Fairtex BGL3 Pro Lace-up Sparring Gloves Review

Fairtex BGL3 Pro Lace-up Sparring Gloves Review

Brand

Fairtex are a popular manufacturer of fight equipment, dominantly focused on Muay Thai. The company is based in Thailand and is widely popular, both there and internationally. Originally founded in the 1970s, Fairtex have a long history of producing top quality, handmade equipment, endorsed by many gyms across the world.

About the gloves

The Fairtex BGL3 gloves are Fairtex’s Lace up boxing gloves, aimed at sparring and training. Unlike the Fairtex BGV1 Boxing Gloves we reviewed previously, the BGL3’s are slightly more aimed at boxing rather than Muay Thai, which you can see by looking at the design of the gloves. The gloves are marketed towards professionals, which isn’t surprising considering they’re lace-up gloves.

Weight and distribution

As mentioned previously, these gloves are designed specifically with sparring in mind, and as such are available in 14oz, 16oz and 18oz weights. Because these are found in 18oz, these would be great for anybody looking for a heavier, thicker padded glove. As I’m a lighter guy I went for the 14oz versions of these gloves, so some of the sizing details mentioned here may be slightly different for other weights. Most of the weight of these gloves seems to be covering the fingers and knuckles, with some decent padding on the back of the hand, and the wrist of the gloves feeling really light in comparison.

Aesthetics

These gloves appear to be available in two colour options; black with a white palm, or white with a black palm. We chose to go for the black gloves out of preference, but both options look really good. Both versions have the same iconic Fairtex logo written across the back of the hand with a small circular ‘hand made in Thailand’ stamp below, as well as the stitched logo on the Velcro cuff. These are almost staples of the Fairtex brand and are found on the majority of their gloves. For anyone who is highly motivated by style, these gloves look great, while still remaining understated. Some gloves just look a bit plain, but these look more deliberately minimal, utilising colour and the brand logo to stand out.

Below you can find our Fight Gear Focus video giving you a close-up, visual look at the Fairtex BGL3 Pro Lace-up Sparring Gloves. Make sure to Subscribe so you don’t miss any of our future videos.

Materials

Fairtex always seem to use high quality materials on their gloves, and the BGL3’s are no exception. The exterior of the glove is high quality leather, which really does feel nice to the touch, as I’m sure many who have used the gloves will agree. The interior is good too, with the lining being smooth and generally comfortable on the skin. The leather on the palm is a much softer leather and has creased slightly from use, but it’s clear to touch how good the material is.

There are absolutely no tags on the inside of the gloves, so no accidental scratching to worry about. The weight is listed on a small tab next to the Fairtex patch on the cuff, but that’s all there really is.

Craftsmanship

While sharing a lot of the same visuals as the highly popular Fairtex BGV1, these gloves are actually built completely differently. This is likely because these gloves are designed for boxing rather than Muay Thai.

The wrist of these gloves is fairly long, which is partly because these gloves are lace-ups. There’s soft padding which goes all the way down the inside of the wrist, and the outside of the wrist is covered by two separate, firmer padded sections. These sections are placed to allow a bit of flexibility in the wrist, but stop you bending the wrist too much. The laces help get a nice, tight fit around the hand, however I personally find that the wrist doesn’t fit quite as tightly as I would like.

The gloves also have an attached thumb, but unlike most gloves which are attached with a small connector, these are fully attached, almost like webbing, which means they hold in place, tucked away incredibly well.

Comfort/use

The BGL3’s have a tight fit around the hand, but a slightly looser fit around the wrist. I found the thumb and finger holes to be a little bit confining. My hand fitted in fine, but had almost no room for movement. For anybody with larger hands or longer fingers, this might be a bit of a problem. Unfortunately as these gloves are lace-ups, they can’t be taken off and put on again between rounds, so I personally found that these are great to wear for shorter periods of time but start to get a little uncomfortable during longer sessions. This is probably one of my biggest issues with these gloves.

As with other Fairtex gloves, the padding on these is pretty firm and compact. It’s not really firm enough to make a huge impact in sparring, but these are far from pillow gloves. When using these gloves on pads or a bag, this density provides brilliant feedback, and you can get a really satisfying ‘snap’ when hitting boxing mitts.

Overall these gloves are really good, especially for boxing. That being said, there’s actually a lot of flexibility in the fingers which means they can still be used for kickboxing or Muay Thai and would work well for clinching.

Cost

These gloves retail for around £80, which is fairly standard for Fairtex Gloves. These gloves are well priced considering the quality, and are definitely worth it if you know the brand and are looking for some lace-up gloves, however there are definitely better fitting Velcro gloves available for people who aren’t so bothered by the quality.

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