I’ve never been in a fight- not the kind where two guys square off across from each other, put up their dukes, and punch it out. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a real-life punchout either. Not an organized bout with gloves and what-not, but like a barfight that wasn’t just a bunch of tusseling and headlocks.
I’m not anxious to learn what it feels like first-hand, but I am kind of curious- how badly does it hurt? Have you taken a bare-knuckled punch to the face? To the cheek, eye, nose or chin, where the other guy- or girl- just hauled off and struck you as hard as they could?
Unless the recipient of such a blow was chemically altered, or a trained and conditioned cage fighter or something, I wonder how long two people could really go on trading punches. I can’t imagine it would last very long.
So have you been on the receiving end of a knuckle sandwich to the face, and if so, how bad was it? What did it feel like? Can you compare it to anything?
And if you were the puncher, what was that like? How bad did it hurt your hand?
I have taken many punches to the head. During rugby games, and in the bars afterwards. Hurts a little, and if you’re lucky you get a nice mouse. A couple of stories for ya:
I was playing second row, and my hooker asked me to “take care of” his opposite number. So the next time we engaged, I brought an uppercut thru my front rows legs and split the other hooker. As we unbound their tight head (who was the only one who could see my punch in the scrum) pounded me a good one in the left eye. Couldn’t see for a week outta that resulting mess.
I was drinking in a bar with a buddy we called “Trigger”. I drunkenly took his grinder, he drunkenly socked me in the mouth. Bled like hell from cutting my lip on my teeth, but not much pain.
We had a square’em off kinda battle once against another group of hooligans in Old Port, Maine one night after a match. During the ensuing scuffle I was tossed onto a table. One of the group we were fighting offered me his hand to help me up, I took his assistance with my left while unleashing a hook with my right. Broke my hand on his head, was in a cast for 8 weeks. that one hurt.
That the kinda info you were looking for, corkboard?
In my experience, it doesn’t hurt until afterwards, unless you are hit in the nose. Bareknuckle punches anywhere else on the face or head are just a bang and a jar. All the times I was punched in the face or head, I was pretty angry and scared, which no doubt has a lot to do with it.
I have never been hit hard enough with a bare fist to stun me or knock me down. This is not surprising, since it is rather difficult to knock someone out with a bareknuckle punch to the head.
Being punched in the face doesn’t hurt as much as it stuns. It is a really jolting sensation. I mean, it certainly hurts but "Ouch’ isn’t the first thing you think. Surely you have smacked into something hard with your head unexpectedly before. It feels kind of like that except a person did it so it makes you mad and your heart starts racing because you know you are going to have to give one back or avoid another one.
Most street fights don’t last as fistfights for long at all. It is usually only a couple of punches before they end up as wrestling matches instead.
I had to fight these two cousins every year from fifth grade til I was a sophomore in hs. Tommy and Victor, took more punches to the head and face than I can count, yeah they hurt but you kinda get used to it, my nose was broken by those two at least five times which is oddly an asset, one it doesn’t really hurt when broken and two when it is broken and I am bleeding all over the place, usually stops the whole thing as a grin and mash it back into place, if there is sufficient pause. Fights are generally short often a few seconds, I was never a good fighter but I learned to be a mean one, I will kick,bite,choke,poke eyes, squeeze testicles whatever I can do, the idea being to get the other guy to say that guy is nuts and I had better leave him alone. Haven’t been in a fight in twenty years BTW and don’t intend to
Which brings to mind the last fight with Victor, in the gym after first period with a full can of unopened coke, Victor comes up, bam double arm shove to the chest its time for my yearly ass whuping. Inexplicably he turns away and starts a circle, kinda skipping, I took that coke can and threw it as hard as I could just like a football, hit him at the base of the skull on the back of his neck, he was unconscious before he hit the ground so when he hit the gym floor there was an explosion of blood and teeth, never felt better in my life, he never made it back to school that year, some of my classmates beat me up and threw me down a stairwell the next day for not fighting fair, but I couldn’t care less. I figured out that no one wants to fight a mean lunatic, that will do anything to hurt you, and who laughs lime a madman when you hit him. Fighting sucks and hurts a lot more as an adult so I avoid it but if you make me do it I will do my best to make sure you remember that the Capt. Is a mean old bastard and fighting him was a bad idea, even if you win
Very similar to Fear Itself, I was sucker-punched from the side by a guy that wanted to, and did, steal my backpack. I was not totally unconscious, but definitely took a few moments to figure out where I was and what was going on.
He hit me on the upper jaw, a little below the temple. And it HURT. Hurt for days after as well.
