I forgot one other thing, and originally I was going to make it an edit on the main post but it got so big I thought of making it it’s own post.
I thought about: punching FROM the chamber even makes sense under the paradigm of “grab the dude and pull him into the punch”. Specifically how the hand it turned upside down and comes to a full rotation at the end. Mainly because, when you execute a short range punch, you tend to rarely be able to come to full extension (especially so with body punches), and in such circumstances, I’ve found a punch with the palm up to be stronger than one with the palm down.
My favorite example is, of course, Haggar from Final Fight
But in the real world we’ve seen these kinds of punches before
I know I’ve done this in a clinch before. Actually hit the guy so hard I picked his feet up off the floor.
In addition to that, I had a move I used a few times where I caught a kick, then pulled the dude in to me, punched him in the gut, clinched from there and slammed/suplexed. At the time, it seemed very instinctive, but looking at it now, I was legit chamber punching in a fight. And when you have a dudes leg in your hand, you’re in a VERY good place to not have a hand up to defend yourself.
Of course, this depends on the ability to pull someone off their feet with one hand…which I’m good at, but your mileage may vary. Still, I’m somehow coming around to chambered punching ACTUALLY making sense. I think it’s a little silly to make it the ONLY way you train punches, and to leave it completely unexplained will cause some bad habits, but I’m excited to explain it this way to my kid.