Horizontal v. Vertical Fist Punching

Professional boxers make their living from punching; their hands are the tools of their trade. The primary thing that boxers fear is a hand injury, since it will interfere with their livelihood. Therefore, boxers are always seeking ways to prevent hand injuries, and they train to develop the most powerful punches. They pay trainers thousands of dollars to find and train them in the best punching techniques. This being the case, why do not boxers use the “safer” “more powerful” vertical punches, since they are permitted within the rules of boxing?

Professional full-contact fighters, with the exception of some full-contact styles, such as Muay Thai, may use any style of martial art of they choose and they are permitted to use pressure point strikes, vertical punches, and sticky hands, etc. To make a living in fighting, a professional fighter needs to knockout or submit opponents, or at least impress the judges with their superior fighting skills; therefore, one would assume that a fighter would use techniques that have been proven to work. I have never seen or heard of any professional boxer or fighter who uses any soft martial art techniques in the ring, other than Brazilian Juititsu, whose locks, bars, chokes, and pins may be considered soft and are used in MMA fights. However, MMA was created to highlight Brazilian Juititsu techniques.

Any martial art works well when demonstrated against non-aggressive students of the same style. The true test is whether the art works well against aggressive students of another style. For example, in the few times when pressure point arts, such as Dim Mak or Combat-ki, have been used against persons other than their own practitioners, they failed miserably.