Why are boxing gloves so much wider than an average hand?

Question

TL;DR: why are boxing gloves so wide?

I've searched for this but can only find texts about glove weight and padding, but not about width.

Karate, ITF Taekwondo and MMA training gloves have more or less the same padding as boxing gloves, but tend to be as wide as the hand and not much more.

The width of boxing gloves makes them easier to parry or block than narrower gloves, so I guess that width is intended for a purpose what I can't find which one is it.

PS: I can imagine that narrower gloves may allow the index's knuckle to hit sideways without padding in an odd situation. But anyway, if you see some boxing hooks in slow motion they sometimes end up hitting the temple with the wrist-palm in the heat of the battle so I guess you can't make the perfect protection for combat sports anyway.

PS2: I don't even care about the ability to grapple, let's just focus on hitting, so no matter if gloves are open handed, open palm, etc.

Answer 1

As per my answer to "Modern" Boxing Gloves & Punching Technique, one of the primary reasons for the introduction of the modern boxing glove was restricting the ability to grab and grapple. Secondarily, the increased size of the glove adds more padding, to protect the person punching, and increases the weight of the punch, which increases the chance of an exciting knockout punch.