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Whether you’re brand new to MMA and Boxing, or you’ve been in the game for years, you need to own a good pair of sparring gloves. However, most people who train don’t.  After making the decision to start boxing, mma or training muay thai, most people head out to the local sporting good store the day before their first class and pick up what’s available. Most Sporting Goods stores, particularly the chain stores, carry a very limited supply of boxing equipment.  Sure they have the bags, stands and hand wraps, but the selection of sparring gloves are typically limited to Everlast and Everlast only.  All in all, Everlast is a good manufacturer of boxing equipment. Everlast has a strong brand recognition and because of this, they are able to provide equipment for professionals as well as the average Joe who plans on hitting the bag in their basement.  In order to cater to the average Joe, who typically thinks their a fighter for a week, Everlast has to sell sparring gloves a price point acceptable for sale at a chain Sporting Good store.  Make sense?  So, you go to the store the night before you plan on taking your first lesson, you have no clue what to buy, you know Everlast is a good name and you assume that the gloves are good for you, right?  No… because now you’re stuck with these gloves for the next 2 years and most likely it’s not what you need.

Instead of going out and making the same mistake that all first timers make, consider some of the factors that become important as you advance your skills.

• The Weight of the Glove.  Boxing and MMA sparring gloves come in a several weights: 8 ounce, 12oz, 14oz, 16oz and 18oz for instance. If you plan on being a head hunter, pissing off your sparring partner and coach, why not go for the 8oz gloves?  You’ll be as fast as Mike Quick Swick with your hands and you’ll find that you’re limiting your progress.  A heavier glove means more work for your shoulders and you want to build those tendons to achieve power and quickness.  If you’re a women, go for the 10 ouncers, they should do you just fine, especially if they’re pink. As a man, 12oz gloves are a good starting point, but try to bump it up a little to a 14oz.

• Padding - If you’re planning on sparring, think about padding.  Most likely it’s going to be hitting someone directly in the face for two to three rounds a session.  Be sure to choose a glove that will give a little on impact.  If the glove looks and feels a little puffy, then it will give a little on impact and create a more pleasant relationship with your sparring buddies.  Not only will your sparring partner appreciate this, but additionally you’re coach’s hands.  After holding the pads for a long training session, the impact on your hands begins to add up.  Picking a well padding glove will give a little relief to your coach.

• The Fit - The most important factor of all is the fit.  You have to make sure that the gloves you select fit you comfortably.  Make sure that all of your digits fit in the glove naturally and nothing feels forced and remember that you’ll be wearing hand wraps to protect your knucks, so be sure to factor that in.  But, with time the gloves will loosen up, so choose a glove that has a snug fit with your wraps on.  Make sure that there’s little pressure on your wrists. If you’re wrists are too constricted when punching, you’ll be sure to jack them up upon impact, so pick a glove that feels comfortable.

So, with all of this in mind, what’s one to buy?  One of my favorite gloves for sparring and padwork are the “Elite Molded Foam” stand up gloves by Throwdown.  The gloves come in sizes 14oz, 16oz and 18oz, are injected with a foam molded core to provide the padding necessary to protect your hands, but with enough cushioning to give your sparring partner a break. The gloves fit snuggly due to this foam core, but break in quickly.  After two long training sessions you’ll begin to fit comfortably in these gloves with your professional length wraps. At a price point of $89.99 from Elite MMA, it’s a price point slightly above the average glove, but with the quality of a professional training glove (and a bad ass logo).

Christmas is right around the corner, and if you’re anything like us, you haven’t bought a gift yet.  Although we can’t give you great gift ideas for everyone in the family, we sure can can help you pick the best gifts for MMA fans.  Here’s our top picks for Christmas 2009, most if which qualify for free shipping.

For both kids and adults, the best MMA gift that you could give is UFC 2009 Undisputed for the Xbox 360 and playstation 3.

UFC 2009 Undisputed - $38.99

Bad Boy Hoodie - Bad Boy backs many great fighters including Shogun, Roger Huerta, Diego Sanchez, Damien Maia and more.  The following hoodie is a big seller and a favorite among all MMA fans.

Bad Boy Walk In Zip Up Hoodie - $54.99

 Kimbo Slice is the talk of the message boards for years now. He started off as an internet sensation, street fighter gone pro. If you don’t know what to buy for a young mma fan, go for the Kimbo shirt, he’ll be sure to love it.

TapouT Kimbo Slice Red Evil -Shirt - $23.99

TapouT Kimbo Slice All Day T-Shirt - $23.99

Everyone loves The Ultimate Fighter TV Show.  Get the latest “The Ultimate Fighter” t-shirt in yellow or white.

