New Rival Equipment

[McAlister]

I think the suede might irritate your face, wouldnt the thumbs brush up against your face and like cause rug burns????

Iono, prolly... but they do LOOK nice lol



I came sooo close to adding these to my order today...

[Trick]

Rival gloves have a pretty big difference in size on the inside. The bag gloves at least, I know. Unless you're a big guy, their 14oz bag gloves will probaby be too big for your fist. When I ordered my 10oz (which should be here soon) they called me to make sure that it was the right fist size for me. I think it's kind of a strange way of doing things, considering no one else does that, but maybe it'll be worth it if these 10oz fit real nice, we'll see...

[Bombz]

The IMF Tech gloves are very good (so far). Quality seems good, they do feel quite big when on but not cumbersome and the padding & wrist support is excellent. Even with the attached thumb I can put them on myself without any help (important as I train on my own at home). I'd say that these are definitely for HEAVY bag work. I use them and then change gloves for some speed work.

On the down side they do feel quite difficult to make a tight fist in, probably I think because of the thickness/amount of padding (a trade-off for protection maybe). Others on boxingscene have commented that this gets better with some wear, so I'm not too concerned and to be honest it's not a mjor problem.

Overall I rate these gloves and would recommend them to anyone for serious bag work.

[Bombz]

Tricky - interesting about the Rival gloves. I got advise before I bought them from both Customer Services at titleboxing and Rival themsleves and BOTH advised 14oz gloves for the bag and also said that it wouldn't affect the actual sizing, just the amount of protection provided.

They're definitely bigger / a poorer fit to other gloves I've got/had and I've also noticed that these seems to be an excess of the lining material that can get in the way.

I've sent my comments to them and had no reply. I suppose I wasn't really expecting one, but I think they should get feedback (good and bad).

The other thing is that I agree with Kanman about the leather quality or rather specifically the quality of the leather used for the wrist fastenings as it feels very cheap and "crinkly".

I'm not slating Rival for no reason, but this is a very competitive market and when you pay top dollar, I think you have the right to expect a top quality product. I guess you live and learn!

[Bombz]

I emailed Rival and I've had a reply which outlines the companies position regarding their product (they're positive about it as you'd expect) and told me that I'm the first person to complain (to them). They have advised re: the fit that I perhaps should have got a 12oz glove (they make them smaller than the 14oz not just the weight) or that I should have got the RB1 (I thinks it's called). Funny though that I bought the 14oz RB20 based on advice from them and titleboxing.

Anyway the President (Russ Anber) is looking at this and he's said that he's looking at options to get this sorted and get me in a glove that I'm happy with. I'm not sure what that means (exchange pair - shipping is the issue with this option if I have to return the glove to Canada from the UK, or if they'll send me an alternative glove or size at their cost, we'll have to see) but 10 out of 10 so far for taking my complaint and getting in touch to try and sort something out.

I'll let you know the outcome.

[Trick]

Alrighty, well I was gonna do a whole new thread with some pics, but I'll throw some stuff up now, without the pics, I'm a little too "buzzed" to go playin' with the camera right now.

I order the RB1 black 10oz bag gloves, shoes, and some handwrap. Shipping was very fast (I live in Canada). The gloves are quite nice, but one thing I've noticed is that weight really does seem to have an effect on the inner size. The 10oz is maybe a liiiiiiiitle too small for me, basically so that I have to break it in, which is fine. But I'm 6 feet, 150, not a big guy, so bigger guys may have issues. Customer service is quite good in my opinion, I'd recommend contacting them, giving them "your story" and seeing what size they recommend. They even called me to make sure the 10oz is what I wanted, saying that it MAY be too small. The gloves perform well, and look great. Padding isn't THE BEST but is still good. The wrist lock is a nice feature, but when my wrist buckles it moves down, not up, and the wrist lock blocks it from goin' up much more than down (if you know what I'm talkin' about). I had a bit of thumb pain today (I'm sure many know what I'm talkin' about). I think that has more to do with breakin them in, so that should be fine.

The shoes are nice, good, light, and once again, look nice. Not too much to say about them, I doubt they're the best out there, but they're quite nice, and I'm very satisfied with them, the back heel area will take a lil' bit of breakin' in though.

Finally, the handwraps are fine, you can't really screw that up...

Basically, I'd definetly recommend Rival, good price for a good product, and being a new company, it's in our best intrests (as boxers) to get a new company up and goin', innovating, and creating more competition.

And to BOMBZ, Russ Anber is a good guy, pretty much the canadian boxing authority. He loves boxing, and I can see him personally goin' to the drawing board to fix anything a genuine boxer sees unfit in his products. He trains some of the best fighters in the country. His gym in Montreal is arguably the best "stable" in Canada.

So that's it, I love my new gear, it was about the same price as comparable stuff, and in many ways better. Just do some research in the glove department beforehand, and you won't regret it.

If you're lookin' at some Rival stuff, I say go for it,
Trick

P.S. I'd stay away from their "low end" stuff though, I'd just stick with the more solid US companies for that.

[Bombz]

Trick - I don't know the guy obviously, but I think I'd agree. He's just emailed me and although I didn't buy the gloves from Rival directly he's offered to exchange them (including the shipping costs, I think) or offered me a deal on an other pair of Rival gloves at a discount. Can't really say fairer than that and if I was in the US or Canada I'd probably take him up on it.

From the UK it's going to be quite a pain and I'll just put this one down to experience - you live and learn eh!