In the3rd round of Nogueira Couture, Nog drops Randy with a punch which seems to hurt him pretty badly. He then pounces on Randy and goes in for the kill with a barrage of HAMMER FISTS!!... They seem to have zero effect, other than allowing Randy time to recover.

Can someone please explain the point of hammer fists to me? As in, why would you choose to use them over dropping elbows from the top?

Seems like you're losing power at the elbow joint, and giving your opponent a broad area to block. And if your opponent is outside elbow range, then a proper punch should be more powerful and harder to block. The only point i can see in them is if the guy is basically unconscious/not intelligently defending and you're just trying to illustrate that point to the ref.

your points are not valid,when a boxer is down and not right out of it hammer fists are used to fool the judges,it is a ploy that almost every fighter does this technique,is effective in leading the fans into an uproar thus enabling the judge to score not on actual hammer fists landings but on the noise of the crowd:boxing:

In the case you mentioned, its all about volume. He was looking to get the fight stopped, due to the number of punches being landed unanswered.

You can throw more hammerfists because you don't have to **** them back very far, and can throw several of them at a time.

http://i30.tinypic.com/a1g6g.jpg

Hammer fists hurt like **** mate. The fact that these guys are trained to take punches may make them seem a little less effective. But for every example you can give of them being ineffective, I can give you 10 where they have been.

The thing also with hammer fists is that, although they may not have the power of a left hook, you have to look at the space that's given. When someone shrimps into you, you'r not allowed to drop the point of your elbow down 90 degrees, and you don't have the space to land an effective side elbow or powerful punch from that position, so HAMMERFISTS! They may not knock anyone out with one shot, but those who can use them know that numerous hammerfists could be devastating, if not knock you out then at least bust you up good. But like i said, it's in the space, sometimes you don't have space to throw a nice clean striaght shot from the top and the hammerfist is your best bet, and in certain situations it becomes very devastating. For example, Brock's great at utilizing it when he's in position. Igor Vovchanchyn use to be devastating with it when he was able to get on top of guys.