TWINS leather boxing gloves

JabCrossHook · Posted On: 11/12/2007 6:27pm

What can I say? These gloves are excellent!

These gloves are available in a number of colours - the standard blue, red, black etc. - and many designs too (flames, dragons etc.). They are available in all weights from 8oz to 16oz and are available only in leather.

I have these gloves in 16 oz weight and use them to spar in. Of all the sparring gloves I've had over the last few years, these rank at the very top - nothing else has even come close. Made by TWINS, they are a little on the pricey side, however, as they say "you get what you pay for". This is certainly true with these gloves.

For a 16oz glove they are very large, but extremely well padded and as such they are well designed for full contact sparring. Going all out in sparring is not a problem and I've never caused any cuts or bruises whilst using these in sparring (I tend to go quite heavy as well). This is, in my opinion, due to the large surface area and copious padding.

The side (knife edge) of the glove has padding too. I like this feature as a lot of other gloves just pad the back of the hand and leave the sides. The thumb is also attatched via a strong, thick piece of leather which is obviously desirable when compared to the shitty, thin piece of fabric on a lot of gloves. As with all gloves, the palm of the hand has the standard ventilation holes.

The wrist part of the glove is made from a quite tough piece of leather which is a bit longer than most and comes a fair way up the forearm in comparison to a lot of the gloves I've tried. The strap is made of a very tough leather and I am not a big fan of this to be honest. It is quite inflexible and doesn't allow for maximum wrist movement. The "TWINS Special" logo is stitched onto the wrist strap so it won't peel off if tape is used for whatever reason. You could also use it as a sweat absorber for your forhead if you're that way inclined.

Here's a summary of my ratings:
Durability - 9
I admit I haven't had these gloves for ages. However, I use them very regularly at least 5 times a week for bagwork. This is heavy bagwork, not tippy tappy crap. I also use them to spar, and so far I haven't had a single problem with scratches, slits, marks or anything like that. I also personally know other people who have used them for a long time and they too report no problems.

Flexibility/Mobility - 7
They aren't the most flexible of gloves due to the hard material used for the wrist and strap. There's virtually no give. They aren't going to be the most mobile of gloves at 16oz either. That said, I've used cheaper gloves which are worse in this regard, AND offer far less protection! For the protection/padding offered by these gloves, you can't really piss and moan about flexibility/mobility issues!

Ease of use - 9
You put them on, you hit things! How hard can it be!

Protection - 10
Ok - I made this category up. However, I give these a 10. I don't see how you could get more protection besids wearing full body armour!

In sumary, these gloves are well worth every penny. I dare say you can find them cheaper than the price I mentioned above, as this was the first site that google gave me which sells these gloves. I bought mine for £40 from the TWINS stand at an exhibition :) I know 3 people who went and bought these gloves after seeing mine, and overall know 6 or 7 people with these gloves. The only 2 downsides I see are their large size (although this could be a plus point depending what you are looking for) and strange wrist support. That said, If my house burned down tonight, these would be the first things I replaced!

**Phrost** · Posted On: 11/13/2007 11:35am

Great review. I went in and added the Protection rating to the system. When you get a chance, go back and add the numerical ratings to the ratings section.

**JabCrossHook** · Posted On: 11/13/2007 4:05pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Great review. I went in and added the Protection rating to the system. When you get a chance, go back and add the numerical ratings to the ratings section.

Thanks for the compliments. I'll be writing a few more soon.

I don't quite get the bit about add the numerical ratings to the ratings section? :/

Finally, I'm trying to work out how the material/production quality has come out at 3.5. I did not put this so I'm not quite sure.

**blisterstarr** · Posted On: 8/15/2008 5:41pm

by the way they are not boxing gloves. they are MT Gloves.

But, Yes they are fucking great. The Twins Specials were the first "good" gloves ive ever worn. I was blown away by these gloves. I no longer hate fingerless gloves.

The elastic band on your fingers holds the gloves in place. No slip and slide bullshit! My 16oz fit me, (who wears XL/XXL MMA gloves) and my friend who wears a Med MMA Glove. Plus you can actually grab in these gloves. Not as well as fingerless, but 70% better than boxing gloves.

:new_gmorn

**JabCrossHook** · Posted On: 9/10/2008 7:45pm

Point taken regarding the (thai)boxing gloves. That said, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference really. Hell, I've seen videos of Pacquiao training in TWINS, so that's good enough for me! :p

Still having no problems with the gloves. They smell pretty bad, but that isn't TWINS' fault!

**retrograde** · Posted On: 12/02/2008 7:26am

(actually, Twins themselves refer to them as 'boxing gloves', but yes, they're definitely MT gloves. Great for grappling)

I have a pair of 12oz that I put through a lot of pads, bags and sparring work, and they're definitely a solid, pro MT glove. Good quality leather, good stitching, and really well padded. As the OP noted, they're fairly rigid at first, although they do loosen up a bit. As a chick, I have little wrists, and until the leather in the wrist straps loosen up, it's hard to get it quite tight enough around my wrist, though this is probably true of any solid leather strap.

The only real issue is the velcro, which tends to lose its stickyness after a bit, and this has been the experience of many people I know. A few people have told me that the general quality of the velcro coming out of Thailand hasn't been that great of late, but I'd say crappy velcro is preferable to the crappy leather or stitching you often get with products from Pakistan and elsewhere.

Price-wise, these gloves retail for about $90-$110 AUD here (about $55-$70 USD under the currently awful exchange rate) -- and a little more for the pretty ones with the designs on them -- which is good for high quality Thai-made gloves, although they're about half the price in Thailand, of course. You'll pay about the same for Windy, Fairtex, MTG or Boon gloves here.

(maybe I'm retarded, but I cannot for the life of me work out how/where to actually do the numerical rating)