FightKru PURIST Protrainer Boxing Gloves Review

FightKru PURIST Protrainer Boxing Gloves (14oz) Review

Brand

FightKru International are a Singapore based boxing equipment and apparel brand aiming to promote a lifestyle centred around martial arts. We’re told the brand started after a frustration of seeing the people of Singapore often using gloves that either weren’t constructed for boxing or were of low quality, so instead decided to design their own gloves in order to achieve the quality, protection and fit they were looking for. The brand’s philosophy relies heavily on a martial arts mindset, hoping to take consistent steps towards perfection, while letting the quality of their work reflect the effort they’ve put into it.

About the gloves

The PURIST Protrainer Boxing Gloves are FightKru’s take on a training glove, intended mainly for pad work and bag work. While a 14oz pair of the PURIST Protrainer gloves could easily be used for sparring, FightKru also have a dedicated sparring glove, the PURIST Supaspar.

The PURIST Protrainer comes in a choice of 12oz or 14oz, which gives you a little bit of choice. We’d personally suggest 12oz if you’re planning on using them for purely bag or pad work, or the 14oz if you want some more rounded training with some light sparring.

The design of these gloves is intentionally on the slimmer side, fitting the wrist well and providing the majority of the padding around the knuckles, perfect for boxing.

FightKru sent us a 14oz pair of these gloves to test out and give our opinion on.

Visuals

The gloves currently only come in one colour choice; black with a red palm, thumb and trim. While it’s a shame to only see one colour option, it’s still a good combination, and would match well with most other equipment. Overall the look of the gloves feels very minimal, drawing attention to the golden FightKru logo printed in gold on the back of the hand. By moving their wrist patch to the inside rather than outside, it almost feels like you see more of the actual glove rather than just branding all over. The only other details are the weight of the glove on the strap and ‘PURIST PROTRAINER’ on the thumb, however both of these blend in with the red and black colour scheme and don’t attract too much attention.

While the gloves look great, I can’t help but feel the design would work equally well if the gloves were available with blue, white, or other colour options as well.

Below you can find our Fight Gear Focus video giving you a close-up, visual look at these Gloves. Make sure you check out the rest of the video series and Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of our future videos.

Materials

These gloves are made with genuine leather which feels noticeably strong but with a smoothness to it. Out of all of the gloves I’ve personally reviewed I’d say it probably say the leather feels closest to the leather used for Fairtex gloves, which are known for their durability. Hopefully that’s a good sign that the FightKru gloves will hold up well long-term. There’s a slight leathery smell when new which I haven’t particularly noticed when using other brands of glove, but it’s started to fade with use anyway.

The padding uses a 3 layer latex foam which feels compact yet comfortable. I find when punching a heavy bag or pads the knuckles sink in to the padding a satisfying amount, without being too hard or soft. On the inside of the gloves, they’ve used a smooth inner lining which sits comfortably on the hands.

Craftsmanship

Other than a tiny bit of fraying on the logo patch on the inside of the wrist, I’m finding it hard to fault the construction of these gloves. The stitching is neat across the gloves, with the weakest areas double-stitched. The finger compartment is comfortable, with no fabric bunching up, and the shape of the gloves is overall rather solid.

The velcro on these seems to hold pretty well, and the strap is the perfect length so there’s no awkward overhang or exposed velcro to worry about. The glove has a few holes for breathability around the grip bar and on the inner thumb. There aren’t many holes, but they seem to do the job well and I can’t say I’ve noticed any significant sweat build up compared to other brands.

While the design of these fits well overall, I feel like the thumb compartment is possibly a little tight and can get a little irritating after a long session. The thumb itself feels in a good natural position, so it doesn’t feel awkward when striking at all, simply a little slimmer than other gloves.

Comfort/use

When first putting these gloves on I found they had a nice close fit, without feeling too roomy, but also without feeling excessively tight. They feel quite comfortable to use from the first time and didn’t feel like they really needed breaking in at all. When punching, the gloves have a good amount of support, with soft padding surrounding the wrists and a fair amount of stability added by the strap.

In my opinion the density of the padding on the gloves is ideal for bag work, letting you put in some power without any discomfort. That said the gloves are good for pad work as well, and the lighter 12oz version will likely be a little better balanced for some good speed work. I’ve personally been testing these gloves out for sparring as well and found the gloves do reasonably well. Although these gloves are designed for boxing I’ve also been using them for Muay Thai, and they work just as well. The wrist support isn’t great when blocking kicks (although it isn’t designed to be), but there’s a fair amount of flexibility in the hand for clinching, catching kicks and parrying.

These gloves seem to work well in a number of areas, and they definitely feel like a good all-round glove for whatever sort of training you’re doing. Perhaps a good choice if you’re only looking for one pair of gloves.

Cost

Depending on whether you’re buying the 12oz or 14oz versions the price will come to either 125 or 135 Singapore Dollars, which at the time of writing this review is roughly around £70. These aren’t cheap gloves by any means, however the quality and durability is certainly what we’d expect for the price range. If you’re looking for a pair of gloves mainly for bag or pad work then these would be a solid choice.