Review of Fairtex BGV1 Training Gloves

We at The Fight Nerd enjoy testing various bits of equipment and merchandise, ranging from UFC action figures to exercise equipment. Jeff Sims of MMAGearAdvice.com has another review for us, this time of the Fairtex BGV1 16 oz. Training Gloves. Previously, Jeff has reviewed the Clinchgear Hendo 100 shorts, KO Fight Gear Thai Pads and other goodies.

Fairtex is a fairly high-end brand of equipment, coming straight from Thailand, so these gloves are not cheap. Are these gloves worth paying for or are they just overpriced blobs of leather? Hit the jump to find out!

Per Manufacturer-

-Handmade in Thailand

-Top grain leather shell

-Shock-absorbing, high-density foam core

-Thumb attached for added safety

First Impression- When I pulled these gloves out of the box and out of the plastic I could tell that they were going to be a quality pair of gloves. The quality looked great and the color was awesome.

Construction-The construction of these is excellent. They are made in Thailand and the leather is very nice. I could not get a lot of info about what the liner in the glove is made out of but it is very nice feeling and even has the Fairtex “double f” logo on it.

Fit- There are both good and bad things about the fit of these gloves. As you can see from pictures these gloves do not have a very long cuff. They are very compact and put padding in all the right places. However the hand compartment inside is quite large. With wraps it was even a little big. Another problem that I had with these gloves is that they don’t have any sort of grab bar so it kind of feels like you are just folding you fingers over your palm instead of making a fist. These gloves feature and standard hook and loop style closure which even on my smaller wrists I could get nice and tight. They also have an attached thumb which is pretty standard for most gloves now a days. These are a very comfortable pair of gloves. The actual contact are of the glove is nice and wide and provides plenty of protection for the knuckles.

Mitts/Pads- These gloves worked great on the pads and mitts. They did a good job and at absorbing the impact from the pads have good wrist support. Like I said my only real complaint is how big the hand compartment is which sometimes lead to my hand hurting after workouts.

Heavy Bag- I did not really like these on the heavy bag due to the fact that the hand compartment was so big. Now wrapping hands did help(which you should be doing anyways) but it was still big and my hand could move around inside the glove. Now for people with bigger hands this glove make work great but for me the compartment was just too big. It did do a good job of absorbing the shock when hitting the bag.

Sparring- I liked these gloves for sparring. The padding is not stiff so they and allows for plenty of give when hitting your partner. They also worked well when blocking as they have a good amount of padding on the back hand side of the glove. I was able to get the clinch in these and did not have any problems opening up my hand and keeping it secure.

Pros-

Incredible quality

Looks and design

Multi use

Cons-

Large hand compartment

No Grab Bar

Overall- The quality of these gloves is top notch. They look and feel like a top level glove should. If you have smaller hands you may want to drop to a 14oz but other than that I recommend picking these gloves up. I got them from http://www.elitemma.com/ which has excellent customer service and fast shipping. They go for right around $90