'Whack someone" vs " Whop someone" vs "Wallop someone"

Question

I noticed that, in the dictionary, the words Whack, Whop and Wallop can have a meaning resembling hit some one hard. ODO says:

Whack (Verb) = strike forcefully with a sharp blow.
Whop (Verb) = hit hard.
Wallop (verb) = strike or hit (someone or something) very hard.

and I'm writing about a boxer or karate fighter who hit his opponent hard in a match. I'm considering saying that the fighter whacked or whopped or walloped his opponent.

I would like to know:

(1) Is there a difference between those three? Would you imagine that whacked an opponent is a slightly different meaning than whopped or walloped an opponent? (I typed all these three words into a Google image search, and I got similar images for whopped and walloped. I got different images for whacked. However I cannot grasp a clear difference).

(2) All of those three words have other meanings in dictionary. For example, whop has other meanings like the regular pulsing sound of a helicopter rotor

If all these three words are essentially the same meaning, is there any reason I should avoid using one word or the other?

Answer 1

Typically, a karate fighter would strike or, more specifically, kick or punch. None of these words seems quite right, but wallop is closest. First, whack has an additional meaning to murder (Definition 2), which could cause confusion. The other two words are also fairly informal, and they don't suggest the precision of a karate move. Whop is also used for the sound of such a blow, which probably isn't a connotation you want. That leaves wallop.

Answer 2

Whacked can mean to hit with a foot or fist or to hit with a board or a baseball bat, for example, so I wouldn't use that.

Whopped feels more colloquial and informal to me than walloped, which seems to me more appropriate for a description of a sports encounter.

Still, I'd probably use a different word, something like slammed, smashed, bashed, battered, beat, or trounced. I think that walloped is good, though.