Everlast Evercool Headgear Review

Everlast Evercool Headgear Review

Brand

Originally founded in 1910, Everlast have been a big name in the boxing world for many years. They’re now one of the most widely known USA boxing brands, with gear lines for boxing, mixed martial arts, and fitness related sporting goods.

About the headgear

The Everlast Evercool headgear comes in a single size option, securing with a three strap velcro section on the back of the head, and an adjustable chin strap. It offers cheek protection but no face bar. The adjustable chin straps means that it sacrifices some protection from uppercuts, but allows for thicker padding on the adjustable section on the back of the head.

Visuals

As part of the Everlast Evercool range this headgear is black, grey and bright yellow. The forehead, top strapping, chin strap and back of the head are all black, along with two stylised lines making ‘spikes’ on the side of the face. The sides of the head are all made of grey mesh, and the inside is completely lined with the yellow Everdri lining. Everlast have finished off the design with their ‘Everlast’ logo with its yellow tick printed on the forehead, and ‘Evercool’ printed next to the left ear.

Whilst the limit of one colour option is a bit of a let down, I do think the headgear has a sleek look that bridges the gap between flashy and understated quite well.

Below you can find our Fight Gear Focus video giving you a close-up, visual look at this headgear. 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

Everlast have used a synthetic leather to make the majority of this headguard, everything the forehead, top strapping, chin strap and back of the head are all synthetic, along with the spikes on the cheeks. The rest of the head guard, round the sides of the head and across the cheeks, are made of the Evercool mesh featured in a number of Everlast products and help keep you from overheating whilst wearing the headgear for extended periods of time in training. The inside, as i’ve already mentioned, is covered with the yellow Everdri lining, which is antibacterial and anti-moisture, so should help keep the headgear smelling fresh.

Craftsmanship

The craftsmanship on this headgear is surprisingly well done – it’s been my experience that Everlast favour cheaper, mass production rather than quality craftsmanship – but even if these have been made it the same way they’ve done a good job on them. The stitching is well done, the padding and outer materials are all evenly spread out and I’ve been testing them for a while and the stitching is all holding together well. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the craftsmanship.

Comfort/use

Everlast don’t offer size options with this headgear, you have to rely on the adjustable back section, which is going to be find for most people as there’s quite a bit of wiggle room available, however I imagine smaller fighters might have a hard time getting a tight enough fit.

The main issue with headgear is the compromise between protection and restriction of your field of vision, and I feel that Everlast have veered towards maximising vision. I know headgear isn’t there to replace your guard, but provide protection against the punches that get through your guard. That being said the padding comes across the cheeks just below the cheek bones, and the top padding comes down to the eyebrows, but that’s about it for facial protection, your chins is left exposed. The majority of the padding is round the sides of the head and across the back, all of which are covered in rough two centimetres of padding. This is great protection from hooks, but leaves you more vulnerable to jabs and crosses, as well as uppercuts, however it gives you a good field of vision and allows you to see not only punches coming but also kicks if you’re doing MMA or Muay Thai.

The fit of the headgear is tricky, it fits very well, and once you adjust it correctly it stays in place and takes quite a powerful blow to knock it out of position. But I did find that in order to get it tight enough to get the good fit it the chin strap ended up digging in. Once you’ve worn it for a while you do get used to it, but initially it can be quite uncomfortable.

Cost

Available on the Everlast website for £38 I’d struggle to say they were value for money – quality wise they’re probably more suitable for beginners, but the price would probably put most people off. That being said that you can find them other places online for much more reasonable prices, and if you can find them for a cheaper price they’d be much better value.