Actually, gloves are there to protect the other guy's face, primarily. They make boxing look less violent, the reason they were invented. While at the same time making it much more dangerous for the boxers, which was purely an unintended consequence.
In the old days men boxed bare-handed. Bare hands cut up the faces, and blood went everywhere, upsetting women, wimps and liberals. (But I repeat myself.) Since the hand makes a lousy club, despite this article, a boxer just couldn't hit hard enough to actually do damage to the other guy's brain without breaking his finger bones.
So he didn't hit that hard. Not more than once per hand, anyway.
Bring in padded gloves. They spread the impact across both the hands and the face. A boxer can punch as hard as he wants without breaking his hands. Facial skin damage is minimized, so women and wussies don't get offended by flying blood.
But the recipient of the punches has his brain bouncing off the sides of his skull, resulting in multiple mini-strokes, which eventually produces the condition known as being "punchy." Look at Muhammad Ali.
Punchiness was more or less unknown before the invention of the boxing glove. The faces of veteran boxers were scarred to the max, but their minds were still functional.
This is one of the great classic examples of how liberal policies to address surface unpleasantness often make the situation a great deal worse, but in ways that are less obvious and thus acceptable.
To them. Nobody bothered to ask the boxers if they'd rather bleed a little and be scarred or suffer permanent serious brain damage.
This is actually similar to the difference in injury rate between (American) football and rugby. With all its "protective" equipment football allows the players to hit each other with full power, while rugby, with no pads, enforces lower impact speeds. Football has a much higher incidence and greater severity of injuries.
They make the sport more dangerous not less.
People used to ask me why I wouldn't have my nieces wear elbow/knee pads and were shocked at my response that a skinned knee will not do them any major harm.
Heartless!
But while they had a number of owies they never did themselves any major damage.
Their friends on the other hand were in and out of emergency because the "protective" gear made them feel like they wouldn't get hurt so they did stunts that were down right stupid.
I see some scary parallels to modern padded-to-the-max football helmets.