Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
The padding in MMA gloves is mostly positioned by the knuckles to dissipate the majority of the force.

You punch harder with boxing gloves on. You are lying.
16 oz. Boxing gloves have a lot more padding on the knuckles and dissipate a lot more of the force than 4 oz. MMA gloves.
Let me explain to you the mechanics behind damaging someone with a punch, as you obviously have no idea.
Depending on where you punch someone, you need different amounts of energy to damage them significantly. You goal is to transfer as much KE as possible into the smallest place possible over the shortest time possible.
The smaller the POC (Point of Contact), the more locational damage you will do. This of course goes both ways, as the smaller a part of your body you hit with, the great a chance you have of damaging it if striking a hard surface.
The overall amount of energy you transfer into your opponent is almost insignificant. What really matters is energy over time. You can do a lot more damage with much less energy transfered over a far shorter time than you can more energy over a longer time.
With bare knuckles and a fast punch, you have a very quick transfer of a lot of energy. With gloves, your POC is a lot larger, allowing you to strike with increased KE at hard targets, but because of the padding, this energy is transfered over a longer period of time (thus lessening its affect on your opponent). Also, a large POC means that you do less locational damage as well as less damage from a fluid shock wave. The more padding, the larger the POC, and the more time it takes to full transfer energy.

You think I am lying? Try it out yourself. Give a friend a pair of each gloves and have him punch you in the gut. Tell me which does more damage. Then have him do it bareknuckle, and tell me which was the worst.