If you’ve ever seen the movie Slap Shot, then you’ll remember the scene where the Hanson Brothers are taping foil to their hands before a game. Being that the Hansons were major goons, how would that help you in a fight? Just some extra protection, or was it just something they came up with for the movie?
ETA: Never mind - just watched the clip and it’s foil.
According to this thread on yahoo answers it’s to protect the knuckles and inflict more damage. A poster there says Dave Shultz used to do it, but Mr. Shultz’s wiki page says it was boxing wraps.
Cool, thanks. (Not having seen your post before you edited it, what did you think it was?)
Awesome movie, BTW. All hockey fans should see it.
I remembered it being razor blades or the old can openers that had that sharp triangle that punched a hole in the tin.
Depends on who you’re fighting. If they have one of these, you might want to wear all the foil you can.
Bolding mine.
It’s to keep your hands from being taken over by CIA mind-control beams.
I don’t think the Hanson Brothers would’ve been smart enough to come up with such a thing. 
The foil is folded enough to become fairly rigid, and left in a pointy configuration to cut the other guy’s face up. The tape keeps it from doing the same to your hands, as well as providing some of the support that a proper boxing wrap would give, lessening hand injuries.
Fun fact: the practice is the origin of the phrase, “Curses, foiled again!”
This right here is funny!
You know that the phrase “foiled again” predates the movie by a long way.
“The verb [foil] originated as a hunting term meaning “to spoil a trace or scent by running over it,” from Old French fouler, “trample.” It took on its modern meaning of spoiling someone’s plans in the 1660s. Foil as a noun meaning “a thin sheet of metal,” comes from a French word for “leaf,” modern French feuille”
Moderator Note
Thread was raised by a spammer who has since been wished away to the cornfield.
Minor aside: speaking of wrapping foil on your fists…
Game players will often look for any advantage they can eke out of the rules. In an old-school roleplaying game of spies and secret agents (I forget which one – maybe Top Secret?) there used to be a rule for fighting where the damage was ranked thusly:
[ul]
[li]Bare-handed: baseline damage[/li][li]Any object smaller than an oar: one step more damage[/li][li]Any object larger than an oar: two steps more damage[/li][/ul]
This led to a number of annoying but humorous rules paradoxes. Firstly, players used the term “paper knuckles” for adding ANY OBJECT, no matter how innocuous, to get that first step of damage increase. “I wrap the piece of paper around my knuckles – it’s an object!” “I hit him with the feather!”
Secondly, due to the way the steps were written up, apparently an oar itself does no damage. Tell that to Miyamoto Musashi!
“Curses, leafed again!” just does not work.
Cursors, scrolled again!
I always thought the origins were related to fencing.