UFC unveils new lighter glove to reduce eye pokes and hand injuries, will debut soon

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The UFC has made a serious gear change.

At an official presentation Friday in Las Vegas, the promotion unveiled new gloves that its fighters will compete in going ahead. The change was made with the objective of lowering hand accidents and eye pokes, whereas sustaining dexterity and never affecting performances or outcomes.

The gloves are anticipated to be utilized in competitors for the primary time at UFC 302 on June 1 in Newark, N.J.

See photographs of the gold variant beneath, which might be used completely for UFC title fights.

José Youngs, MMA Preventing

The gloves will even are available in gunmetal (normal for non-title bouts), blue (Dana White’s Contender Sequence), and crimson for UFC-adjacent developmental programming (i.e. “Street to UFC”).

Friday’s presentation was comprised of a video narrated by UFC Vice President of Client Merchandise Ember Morr, who introduced that the design of the brand new gloves was dealt with by sports activities gear producer VICIS RDI. The video additionally featured VICIS Vice President of Product Improvement Jason Neubauer, who defined how a few of the new options would profit fighters.

“The present glove that they have been utilizing was principally only a chunk of froth, a strong piece,” Neubauer stated. “It wasn’t actually developed as an impact-mitigation kind of froth, it was simply roughly a sure density that appeared to work nicely for combating. The limitation there’s one, how a lot it absorbs influence, but in addition its rigidity, and that was most likely one of many main components of the glove was that rigidity wouldn’t will let you simply open and shut your hand and due to this fact you could possibly have eye pokes or different issue throughout combating.

“What we developed was a multi-layer slip-plane system that allowed us to proceed to mitigate these influence, however enable these slip layers to slip on one another in use with out ever minimizing the precise offset between your hand and the outer fringe of the glove.”

Modifications have additionally been made to the seams, padding, wristband, and finger holes, all with the intention of lowering harm.

“The ultimate product is one thing that we’re extraordinarily enthusiastic about,” Morr stated. “It’s a glove that’s actually going to revolutionize the MMA struggle glove area. A number of the adjustments you’re going to see on the brand new glove are there are zero seams across the hand, the entire appears are across the inside, so there’s no place for a laceration to happen from a seam. The padding at the back of the hand has been damaged into two and basically the primary pad in that break enable for the hand to have this motion, whereas the brand new layering expertise permits for the fingers to maneuver and be versatile. The layering system apart, the foams are totally different foams, they permit for influence dispersion so that you simply’re not getting as a lot influence in a singular spot within the knuckle, so that you’re seeing extra distribution of the strike throughout the hand.

“There’s pads which might be on the bone, which might be on the surface of both facet of the hand. The brand new wristband is a curved, ergonomic wristband, so it truly cinches all the way down to the wrist. There’s no extra room to place your hand down into the precise glove, after which it’s a cross-function cinch, so it additionally permits for that tight customized match to be precisely how the fighter desires round their wrist and gives assist.

“The finger holes was reduce straight throughout the finger. We’ve now reduce that down at an angle in order that there’s no bulk underneath the finger, which is permitting you to shut your fingers and never struggle in opposition to the leather-based within the hand.”

UFC fighters Vanessa Demopoulos and Julian Erosa have been additionally featured within the video, endorsing a demo model of the glove, which was additionally underwent dwell testing throughout the latest season of the Contender Sequence.

Throughout a Q&A following the presentation, UFC Efficiency Institute Senior Vice President Duncan French stated that the statistics confirmed there was a discount of eye pokes within the Contender Sequence contests, however couldn’t verify whether or not that might be attributed primarily to the up to date glove design.

“We hope that that could be a consequence of a redesign and the character of the glove, however we’re all watching shifting ahead to make sure that that is going to be the case,” French stated.

See info, specs, and extra photographs from the official UFC Glove Launch press launch beneath.

Building Options

• New wristband locking system, higher suits to the wrist, eradicating any area that allows an opponent from grabbing the glove

• Lack of seams reduce abrasions and cuts; all seams at the moment are on the palm facet of the hand just under the fingers

• Revolutionary padding makes it simpler for fighters to maintain their fingers in a pure place and reduce eye pokes

• Elimination of finger binding reduces bulk and minimizes seams that will trigger abrasions and cuts

• Padding added to the edges of the glove on the index and pinky fingers to guard susceptible bone construction

Match and Sizing

• Glove sizing has been rescaled to higher match the athletes’ fingers; slimmer profile removes extra area on the exterior of the hand

• Eradicated male/feminine sizing, streamlining the variety of gloves to 10 unisex sizes, from XXXS – XXXXL, that correctly scale with enhance in hand dimension

Weight

• Minimized weight and weight differential primarily based on sizes

– Glove weighs between 3-4.9 oz (1.9 oz differential)

– Weight decreased 1-1.5 oz from earlier UFC glove

Form

• Ergonomic curved wristband for higher match across the wrist

• Scooped/angled finger holes remove bunching on the within of the fisted hand

Materials Improvement

• Lining, customized printed 2-way stretch, strikes with the hand

• VICIS RFLX stacked foam padding, engineered for optimum flexibility and safety

• Up to date low profile hook and loop, minimizes snagging and reduces weight