Bare-Knuckle Boxing Probably Isn't What It Used to Be

I’ve long wondered about the old days of boxing, when fights were bare-knuckle and could last for hours. In my own boxing days, I sometimes injured my hands even though I had as much as 18 feet of crepe bandage and an eight-ounce glove on each hand, so I wondered how people managed to fight for hours without wrecking their hands and turning each other’s faces into ground meat.

I speculated that, having no protection for their hands, they must have thrown very few punches, which wou...