TapouT Ultimate Fighter Official Team Rashad T-Shirt - $23.99

TapouT Ultimate Fighter Official Team Rampage T-Shirt - $23.99

For the Ladies: The Prowl Fight shorts are great for working out or hanging around the house.  The colors are outstanding and this is a top seller among the ladies.

Fightergirls Leopard On The Prowl Fight Shorts - $53.99

Cute TapOut top for the ladies.  Form fitting and a great design.

TapouT Bombshell Tee - $23.99

Sexy and Cute Fight Chix gear.  Looks good on all the ladies.

Fight Chix Sunburst Tee - $19.99

Fight Chix Fitted Rocker Hat - $29.99

If you spar often, then most likely you’ve learned over the years the value of having good headgear.  There are a number of things that can go wrong when buying headgear.  The first and most common, is purchasing headgear that is not designed to fit your head comfortably.  Due to discomfort, you probably bought something a little bigger than what actually fits you and as a result, when you start sweating, you find out that you’re catching more shots to the head because the darn headgear shifted and you can’t see a thing.  Trust me, I’ve been there before.  After realizing this inherit problem with average headgear, you try to work around it by buying a nice cushioning piece, you know, the ones with the chinstrap with notches.  The headgear sits nicely on your head, doesn’t move much and is a good fit. The sparring sessions go well, until one day you catch a serious shot, your head’s spinning and the only thing you want to do is get that headgear off fast to get some air.  The problem is, you can’t get the damn chin strap off fast enough with sparring gloves.  Your coach runs over, he starts fidgeting with the strap and five minutes later you’re finally find some comfort.  Not fun, right?

So, what’s one to do?  Good mma headgear is not easy to come by.  First and foremost, you have to think practically about what you buy.  Going to Modells and buying the $35 Everlast headgear isn’t going to cut it.  Trust me, I’ve made that mistake before.  If you plan on sparring regularly, you’ve got to step it up, find something that is comfortable, has thick foam padding and covers all of the vital regions of the head with quality protection.  This not only includes the typical helmet shape regions of the head, but additionally the cheek bones and chin.  Covering the cheek bones will not only protect you from blacken your eye, but it will additionally minimize any impact to your nose. Finally, make sure to get headgear with Velcro, this will allow you to take it off quickly when in need.

So, now that you know what you need to buy, where do you buy it?  There’s not a lot of sites that offer a good selection of headgear that meet this criteria.  The best site by far is Elite MMA, which features 25 different types of headgear, compared with the average mma gear company that offers 5.  My favorite headgear that they offer, at an amazing value is the Face/Chin Combo Headgear.  It has sound protection at an awesome price of just $79.99.  Equally as nice is the Fighting Pro Headgear at the same price point, $79.99.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

Okay, so the UFC has blown up MMA’s spot in the past few years. Your twelve year old nephew rocks a TapOut tee and thinks he’s a total badass. You don’t fit that classification. You’re a low key kinda guy, who loves to train and watch MMA. You appreciate good clothing designs and you would much rather spend your dough on some clothing that’s MMA related than the typical designer Blac Label or Christian Audigier t-shirt that 20 other guys are wearing at the club. But how do you pull it off without getting the typical stupid “Are you an Ultimate Fighter?” question. Perhaps you should check out 8th Degree Black.

8th Degree Black is an MMA Clothing brand that’s inspired by Greek Pankration, Brazilian Vale Tudo and Japanese Shooto. 8th Degree Black has unique clothing designs for both men and women alike, and they honor the history of MMA like no other. Take for instance “Combat Legacy”, a men’s crew t-shirt which is inspired by Greek mythology heroes Herakles and Theseus, who invented the first all-encompassing fighting system in history; Pankration. Or “Mata Leao”, an awesome t-shirt design inspired by the Brazilian term for rear naked choke. In Brazil, the rear naked choke is referred to as Mata Leao, which translated into Lion Killer. Who wouldn’t want to rock a Lion Killer tee?

In addition to being a low key MMA clothing with some amazing designs, 8th Degree Black also focuses on fine quality, and that I can say from experience. The tee’s that I’ve been fortunate enough to receive from my boy Tim at 8th Degree, are made from 100% combed cotton. All of the t-shirts have a nice ink watermark that fully utilize the canvas of the t-shirt for a unique look front and back. The ink used is a softhand and waterbase ink that is durable for washing. The shirt are extremely comfortable, soft and fit snuggly so you can show off your guns, or cannons for the ladies. And best of all, the shirts have bad ass designs that no one around has seen before. In my opinion, be the first in town to rock 8th Degree Black before they blow up in the next year, you can purchase some tee’s online at their website 8th Degree Black.

