beef up helmets and armor

[Clarks]

People who have armor likely have batons or guns that guarantees a stun on hit. That's a pretty big additional advantage.

If knockouts were changed from a lucky roll of the rng to a variable that increased at every received punch or toolbox, until a KO/KD threshold, unarmed combat could be less random and require a more use of the environment.
Incidentally, armored people would get... a slight boost.