As I tend to do any thing I know I have a little extra time I start checking these forums for stuff I have to have. I noticed that SSF was bringing out a new design of MMA gloves. A clone of the famous Gameness Primetime training glove. I have the SSF Shooto style of glove and have been using them for quite some time. But I thought that a more compact glove for the gym wouldn’t hurt anything so I voted I had to have a set. Well since I knew I was broke right before Christmas my only hope was Santa. Well Christmas came and went and to be quite honest Santa screwed me over, I did everything right, I made a list with not only the items I wanted, but the size, color, and even in most cases the website address to take the potential purchaser right to my stuff. (I say my stuff because I know I deserve it) This list had items from Sprawl, Ringside, RDFC.tv, and most important for this topic
www.ssfgear.com.
That part of the list looked something like this,
SSF Primetime Style MMA Gloves
http://ssfgear.com/shopsite_sc/product79.html size XL
Pretty clear I thought and I won’t go through this much trouble if I didn’t want it so someone should buy it for me right?
I even had dropped an email to Ron to make sure of the size I needed compared to my Shoots. As you can see I made it very simple for someone to get me what I wanted however no one did. So Christmas comes and goes and I still have no new MMA Gloves. Well I really got no fight gear related gifts this year so Christmas pretty well sucked.
But anyway come the end of January and I find a little extra cash in my pocket and decide now is my chance to pick up a new pair of these gloves. I email Ron again since I had lost my list and couldn’t remember my size. The next day a Friday I was informed I needed XL, which is also, my waist size I should have been able to remember that you would think. So by Sunday night I had placed my order. Monday afternoon I get confirmation from the almost always-reliable United States Postal Service that something was on its way from Clarksville. By Weds I knew the package was in Columbia Missouri, which pretty much guarantees delivery the following day. And in my mailbox on Thursday was a nice white package that contained my gloves.
A quick snip with a pair of scissors and they were in my hands. There is nothing like the feel of a brand new set of gloves and these didn’t disappoint. The leather was thick and rich the now almost trademark able SSF Red and Black color scheme bright and deep.
I tried to slip them on and noticed they were actually pretty tight around the base of my fingers.
The quality of workmanship was obvious though. Every exposed surface was folded back and piped so not a rough edge could be found to scratch or cut. The Velcro was typical SSF, designed to hold things to the outside of the space shuttle during reentry. A satisfying ripping sound came as I opened the cuff. The wrist wrap was long enough to properly support the wrist and was securely held by the NASA engineered Velcro.
So as I will guess most of you do with new gloves, I wore them around the house for the next several days. (ok maybe not days) but enough time to properly hit various objects and pose in the mirror with them on) I had class that night so I took the opportunity to show them off a little there too. General opinion was they were super nice. Since Thursdays are generally a sort of off night at class with little striking I threw them on just to get a feel for them as I grappled. Now I have said many times that my grappling skills are without compare. However I was never meant to be anything other than a nice guy and I tend to let people abuse me in all sort of submissions and strikes because it makes them feel good not because I suck like you might assume by watching me. Well there are a couple guys fighting in about 3 weeks so we ended up doing worse case scenario drills all night. I was choked, strangled, mounted, arm barred, kimura'ed and pounded on and these gloves did not fail.
The first thing I noticed was that they felt tight around the fingers at first still. They also limited the movement of my wrist some due to the gracious wrist support. I didn’t do a whole lot of striking with them but what I did was pain free and without injury to myself or my training partner. They were a lot easier to grapple in than my shootos.
Shown side by side with SSF’s Shooto style glove
I slipped on a pair of CSI amateur Comp gloves about half way through, since these are the standard fight glove at the local promotion (
www.mid-mo-mma.com). I felt the CSI didn’t do as good a job with wrist support and didn’t feel as solid as the SSF. Sinking submissions was about the same for both not as easy as no gloves but not a great hassle either. The glove by now had loosened up round the fingers and didn’t feel tight anymore. Of course they were also soaked which I’m sure didn’t hurt with the stretching process.
I didn’t throw any thing near a full shot with these on this night but what power I was able to manage to get behind them felt solid. They didn’t give like a glove that was too soft, but were easy on my partner from what he said as well. I think these gloves have found a home n my gear bag as my go to glove for grappling with strikes practice. I don’t think they will replace my shootos for primarily take down and strike practice but they will definitely get used. And, I won’t worry about wearing them out, as they seem to be standard SSF quality
I will update this thread as I use these gloves
