What causes a boxer to become knocked out by a body punch?

Question

What causes a boxer to become knocked out by a body punch?

Answer 1

As I do agree with some of what Jas G has said, getting the "wind knocked out" is actually the result from a diaphragm spasm, and it usually only lasts for a few seconds (although it does feel like minutes when it happens to you).

Furthermore, the element of surprise can do a number on the boxer. If the boxer isn't expecting a shot to the body, it can do a lot more damage since he didn't have time to prepare his body for the blow.

Answer 2

Either it hurts to the point that he can no longer continue (Technical KnockOut); or he has the breath knocked out of him--meaning he was hit so hard that his lungs got stunned and quit working.  He can no longer breathe for a short while until such time as his lungs recover (usually after a few minutes) and start breathing again.

To my understanding, when your breath is knocked out of you your brain automatically shuts down most of your body that you don't need to limit how much oxygen is used until its sure that the lungs will restart and there will be enough for the body to survive.

Answer 3

I've taken many punches to the head... nothing hurts more then a kidney shot.

get punched in the kidney as hard as you can. you'll understand.

Answer 4

More than one reason probably, but some boxers can't take a hard punch to the body.  A powerful punch right under the heart can be painful in many ways.  I am not sure, but I think such a punch can have and effect on the heart.  In other areas on the body there can be reasons, like a weak stomach area that a hard punch can fold up such a fighter.  Then at times a hard punch happens to make contact with an area where a cluster of nerves are located and that can quickly take the fight out of the other fighter.  A punch to the head, on the face etc, has and effect on the brain.

Answer 5

It depends where the punch is landed~ for instance, if the punch lands square on the gut in the solar plexus, the result leaves you breathless and unable to resume your fight stance.  If landed perfectly, the left hook to the liver leaves you in agonizing pain- often writhing on the canvas in pain and unable to beat the count of the ref.  Wicked pain, great fight ending punch.

Answer 6

From personal experience, I took a wicked shot to the diaphram, which took my breath away. I dropped to both of my knees like a ton of bricks. Since it took me almost a minute to even feel somewhat decent, I couldn't get up by the ten-count...... and that was the last thing on my mind.

Answer 7

I was never in the kind of competition to know what a truly killer body punch felt like, but I took a right below my left ribs and I couldn't move, then I took another, right in the same spot and was paralyzed on that side of my body.  As my opponent moved in for the finish, I had to quit.  In that condition, without my lateral movement, I'd have resembled a punching bag with 1 arm and 1 leg.  He'd have killed me.  I called a TKO to avoid the obituaries.  Peed blood the next day.  What caused it was clearly the way it affected my left kidney.  It felt similar to the way a shot in the nads feel, maybe a little more generalized.