Not only research, but you can also see differences because there are events without gloves (bareknuckle boxing), events with small gloves (MMA) and events wtih big gloves (Boxing, but also Sparring which generally uses even bigger gloves).
For olympic boxing they removed the helmets because they think it's safer. Also, the gloves are extremely useful to protect the hands. Bareknuckle boxing exists (and you can watch it on youtube!), and the gameplan for these guys is very different. You can't go 100% since you risk breaking your hand. There's no closing your eye and throwing a haymaker here. Defending a punch with your forehead suddenly becomes a viable strategy since it's likely the damage to their hand will be bigger than the damage to your forehead. Knuckle conditioning, wrist adjustments, etc. So many changes! I find it extremely fascinating.
Extrapolating even further you can see how Jiu Jitsu becomes a whole different thing if you allow headbutts (just watch the 90's Brazilian Vale Tudo fights if you wanna see this, but I warn you that's it's much more violent than today's MMA fight). But that doesn't make it any safer so I may be diverging :)
For olympic boxing they removed the helmets because they think it's safer. Also, the gloves are extremely useful to protect the hands. Bareknuckle boxing exists (and you can watch it on youtube!), and the gameplan for these guys is very different. You can't go 100% since you risk breaking your hand. There's no closing your eye and throwing a haymaker here. Defending a punch with your forehead suddenly becomes a viable strategy since it's likely the damage to their hand will be bigger than the damage to your forehead. Knuckle conditioning, wrist adjustments, etc. So many changes! I find it extremely fascinating.
Extrapolating even further you can see how Jiu Jitsu becomes a whole different thing if you allow headbutts (just watch the 90's Brazilian Vale Tudo fights if you wanna see this, but I warn you that's it's much more violent than today's MMA fight). But that doesn't make it any safer so I may be diverging :)