Quote: Bash sounds good - especially suits the concept of a punch-fighter
I made a barefisted barb along with Mikedok when he made his. Note: These characters were made in classic, but the skills/techniques should have stayed mostly the same.
Bash was also very useful because of the knockback. If you constantly knockback an opponent, they can do little against you even if you do fairly low damage. Also by pumping vit instead of str, and liberal use of BO/battlecry/taunt, you can reach a survivability that most other barbs can't match. Unfortunately, you will rarely(alright, never) rival them in killing rates, but it can still be fun.
Battlecry was essential, because it also reduces the defense of monsters. I found that we had trouble hitting without it.
IIRC my char's name was PunchBarb, and his was Punch_Master.
I have made a barefisted paladin before too, they are also amusing while they last.
EDIT: IIRC We were fighting in hell diff chaos sanctuary when we got tired of these characters. We decided to take a break from them, and before we came back to them, LOD came out. LOD destroyed their capability to play in hell diff, and we never got around to remaking them.
It would take twinking of the type of items that we do not posses to make them playable in hell diff in LOD.
EDIT#2: one line in the wrong space, didn't follow the chain of thought.