Throwing power shots for over half an hour is a sure way to damage a fghter's hands. With the main part of a boxer's artillery containing multiple joints and bones, injury to the hands is a common occurrence for fighters.
Throughout camp, fighters are hitting bags, pads, and sparring partners, it's essential they make it to fight night so that's why they use hand wraps to protect their key weapons.
This mindset continues on the big night as an injury to a fighter's hands during a fight can be disastrous. Here, DAZN looks at how hands should be wrapped before training and fighting as well as how such a critical procedure is governed on fight night.
How to wrap hands
- Pick up boxing hand wrap with the hand you write with.
- With the palm of your opposite hand faced downwards, spread your fingers and put your thumb on the hand wrap, spinning the material around to fix it in place.
- Take the hand wrap and wrap it around your wrist until you feel that it’s tight. Don’t forget to check that circulation is adequate.
- Repeat the wrap of the thumb, then the wrist, and repeat this process three more times.
- Time to focus on the knuckles where you need to wrap from right to left, across the palm three times as tightly as possible with fingers still spread.
- This time, place the wrap between your middle and ring fingers, and wrap over the palm, then bring it back over your thumb.
- Wrap around your knuckles one final time, then bring it back around the wrist.
- The wrap is now complete and can be secured in place.
What are the rules for hand wrap during fights?
When it comes to a sport as extremely physical and dangerous as boxing, it is of course vital that hand wrap (as well as many other aspects) is done safely and fairly.
Boxing rules for various sanctioning bodies largely state that boxers are permitted to have someone of their choosing serve as a witness to their opponent's hand-wrapping procedure in order to ensure they are satisfied it has been done properly, so long as their selected representative holds a boxing license.
This seemingly-minor detail can also lead to extra animosity between the fighters just before they go to war. For example, on the night of Tyson Fury's huge world heavyweight title win over Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf in 2015, the Ukrainian began the hand wrapping procedure before Asif Vali, Fury's manager, arrived. As a result, Vali demanded that they start the hand-wrapping procedure over again so that he could watch from the beginning, as was his right.
The signs at the time suggested that the defending champion's decision to do this early was all part of a larger plan to irritate the challenger and his team. Fury's camp had to flag an issue with the ring canvas, pointed out that Klitschko wore lifts to appear taller at the weigh-in, and then the champ jumped the gun on the hand-wrap even though he surely knew he'd be forced to restart. If it was all part of a 'mind games' mission, it did not work: Fury outworked and outpointed Klitschko via unanimous decision that night at the Espirit Arena.