Thumbs up (if you can get them up)?
Nothing too special in my opinion. Leone is pretty much all branding, and they just sell the typical generic knockoff gloves at inflated prices…
The Contest glove (Bellator) is the only interesting product in the line, as it mixes the curved pad of Fairtex with a unified body with a thumb hole, helps keep the thing curved/ more closed than open. I know I’ve seen the design before I cant remember where.
The rest of the entire Leone MMA glove line is comprised of a full slate of the various stock designs offered by the major Pakistan gear suppliers. Designs that have been around for a decade, and around about 18+ years in the case of the Ouano knockoffs…
-Original Ouano design (aka the UFC design) knockoffs
-the “Fairtex” design knockoffs.
-A few of the mix and match thumb/pad variations of the Ouano design (and even extended fingers a’la Harbinger for those old schoolers that remember those), such as you saw from Combat Sports Intl years back as “training” and “sparring” and “competition” etc etc. variants. You guys may recognize these designs if you look close at the Leone product photos.
To be fair, you could say the same exact thing about Venum and any number of others, who do only the most cosmetic tweaks to designs that have been around for ages.
The ONX gloves are the only truly different design I’ve seen in a long while.,The Leone Contest gloves, for fight promotion purposes, are at least a good step towards keeping hands more closed.
Ever since Bellator moved from those gray/black gloves to the blue/red gloves, I’ve always thought the blue/red just looked retarded for some reason.
Never thought about glove color in my life with the blue PRIDE or blue WEC gloves or the green ONE or black UFC but for whatever reason, the red and blue Bellator combo gloves just look terrible for some reason. Guess because the fighters have different color gloves and the colors are bright, it just looks “cheap” compared to what PRIDE/WEC/ONE/UFC did/do.