuckle fighter (which more closely resembles a real fight) would be more upright with arms facing outward, which is more like traditional Karate, Taekwondo and Kung Fu! I have written about the differences in sport/self protection guards before, but it is interesting to explore this subject in a bit more depth!



Let’s take a look at another bare knuckle picture:



Interestingly, whereas in the first picture shows the attacker using almost a text book martial arts forward stance, in this picture (and the one immediately above) where both of them are squaring off to each other, they are both in almost text book back stance. Check it out, heels almost in line, feet almost like a capital letter “L”, back leg more deeply bent than the front leg and as discussed above the arms are more forward than the modern boxers.

Furthermore, the hands are held one in front of the other, rather than on either side as modern boxers do. If they opened their hands, it would look a lot like the Wing Chun guard where the hands are kept on the centre line. With the fist closed though, it also looks a little like Karate’s Wedge Block (Kakiwake Uke) as in Heian/Pinan Yondan!

Another picture I found interesting is this one:



The position of the attacker is practically identical to near the end of Heian/Pinan Yondon, just before the knee kick and Kiai (shout). If you’re not familiar with that Kata, here it is in slow motion. The move in question is at 1 minute 27 seconds in:



This is usually explained as grabbing the opponents head and pulling down onto the rising knee. However, I have had some doubts about this application as it can take a lot strength to pull down the head of a resisting opponent. I don’t think it would be easy either for the average person to lift another of the ground as shown in the picture above.

However, imagine if the attacker in the picture above (guy on left) were to follow up from this position with a knee attack whilst bringing arms down, (as in the kata), thus dropping his opponent’s groin onto his own rising knee! Using this movement as a strike or a grab (whether it lifts the opponent of the ground or not) is likely to cause a flinch reaction where they would lean back away from the attack. This leaning back leaves them vulnerable to a rising knee in the next movement of the kata which should make it relatively easy to deliver to the groin. I would respectfully suggest that this is far easier than trying to pull down the head of a resisting opponent which is the usual explanation.

Conclusion

Although pugilism/bare knuckle fighting was technically a sport, it was back in it’s day very close to real street fighting with even less rules than today’s MMA. As mentioned above, the introduction of Queensbury rules and gloves made a big difference to the way they punched, their guard, the way they stood and the distribution of their body weight. I think it’s fair to say that the early American and European pugilism/bare knuckle fighting:
- was a very effective form of self defence as very few rules separated it from the real thing.
- has more in common with the traditional Eastern martial arts than it does with modern Western boxing.

It is a very interesting post. It is hard to understand where westerners would have learned such fighting tactics except from the East. Which makes me wonder if there had yet been enough exposure to the Chinese culture for them to have picked up the techniques. I wasn't sure if these pics came from Britain or the States. By 1877 because of the railroads there was quite a large Chinese population on the American west coast and the marital arts were probably being picked up my western fighters. Not an unrealistic possibility.

But just to offer some other suggestions, and please understand I am just speculating, not trying to discredit your points.

I always felt that the underhand stance with the fists pointing up (I can't figure out how to describe it, look at the picture, you know what I mean) came about because the fights were bare knuckle.

A bare knuckle fighter couldn't risk hitting his opponent in the head too often, it would just destroy his hands. The common targets for bare knuckle fighters was from the eyes down (the forehead needed to be avoided.) Nose, eyes, chin (especially from upper cuts), neck, and then the whole body, was where they wanted to land their shots.

(When you read some of the old newspaper accounts of the fights it is common for them to mention many 'neck' blows being landed.)

This particular stance allowed the fighter to throw punches more easily to the body, occasionally driving some shots up towards the chin and nose minimizing the chance of hitting the head. (They often tried to clout each others' ears when they could.)

Jabs, overhand rights, and especially hooks were right out, the fighter just couldn't risk having his punches bounce off his opponent's head. He had to throw short measured punches and even then it was common for bare knuckle fighters hands to swell to twice their size.

A karate type straight punch would give the fighter the best control over where his punch landed. Looping hooks didn't exist. James J. Corbett claims he invented the left hook, which may or may not be true, but he did popularize it, but by Corbett's time all fights were gloved affairs and the style (stance and punches) was changing dramatically, making the head the primary target.