As a grappler you’re exposed to all sorts of nasty bacteria and germs harbored by people as well as the mats. You can be exposed to something as simple as the common cold to something as dangerous and deadly as staph infections. So what’s a grappler to do? My routine is to use antibacterial hand wipes around rolling to clean all cuts. After getting home, I shower off using an antibacterial soap and then use a regular moisturizing soap. The reason I use the moisturizing soap is for the simple fact that the antibacterial soap is tough on my skin. It dries me out badly, to the point that I wake up in the middle of the night scratching like a hyena with flees. The process totally sucks, and I know that the antibacterial soap isn’t great for me, so I’ve been thinking, but not acting, on a solution for some time now. Thankfully it came knocking on my door. My friend Bon over at fight soap, who is some kind of chemist genius or something (Bon, are you the chemist behind this buddy?), sent me a sample of fight soap. Fight soap is a soap designed for MMA fighters that is made with strong antibacterial oils (note statement not evaluated by FDA) to fight off threats such as MRSA, Staph, Ringworm, Impetigo, and Herpes. Unlike the crappy soap I use, fight soap is primarily made from organic ingredients that have vegetable origins. The other ingredients used are all FDA approved. Here is a list of some of the common ingredients, and how they have been derived, in plain English:

• Sorbitol - a form of naturally occurring form of sugar alcohol produced from glucose
• Propylene Glycol - an organic compound that is a derivative of natural gas
• Sodium Stearate - Fatty acid extracted from stearic acid, which is derived from either vegetable or animal oils (ours is derived from veggie oil)
• Glycerin - a byproduct of mixing vegetable fat and lye
• Sodium Myristate - a salt from the fatty acid myristic acid
• Sodium Laureth Sulfate / Sodium Laurate - a ethoxylated detergent derived from coconut oil
• Triethanolamine - An organic chemical compound used as a PH balancer

So back to me experience… Bon sent me over a sample of Mat Mojito. There’s also several other blends including Dirty Jersey soap, I think Bon avoided sending this not to insult a Jersey guy. Mat Mojito is an awesome smelling bar of peppermint and eucalyptus oil soap. The oils are known to have antibacterial, antiseptic, and antifungal properties, to give you a nice scrub after a workout. After grappling today I grabbed my bar of fight soap, wet down, scrubbed up with the smooth side and felt some typical tingling from the exposure of my cuts to the water and antibacterial soap. Overall the experience was good, I don’t feel dried out and I smell damn good. I don’t think I’ll be scratching tonight and the lady is sure to love the smell. Check out the product yourself, over at fight soap.

Don’t hate because we’ve got the coolest Muay Thai graphic designs on our chest!

For our 1st weekly (hopefully weekly) MMA Fight Girls “MMA Gear Friday”, TUFF Boxing / Muay Thai Stuff was awesome enough to send us a Muay Thai T-Shirt and Tank Top all the way from Bangkok Thailand! I want to give a big thanks to TUFF and Muay Thai Stuff for their love and support. On to my story…

Excited as all hell I picked up the TUFF package the other day at the post office. Upon opening the package, my first thought was… “top notch”. TUFF packages each of their T-shirts in a unique black and clear muay thai illustration package (pictured below, but the picture doesn’t do it any justice), along with a TUFF Boxing catalog.

The packages each have their own unique illustration printed on them and are quite classy. In addition to the packages, the shipment came with a TUFF Boxing catalog that only made me drool over all of the additionally awesome designs TUFF has. Like the packaging, the catalog is of high quality - good print / stock. Not that the quality of the package or catalog matters much to most people, but it does say a lot about the quality and attention to detail that a company gives… which could only reflect on the quality of product, right? For sure. If you’re putting that much time and quality into a package, you must have one get quality product… which is true about the T-Shirts.

Upon pulling the T-Shirt and Tank Top out of their packages, I was very happy with the quality of the shirts - the shirts are well made and soft - but not thin. The prints are vivid and tough - meaning that it should last a ton of machine washes, and the designs… what else can I say… the designs don’t get any better. I love all of the TUFF Boxing illustrations, don’t you?

Check out the pictures of the awesome swag that TUFF Boxing sent to us and be sure to check out TUFF Boxing’s website to see all of their great designs and to buy some fairly priced muay thai clothing.

Additionally check out Muay Thai Stuff’s website for the latest muay thai clothing designs and fighting gear. Thanks for your support - and making my day this week.