I love talking about martial arts. I also hate it.

I find myself hating sometimes because martial arts have to be among the most broscience-ridden subjects out there. Everybody thinks he is an expert UFC fighter when it comes to martial arts, even if he/she has never even trained.

Walk into any boxing gym/judo dojo/MMA gym and you’ll be plastered in the face with ‘tips’, ‘advice’ and the likes from everywhere.

Most of which would get you injured, or even killed, if we’re being honest.

The long-time myth spreading among Muay Thai circles about toughening up one’s shins by hitting trees comes to mind, for instance. I also had a friend, who’s boxed for four years and is a pretty avid mixed martial arts enthusiast, mind you, telling me how bearded fighters have a smaller chance of getting knocked out because their beards would act as a ‘protective layer’.

Yep.

Fortunately, UFC fighter and fan favorite Joe ‘J-Lau’ Lauzon is here to help us draw the line between fiction and reality.

Lauzon, who has fought twenty times for the UFC, decided to test out a simple, common, yet intriguing theory :

Does fat act as a natural ‘body armor’?

To do so, he requested the help of one of his training partners, who loves hamburgers and getting blasted in the mid-section by an elite fighter, too.

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Joe wasn’t pulling his punches. He threw them full force at his friend’s waist. F**** ouch.

Verdict? The punches didn’t seem to phase him that much, though to Lauzon’s defense he had boxing gloves on, which enlarges the impact area thus making the blows less tolerable compared to being hit with 4 oz. MMA gloves.

It seems like going for that fifth serving on pizza might actually help sometimes. It is natural that a larger layer would make it harder for the blow to blast internal organs and ribs.

Don’t let yourself indulge too much though, it’d be silly to be able to absorb more punishment while in the meantime gassing when putting your gloves on…