RDX C4 Professional Boxing Gloves Review

Brand

RDX is one of the UK’s most widely known fight brands. They have a reputation for producing with reasonable price tags for beginner and intermediate level fighters. Because of this, RDX are a popular choice for people’s first equipment when they’re starting out in martial arts. RDX have now expanded to the US and their gear is available in a number of countries worldwide.

About the gloves

We’ve been a little excited to get our hands on the new RDX Pro range since it was announced. A lot of people talk poorly about RDX because previously most of their gear has been aimed at a lower budget, however the new Pro range comes in at a far higher price point than their previous ranges, which brings with it a much higher expectation of the quality and materials of the equipment. With several gloves in RDX’s new range approved for competitive use under the BBBoC. We were pretty interested to see whether this new high-end tier in RDX’s offering matched up with other higher end brands.

The RDX C4 Professional Boxing Glove is designed as a professional level velcro training glove, alongside it’s lace-up alternative, the A4 Professional Boxing Glove.

RDX helped out by sending us a pair of these gloves in 16oz to test out and give our honest opinion on.

Visuals

So currently these are only available in one colour option, but it’s a combination we haven’t seen to often, with a dark navy blue shade on the back of hand and a lighter grey shade covering other areas such as the wrist and palm.

The back of the hand shows off the latest version of the RDX logo, with the text ‘CORTEX-T SERIES’ underneath (which is what the ‘C’ in the glove’s name stands for). Compared to most of RDX’s equipment, this is pretty stripped back and a little more minimal – perhaps an indicator that they’re aiming at a slightly different audience who aren’t so worried about the flashier designs.

There are a few other designs, but nothing too obvious. The word RDX sits on the thumb, while on the inside of the palm there are a few graphics – Text reading ‘C-4 Training’, ‘Pro Training Authentic’ and a genuine leather guarantee – but even these are partially covered by the wrist strap. It’s clear that these gloves aim to let the colours and logo speak for themselves.

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/Craftsmanship

This is an area which I’ve been paying particular attention to with these gloves. At such a high price point we have a far higher expectation of the quality that comes with it. As soon as we felt these it was clear these are a step up from the other RDX gloves we’ve reviewed.

The gloves have a nice fit, with the glove shaped closely around the fingers, and the thumb tucked in nicely in a pretty comfortable position. The wrist is a little wider, but the thin padding on the inside of the wrist makes it comfortable to do the strap up fairly tight and get a nice secure fit.

Inside the gloves the lining feels thin, but smooth on the hand, with almost a satin-like feel, which shouldn’t irritate at all. Considering the limited ventilation on these gloves, they haven’t ever felt too sweaty on the hand, so clearly this lining isn’t soaking up sweat and is instead helping keep it away from the skin.

We were pretty impressed with the authentic full-grain cowhide leather. It definitely feels high quality, feeling sturdy but with a certain smoothness to it. The leather is also folded around the sides of the glove’s padding really neatly, which goes to show they haven’t just been hastily put together. I did come across a rather big issue with the materials though – in particular the navy blue leather. After just one or two sessions I noticed there were some pretty big marks on around the fingers and piping/trim around the palms. It doesn’t seem like it’s an issue with the leather itself, but more with the colouring, where the dark blue has rubbed off and now appear a bright light blue. Thankfully this means it shouldn’t have any effect on durability. This is the sort of wear-and-tear you’ll tend to see on gloves over time anyway, but to see it almost immediately is a little disappointing. Personally it’s something I can look past – it just makes the gloves look well worn – but I can easily see this putting off anyone who prefers their gloves to look fresh and pristine.

Update: Despite being made with the same materials, we’ve found the RDX A4 Boxing Gloves we’ve also tested didn’t suffer from the same issue, so it’s possible that this was a one-off issue with the materials.

Comfort/use

The overall fit of these gloves is fairly impressive, however when first using the gloves I noticed they definitely need breaking in. At first the padding didn’t feel like it was sitting against the knuckles properly, and after having a quick initial test without hand wraps on I noticed it was actually hurting the knuckles on my left hand a little. Obviously this isn’t ideal with any glove, and the worry started to set in a little. After helping these gloves to break in a little (we’ve written a great guide on the best ways if you need some tips), and after a couple of sessions with both hands properly wrapped, these are now not causing me any problems and are pretty comfortable to use.

The padding itself is a little on the firmer side, which I personally tend to prefer for bad/pad work, but I’ve found these gloves work just as well for sparring. The gloves have pretty good wrist support when the strap is tight, so there shouldn’t be any accidental bending of the wrist. The thumb is also nicely tucked behind the main padding, and I haven’t found any issues with catching the thumb at all.

Cost

So these gloves retail at £119.99, which as we’ve already mentioned puts these at a fairly high price point. If you can look past the colour of the leather rubbing, these gloves definitely have the level of quality and craftsmanship which we would expect from this price range, and the fit and shape of these gloves are great too, so the gloves do a lot to justify the price.