Recoil Boxing Mamba Training Boxing Glove Review

Update: Recoil sports have now stopped trading, so these gloves are no longer available to buy, although we’ll leave the reviews up for reference. We’ve been informed that these gloves were manufactured by UMA, so you can likely get a very similar glove made by visiting their website or getting in contact with them.

Recoil Boxing Mamba Fitness Training Boxing Glove (12oz) Review

Don’t miss our unique 10% discount code at the end of this review.

Brand

Recoil Boxing are a premium UK boxing glove brand founded in January 2016, aiming to produce gloves of a luxurious quality at an unbeatable price. On top of this, they also offer a custom boxing glove service allowing you to get a glove designed a bit closer to your own specifications. As a smaller brand, Recoil pride themselves on their ability to provide a much more personal experience which is harder to find when buying from the bigger corporations.

The brand sent us a 12oz pair of Mamba gloves to test out and give our opinion on.

About the gloves

The Mamba boxing gloves are one of two new gloves from Recoil Boxing, alongside the updated Cobra boxing gloves which we’ve also reviewed. The Mamba gloves takes many of the features found on the Cobra gloves, but with a few design changes which allow them to offer these gloves at a much lower price. Obviously these gloves are well suited to boxing, however they also have good hand flexibility and some nice palm/wrist protection, which means they’re just as well suited for Kickboxing or Muay Thai.

Weight and distribution

The gloves come in 12oz, 14oz and 16oz, giving a nice range to choose from. While this should cover most people’s needs, you could also look into their Custom Boxing Glove service and specify your exact requirements if you’re after something a bit more specific, such as an 8oz or even 18oz.

We ended up getting our hands on the 12oz, which we’ve tested out thoroughly through bag and pad work sessions. The padding is formed with IMF (Injection Moulded Foam), which is shaped well to give a large amount of padding on the knuckles and has a nice spring to it, which is great for getting that snappy feedback when your punch makes contact. The rest of the glove is also well padded, with good protection on all areas of the hand.

Aesthetics

The Mamba gloves have been released in 3 colour options; Black with gold graphics, white with black graphics and red with white graphics. Personally the white gloves are my favourite, however the three choices are all different enough that they make a good mix for you to pick from. In terms of design, these aren’t too far off the visuals of the original Cobra gloves, featuring part of the Recoil logo proudly shown on the back of the hand.

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

Materials

In order to achieve a fair price for these gloves, Recoil have opted to use synthetic leather instead of real leather. Often synthetic leather can be a bit hit-and-miss, however these are definitely on the better side of that spectrum. While the texture is clearly not leather, it also doesn’t feel oily or overly stretchy, so is clearly a level above many of the cheaper brands out there. Synthetic leather usually also struggles to get that tight fit with neat folds like you find on leather, however these are still kept fairly neat with no large creases in any unwanted areas.

While the outer material has been kept simple to cut costs, the inner material has just as much luxury as their new Cobra glove, with a smooth satin lining for that truly premium feel. Physical comfort is a huge factor when buying a glove, and these won’t disappoint you. I also noticed that I had almost no problems with the materials getting caught up around the fingers.

The Velcro is also incredibly sturdy, and holds well. I found it a little tough to get a tight fit (which I’ll mention more in a moment), although once in place, the Velcro stays tight.

Craftsmanship

These gloves are carefully stitched up by hand, and overall the build is really well done. There’s a tiny area around the badge on the wrist strap which is very slightly wonky, but otherwise it’s hard to find a single fault with the stitching on these.

The glove is well shaped, partly thanks to the IMF padding, but also because of the padded areas up the inner wrist of the glove as well. I was actually quite impressed at how much this locked your wrists in place and prevents unwanted movement.

My one main issue with the build of the glove is the fact that I found it a little hard to get the glove on tight. I can’t decide whether it’s down to the fact that they’re fairly new, the shape of the materials, the thick padding on the back of the wrist or even a mixture of all three. It’s not impossible to get a tight fit, and it doesn’t make a huge difference because it still sits comfortably anyway, but it is a minor annoyance.

Comfort/use

The Mamba boxing gloves are designed as training gloves. This means they make good multi-purpose gloves and would be a good choice for people who like to use one glove for everything, however I personally feel that hitting pads or mitts is when these gloves perform best. As I mentioned previously, the IMF padding has a nice bounce to it which provides great feedback and helps you focus on getting your punches as sharp as you can, not to mention making a great snapping sound.

The gloves aren’t breathable so you’ll want to make sure you air them out properly after use, however there are plenty of air holes around the palm and fingers which help keep them a little cooler when training.

Despite the grip bar and the moulded IMF padding, there’s still a fair amount of flexibility in these gloves. Not a huge amount, but enough that these could easily be used for clinching and catching kicks if Muay Thai or Kickboxing are your sport.

Cost

Overall these are a great glove which retain the great visuals and comfort we’ve seen before from Recoil Boxing, while still remaining at a price point which is easily accessible for most people. The gloves retail at £49.99, which we think makes for a fair price, although as a thankyou for reading our review we’ve managed to get you an extra 10% off just by entering the code ‘FQ10’ when you go to buy them.

These gloves would make a great all-round glove for somebody looking to retire their existing gloves, or perhaps even a dedicated glove for pad work (or any other type of training).