Ahead of his return at UFC 302, Randy Brown has given his honest review of the new UFC fighting gloves that are set to be introduced at the next PPV.
When the UFC returns to New Jersey on June 1 for Islam Makhachev vs Dustin Poirier, the world MMA leader will do so with some new equipment in the locker room; new gloves, designed to reduce eye pokes and the risk of injuries – yet if Brown is to be believed, they’ll also result in more knockouts too.
Randy Brown shares honest first review of the new UFC gloves
Fan favorite UFC welterweight Randy ‘Rudeboy’ Brown will be one of the first fighters to wear the new gloves in a fight when he steps into the octagon on June 1 to face Elizeu Zaleski at UFC 302.
Brown recently shared his honest initial review of the gloves to his official YouTube channel, in which he pointed to the wrist as one of the key differences from the old gloves:
“First thing that I noticed was that there’s padding here, [whereas] on the old glove this is just straight up leather so if you do block a kick or get hit here it can cut through, but what they’ve done is add more padding and protection [to the wrist] which I do like.”
‘Rudeboy’ explained how when you first put your hand inside a new set of gloves, the padding is often stiff due to the leather materials; but these new gloves could see more knockouts happening in the octagon:
“I noticed that the padding is a lot softer [on the new gloves] than the padding on that [old] one, so I think maybe we will see more knockouts – I’m not mad at them, I like them, but the leather is pretty soft.”
“My favorite part about it though is the way that the strap around the wrist goes, it’s nice and snug; I really like that… I feel like the padding on the top of the fingers is really good [too], they’re a little thicker where the knuckle area is a little thinner; feels like there’s a different type of padding in there.”
That being said, Brown also noted that the new UFC gloves certainly weren’t perfect and actually, he’s already spotted one key flaw that could result in more cuts and abrasions to the head and eyes of fighters.
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“Another thing that I did notice, check out how much that [leather] comes off from my fingers, these come off really far [away] from my outer knuckles so I do think that can cause a little bit more cuts for grazing shots [and] scrape you.”
“I’m thinking about that and I’m keeping an eye on that, but that was one of the first things I noticed as a con,” said the 18-5 prospect.
Brown isn’t alone in thinking the new gloves won’t reduce eye pokes
One of the key consequences that these new gloves were meant to address was the prevalence of eye pokes and unfortunately, Brown doesn’t see those types of fouls going away anytime soon, despite the new equipment.
“The thing about gloves that everyone wants to talk about is how does this help us prevent fighters from being poked in the eye – listen, that ain’t never going to change, this is MMA and it’s a part of the game.”
This was an opinion echoed by Justin Gaethje, who told MMAKnockout’s Mat Riddle back in April how “There’s never gonna be a glove that gets rid of eye pokes.”
“Especially with the open-finger gloves because it’s just part of what we do, and the natural human reaction if you ever get frightened or caught off guard.”
“The gloves were putting you in those positions more [with outstretched fingers], even when you didn’t want to do that even when you were trying to make a fist it would still promote this position [outstretched fingers].”
The new gloves will make their official UFC debut at the PPV on June 1, headlined by Islam Makhachev and Dustin Poirier.