First impressions

Very mixed thoughts as the gloves look good but they don’t look as high quality as my other Rival gloves.

 

WARNING:- I will be referring to my other Rival gloves a lot in the following review!!

Construction

I have the Rival mma 4oz gloves and the mma bag gloves and these are by far some of the best quality training gloves I have ever seen. They were originally bought from Title MMA and made in China. These new sparring mma gloves were bought from Rival Europe and made in Pakistan so I don’t know if the change in factory has meant a change in their quality but these new gloves are nowhere near as good quality wise as the other two pairs I own. The first thing I noticed is how badly the foam is put into the leather section on the back of the hand. On one side there is not enough so it looks very saggy and the other side has so much and this does not seem attached to well and moves around a lot. Another thing I noticed is the embossed logos on the wrist support. On the other gloves I own this is really well done and really stands out, however on these sparring gloves one wrist strap has no embossing at all and the other seems to have maybe 10% embossed compares to the other type of gloves. The leather is also not as supple and seems a lot lower quality which is a real shame as Rival normally use incredible leather.

On a positive note the stitching is strong and well done it’s just let down by the other factors of the construction of the glove.

Performance

The first thing you notice when you put on the glove is the setup used for the fingers. Rather then the normal individual “stalls” Rival have gone for 3 section. Individual ones for the index and middle finger. Then for the ring and pinkie finger they have gone for a longer “stall” that you put both fingers into. I don’t know the reason for this but it does not work to well. When grappling the fingers easily come out of the section meaning you have to adjust them back in a lot and also due to setup you cannot make a full fist with out the foam lifting away from your hand. Also due to how thin the leather used these after a couple of month have already started to bunch up causing my fingers to come out of the “stall” even more.

The hook & loop wrist strap offers great support as it wraps around your wrist twice, has a very secure fit, stays exactly where you want it and also won’t lift to velcro burn either yourself of your partner during grappling (I hate companies that use cheap hook & look material!!).

The lining is another positive thing about these gloves. It is very comfortable and dries very quickly and always feels comfortable no matter how long you have them on for.

Now onto punching with this glove. As you know the idea behind mma sparring gloves is to be able to strike with a smaller glove but with a bit more safety over using a 4oz glove. This leads to another problem with these gloves. I have used numerous mma sparring gloves and these by far are the hardest I have ever used. After months of use the foam is still very hard and I never feel comfortable throwing shots at my training partners due to this fact. So it seems they will be relegated to the training gear cupboard of shame and I will have to look else wear for the perfect gloves a I have so far not found them yet and I do not want to risk injuring my training partners.

One last problem with these glove (I am sorry this review has been so negative but there is not much positive stuff to talk about) the print used on the back of the hand section’s print has already worn very badly (See the photo below) only after a few month use again this is a real shame. On my bag glove version which is put under a lot more stress the print even on the striking service has held up perfectly were as these have not.

Pros

+Good hook and loop strap

+Great looking if made with the same care and quality of their gloves made in China.

+Nice lining

Cons

-Shoddy foam insertion

-Low quality leather used

-Incredibly stiff foam even after a good amount of break-in time.

-Embossing is terrible and the printing has worn already.

-Dual finger “Stall” just does not work well at all.

Summary

I hope this is not a trend Rival will take on with their gloves. If it is their reputation will go down quicker than the Titanic and that is a real shame as their design’s are different and normally high quality. For now I have wasted my money on these gloves and that makes me even more angry as other more well known brands charge slightly less. So for now avoid these gloves!

2 out of 10