Canadian-American brand Rival is well known for producing professional competition gloves and as well as special training equipment for sparring and heavybag workouts. Apart from their traditional leather line Rival is putting more and more focus on microfibres and other artificial alternatives to replac the use of animal products. Many of the Rival gloves are produced in China.

Images below: Locking the wrist with an angled double strap is working well. It supports the hand joint and provides a firm and secure feeling for long lasting workouts.

The craftmanship of this model is excellent. Any normal user would mistake the artificial surface material for leather. It prooves once again that today’s synthetic surfaces are not inferiour anymore. The RS11V has a rather bulky shape, not just because of it’s weight, but because of it being a sparring glove for pros. A bulkier glove will lessen the impact and require more skill to hit an opponent. It’s not possible to push a small glove thru the defense and willingly hurt an opponent. Sparring partners need to position themselves for the best setup rather than achieving success with brute force. Rival calls this model an Evolution Sparring glove.

Rival Boxing Glove Review

The item comes in five different colour with 14 oz, 16 oz and 18 oz versions available. While it is advertised as a sparring glove it can also be used very well for heavy bag workouts. The manufacturere does recommend breaking the glove in by punching approximately 20 rounds on a bag. This will smoothen the different layers of tfoam the padding is made from. Rival cuts different layers of polyurethan and melts them together. This causes the padding to be overly rigid when new. The materials used inside the clenched fists also appear to be a slightly bulky at first making clenching a bit difficult. However, this feeling will improve once the glove has been used for 3 or 4 sessions.

While being one of the more expensive training gloves on the market the Rival RS11V Sparring Evolution model makes up for it with performance and durability. It is probably one of the best non-leather boxing gloves on the market, today. It is safe, very innovative and gets built without the use of any animal products. A truely vegan glove.