first of all, hammer is better, because it has 2x hex range, 2x hex range has big advantage when fighting against other melee/unarmed builds, because 1hex range is in perk "in your face" zone and gives you 50% miss. Secondly, unarmed build is even better than melee, because you can just drop enemies weapon/cripple arm when fighting against melee and he is done, and talking about damage it is not really so different. Even with lowest damage unarmed builds you have haymaker attack + bonus hth damage perk, and this makes your basic damage with lowest unaimed attack 8-17 (also haymaker has 15% crit chance, and crippling your enemies is very important if you want defeat someone being unarmed/melee).
Isn't low strength bad for melee?
As you can see he has also finesse, so low strength is the least of your concern. That build relies solely on knockouts and crippling not raw damage. With 10 luck, bonehead, man of steel, and quick recovery it is the perfect anti-hth fighter, just ask vedaras.
but you will pray for instant kill, cause other wise more likely some more players will come and just kill you till you will try to finish your target