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Sorry to be a pain in the ass, but the classic defintion of a "bruise" implies that there is visible discoloration in the skin from an underlying soft tissue injury. This is most commonly achieved when the area experiences direct, traumatic IMPACT-type force, such that blood vessels break in the area. This leads to leakage of blood and the resulting bruise/contusion. The blood breaks down, changes color, gets reabsorbed, blah blah blah...
Most of you guys have experienced muscle/cartilage/tendon (i.e. "soft tissue") damage (a.k.a. "strain") from NON-IMPACT forces on the thoracic rib cage. It is most commonly due to the wrenching and twisting forces that we place on our rib cages, that are inherent with grappling.
In some respects, it is true that it would be better to experience a fracture of a rib than to have certain types of soft-tissue strain in the rib cage.
Anybody who has actually had a broken rib (and confirmed by x-ray) will tell you that the pain is typically different in quality and much more intense than the vast majority of soft-tissue rib cage injuries...
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"If you aren't attacking, you are defending, and if you are defending, it means that you are losing the fight at that moment." - Marcelo Garcia
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