Quote Originally Posted by Buffalobiian View Post
The only problem with boxing is that the practitioners are used to hitting heads with gloves (and hiding behind fists), which isn't practical in a real fight. Before gloves were used in boxing, people used to fight leaning back to keep their heads out of the way while striking body blows mainly.

If you're training for real encounters, you'll have to practice hitting hard with soft (head with palm) and soft with hard (body with fist). It's too slow to think about that in a situation and you'll just throw whatever you've trained in.

See boxer's fracture. Wiki says it happens with improper form, but the bones of the hand are much weaker than the skull. I really do have to wonder at what would happen when someone punches a hard head/wall with proper form.

It's one example of where the art's evolved into sports by developing effective methods given rule constraints.
This is absolutely correct. Boxers can be beasts but I never liked the fact that they specifically train to block incoming force by hiding behind their hands and arms. What if they're facing someone with a knife? They still have their highly effective evasive maneuvers, but to paraphrase what you said, what's going to come out in a stressful situation are the things they repeated thousands of times during training. Those arms are bound to come up to block...at least that's my thinking.