Sparring Gloves Primer

Boxing or "Sparring" gloves come in an enormous variety of styles, colors, traditions, purposes, sizes, brands, and designs. Before purchasing a glove to use in sparring, it is wise to familiarize yourself with what is available.

The first consideration in gloves is understanding that there are five basic categories of gloves:
MMA training gloves for striking and grappling simultaneously, on the ground and standing;
MMA fight gloves, for professional competitions;
Sparring Gloves for doing stand up sparring training;
Boxing fight gloves for professional or amateur competition.
Bag Gloves, for hitting the bags and mitts.

This section will discuss the various types of sparring or "boxing" gloves that are available. Boxing gloves are divided into sparring gloves and fight gloves. Fight gloves are generally 10 oz or less. Sparring gloves are generally 14 oz or more. There is no use in MMA for a boxing fight glove, so the discussion is limited to the larger sparring or training gloves.

First of all, different fighting traditions have gloves with differing qualities. The main gloves described below are American, British, Mexican, Japanese, and Thai.

The classic Mexican glove, most characteristically Reyes, has a perfect, sleek feel, but minimal padding across the knuckles. This makes for an exciting fight, but is not so good for sparring, unless you really, really like to be hit hard by knuckles in the face. Further, so much work goes into the feel of the glove, that durability can be a factor.

Japanese gloves like Winning brand put an abundance of padding across the knuckles, in up to eleven layers! This makes for a safer face, but provide a somewhat unrealistic, pillowy feel. Prices can be quite high.

The American glove provides balance between the two extremes, and is the default glove in most boxing gyms. The American glove uses a velcro elastic closure, often with a sleeve that rolls down over it. Top European brands like Top Ten likewise make a terrific boxing glove. However, none of these gloves is ideal for Mixed Martial Arts stand up striking practice.

The British style gove is the original, classic design, with lace up wrists, and a non attached thumb.

If you want to develop stand up striking that is ideal for boxing, train in a boxing glove. If you want to develop stand up striking that is ideal for MMA competititon, train in a Thai glove. if you block a high kick properly, a boxing glove will provide only minimlar protection to your hand. By contrast, the Thai glove has padding on the inside of the palm, and extended padding down the back of the hand, and has a reinfroced wrist wrap and collar. The Thai glove defaults to a partly open state, so that you can readily clinch, grab kicks, and do all the other moves that are characterisitic of MMA. And Thai gloves use a unique combination of foams that mold to your hand once broken in. Thai fighters are generally not rich, the durability of a Tha glove is second to none.

Once you have determined to purchase a Thai sparring glove, your decision rests on what brand to purchase. Leading brands include Twins Special, Windy, Raja, Fairtex, Boon, Inter, Thaismai, King, and more. They are all good. We tested all of them, for many, many years, and came to the conclusion that Twins Special is the best of the best.

Thai gloves do have a breaking in period, so it is best to wear them for shadow boxing and light pad work for several hours before using them in any heavy sparring.

In addition to a sparring glove, it is important that you wrap your hands. For details on choosing a wrap, please see the Wraps section.