Comments Thread For: WBC Wants Better Gloves For Heavyweight Fighters

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

The World Boxing Council is handing out a directive to its experts to pursue the development of a larger boxing glove to better fit the massive hands of some of it's very large heavyweights.

The WBC expert in this area, Dr. Clive Noble from South Africa, gave a presentation about glove safety at WBC's annual convention, which has this year been held in ****kok, Thailand. [Click Here To Read More]

[MBE]

Is putting more padding on the gloves the correct way to go? Is it really making the sport any safer?

I know that there were less ko's back in the barenuckle days. Thicker gloves enable fighters to load up a lot more on punches that would otherwise run the risk of breaking their hands.

Is there not a case that we've lost some of the skill in the sport due to the use of thick padded gloves?

[Los Zetas]

Thicker gloves may mean more punishment. IMO possibly reducing the rounds may help, but it's a tricky one.

[Realizniguhnit]

Well then it should be for all fighters not just the HW The sport needs a all around makeover in regards to regulation for peds, bad judges, ect ect..

[Ivansmamma]

A few more injuries and years of safety fanaticism and this sport will have olympic gloves more or less like pillows. It's sad when injurys happen but this is boxing. There are other sports if it's too demanding.

[Cuban Linx]

The gloves weren't the problem, the problem was that Mago had horrible defense. Perez landed over 300 punches on him, and Mago ate all the punches to the head.

I hope he's okay, but the gloves aren't the problem, sometimes the fighters have to take some responsibility.

[Flabble Scrote]

I guess the WBC does do some good things occasionally in between ripping titles off fighters because they fit the wrong demographic and general crookedness , how many years ago did they last change HW glove weights?
Heavyweights are probably 2 or 3 weight classes bigger than in Ali's day and this is a good thing. Big punchers will still have their advantage but we should see more boxing too.

[Tobi.G]

So no more Reyes-Gloves at heavyweight. Thats an good Idea.

[saintpat]

I don't know if it's 100 percent limited to heavyweights, but fighters with unusually huge hands might need a different type of glove.

It's not so much "more padding" it's that pulling the glove over a huge fist results in more of the padding being behind the knuckles than on the punching surface.

HBO at some point in George Foreman's comeback trail (in his 40s) showed them gloving him and it took two people pulling as hard as they could to get it over his hand, and doing so appeared to stretch the glove so thin that there was little padding on top of the knuckle/striking portion. It was like wrapping a canned ham in leather.

I presume they are trying to find a way to properly pad the glove so that it's the equivalent of the same degree of padding that a middleweight or a featherweight would have between his fist and the target.

If that's the case, I think it's worth looking at.

[Slowhand]

I´m glad they are at least trying to do something to avoid serious injuries, but I´m not sure this is the way to do it. Ring side doctors and corner men are the key here. Premature stoppages can be annoying, but it´s still better than permanent damage to the brain.