The police didn’t get him for that, but about a month later caught him robbing a house and somehow tied him to the assault on me. I picked him out of a photo lineup and he ended up going to prison for a bit.
The best part was, I was a dirt-poor college student at the time, and even though my wallet was in my backpack that he took, I had no money in it and not a single thing in there that had value of more than probably a couple bucks.
Took a shot to my cheekbone that gave me a black eye for weeks and turned out to be a hairline fracture. (that cheekbone was ever so slightly bigger for a couple years) Turned out it was some skinheads at a punk rock show.
Didn’t know who it was til I asked my bud, huge stun and a flash of pain and amnesia for about 2 seconds before and 5 seconds after. Didn’t bother retaliating as I have no idea to his intent. Might have bumped him too hard in the pit or whatever.
Too much adrenaline to feel anything. At one point a LEO was hitting me in the solar plexus with a nightstick, so I just took it away from him. Didn’t feel much, just sort of “hey, what’s that annoying sensation”. His eyes got really big when I took it away from him.
Nothing too brutal, but I did take karate in college with a sensei who tended to be a bit on the hardcore side and who enjoyed full-contact sparring. One day at practice, he told us to fight and not hold back, no gear or anything. Well, even with that, most kids were mutually tentative and didn’t go all out at all, but I had the luck of fighting this one angry Russian kid who bopped me a good one on the nose. I’ll attest to what others said that while it does indeed hurt pretty good, it’s more the shock that is a problem to fighting than the pain.
(It started to get fun after he punched me. I rammed him into the wall hard and shit was about to get real when sensei finally intervened. Ah memories.)
Only the one time my cousin told me he’d show me how hard his normal punch would hurt, after doing a playful punch that I complained about. I was stupid to agree.
I had a bully in 8th grade who was in tenth, and it was one of those things where I either had to fight her or have her on my ass all through high school. But I’m a really pacifistic person by nature. She went for me first, after a bit of a shoving match she punched me in the mouth. I kicked her back without even thinking, nailed her right between the legs. I actually said out loud, “That hurt!” It was kind of jarring, and it was a sharp pain that popped up a couple seconds after I got hit. I really had no desire to fight her, so I just told her that and walked away. She didn’t bother me again.
I was in karate and a guy I was seeing was in a different karate class and we thought we’d just spar for fun in the backyard of his apartment complex.
But we only had one set of gear. Whatever part of the gear I was wearing, I did not have chin protection and whatever part of the gear he was wearing he did not have soft, cushy knuckles and he ended up flattening me out with a blow to the chin.
I had a huge bruise for weeks. I had to go to 3 weddings in 2 weekend with this chin shiner. I had about 2 inches of makeup caked on it.
It hurt, it knocked me down, but I got over it. It did make it easier for me to spar for real when I got in to real sparring, because I knew that it wasn’t so bad to take a blow to the face and could keep my head up.
I got punched at work by a skinny old man and it hurt enough that I could not sleep on the side of my face that was bruised. Tylenol helped with the pain.
I’ve been punched in the head many times.
It generally doesn’t hurt all that much, just a jolting impact. I’ve only really been hurt twice by punches to the head. Once 3 years ago when I got cracked in the side of the head by someone wearing brass knuckles and was knocked down in a daze and 4 months ago when a punch skipped off my left cheek and slammed into the side of my nose shattering one of my nasal bones. It’s a little bent now, a little stuffy and I had bruises on my face for about a month. Made it to 43 yrs old with 12 yrs of working as a bouncer before I got a broken nose. I’ve also had 5 cracked ribs at various times due to fighting.
I’ve also punched quite a few people. Less as I’ve gotten older/more experienced and developed into a more locking and grappling style of fighting. I did break both my right 4th and 5th metacarpals in a classic Boxer’s Fractures over the years when I landed a punch badly, but otherwise I try to stick to the advice of one of my early instructors and “don’t hit them in the hard parts”.
As far as comparing it to something? Maybe it’s like the jarring impact from a mild car accident? Shock and surprise and you don’t feel any soreness until the adrenaline wears off.
I got sucker punched on the jaw, just below the left corner of my mouth. It put me out briefly (I’d been standing in front of a car and suddenly found myself lying on the hood). Instant adrenaline rush, and I squared off with the guy. Didn’t feel any pain until a while after. A bit sore chewing for a few days but otherwise no lasting effects.
I’ve been punched in the head twice, one was in the cheek/eye area and the other was on the top of my head (!), and didn’t feel a thing until well after the fact. Adrenaline and all that jazz mutes the pain.