(Actually gloves made the game more dangerous. Bare knuckle fighting was brutal, broken noses, detached retinas (and blind fighters), missing teeth, and cauliflower ears were common, but seldom did fighters die from cerebral hemorrhaging as they would in the glove era. There just wasn't that many head shots being landed.)

This is why John L. Sullivan hated fighting bare knuckle and preferred gloves. He was a ****er and liked to throw his punches from the floor.

But as I said it is an interesting comparison you noticed.

[HeadBodyBodyBody]

It is a very interesting post. It is hard to understand where westerners would have learned such fighting tactics except from the East. Which makes me wonder if there had yet been enough exposure to the Chinese culture for them to have picked up the techniques. I wasn't sure if these pics came from Britain or the States. By 1877 because of the railroads there was quite a large Chinese population on the American west coast and the marital arts were probably being picked up my western fighters. Not an unrealistic possibility.

But just to offer some other suggestions, and please understand I am just speculating, not trying to discredit your points.

I always felt that the underhand stance with the fists pointing up (I can't figure out how to describe it, look at the picture, you know what I mean) came about because the fights were bare knuckle.

A bare knuckle fighter couldn't risk hitting his opponent in the head too often, it would just destroy his hands. The common targets for bare knuckle fighters was from the eyes down (the forehead needed to be avoided.) Nose, eyes, chin (especially from upper cuts), neck, and then the whole body, was where they wanted to land their shots.

(When you read some of the old newspaper accounts of the fights it is common for them to mention many 'neck' blows being landed.)

This particular stance allowed the fighter to throw punches more easily to the body, occasionally driving some shots up towards the chin and nose minimizing the chance of hitting the head. (They often tried to clout each others' ears when they could.)

Jabs, overhand rights, and especially hooks were right out, the fighter just couldn't risk having his punches bounce off his opponent's head. He had to throw short measured punches and even then it was common for bare knuckle fighters hands to swell to twice their size.

A karate type straight punch would give the fighter the best control over where his punch landed. Looping hooks didn't exist. James J. Corbett claims he invented the left hook, which may or may not be true, but he did popularize it, but by Corbett's time all fights were gloved affairs and the style (stance and punches) was changing dramatically, making the head the primary target.

(Actually gloves made the game more dangerous. Bare knuckle fighting was brutal, broken noses, detached retinas (and blind fighters), missing teeth, and cauliflower ears were common, but seldom did fighters die from cerebral hemorrhaging as they would in the glove era. There just wasn't that many head shots being landed.)

This is why John L. Sullivan hated fighting bare knuckle and preferred gloves. He was a ****er and liked to throw his punches from the floor.

But as I said it is an interesting comparison you noticed.

Great post, thanks

Just to be clear, I have not written the article, I only found it and reposted it here. It seems as though that is not quite clear

What you say about aiming for soft(er) targets makes a lot of sense. The skeletal structure is well-made to absorb and deflect blows from above and even horizontally to a degree, but the body is very susceptible to blows from below as well as precise straight shots

As for Eastern culture arriving in the West, Britain was importing a lot of Chinese tea by around 1700 or so. I don't really know a lot about USA history but there is obviously a connection between Britain and USA, and what you say about the Chinese on the West Coast building railroads sounds feasible too

[OctoberRed]

There is a real underground push to bring bare knuckle back, but I doubt any legit commission lets it happen.

[NChristo]

It's just a pose for a picture, they didn't all actually fight like that.

[Dempsey-Louis]

It's just a pose for a picture, they didn't all actually fight like that.

That seems a likely thing; we also have to wonder how much of it is the artist taking licence.

We should be able to find photos as early as 1835, but I haven't, not of bare knuckle fighters posing for the camera anyway. The few photos we do have are of fighters in action and they are NOT posed like that.

[Dempsey-Louis]

Reading this post caused me to think: "Bare knuckle" must be a retronym, right?

It must have been coined sometime after gloves first appeared/became common; around 1880.

I wonder what they called it before then? I suppose just fighting, but I wonder, if it was called 'prize fighting,' or 'boxing,' or is there a term lost to us today.