Training with right MMA shorts will improve your training performance and also protect you and your partner from injuries and cuts. These are just some of the benefits of MMA shorts and it is seriously vital for you to have MMA shorts for your training.
I have used 4 MMA shorts so far and I also have a lot of experiences in MMA gyms and also witnessed many people’s experiences with a myriad of MMA short brands. I also researched MMA forums and according to all of these, I gathered 5 best MMA shorts and below you can find thorough reviews of them. After that you can see my brand overviews, what you should be careful about while choosing and information about MMA short styles.
Note: All MMA shorts on this list have sizing information on product pages and have great fitting rates as well.
Let’s start with the overview of the most quality short…
1. CLINCH GEAR Performance
Durability: 10.0 / 10
Quality / Price Rating: 9.4 / 10.0
Pros
- Very quality material (Suede)
- Incredibly light
- Provides a lot of freedom for kicking
- Comfy
- Many color selections including red and blue
- The most quality and durable short on the market
Clinch GEAR is one of the most sold MMA shorts and unlike other “best-seller MMA shorts”, it has serious quality. Firstly the material can stretch extra well and side panels have the capability to stretch 360-degree. This is why many professional and amateur fighters use it because you can do everything without any restriction of movement. So it is really fair to say that it is best MMA short for kicking and ground work.
Thanks to stretching qualities, as you can guess you can also do ground work without any restrictions whatsoever.
Also according to my researches, microsuede fabric is the lightest fabric type and even though many companies do not mention about the short weights, I am %100 sure that Clinch GEAR is one of the lightest shorts on the market and it is really possible that Clinch GEAR is the lightest one which has serious quality.
The waistband is a bit thicker than normal and I am also familiar with the design and it simply doesn’t drop even one bit during the training.
Durability: Microsuede fabric is really sturdy and I also saw that 3 MMA forum members continue using Clinch GEAR after 2 years without any defects or stretching problems. Considering quality fabric and good stretching qualities you can expect to use it after 3 years.
Comfort: I checked many verified buyer testimonials for moisture wicking features and they seem to be really satisfied with it.
Seriously there is nothing bad or even average about Clinch GEAR and this is why a myriad of people religiously train with it in MMA gyms. My trainer in Samut Prakan, Thailand also used it and at the time, he was really satisfied with the striking performance. Also, I constantly see that many verified buyers say amazing things about this short as well.
My Verdict: Well, I will buy it when I get to Europe and if you are looking for the best MMA fight short, I highly suggest you do the same.
Price: Clinch GEAR has superior qualities and materials (suede) and it is the best rated MMA short on the market and surprisingly, it has a good price tag. Check out the price on Amazon.
2. Venum Amazonia 5.0 Fight Shorts
Durability: 9.4 / 10
Quality / Price Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
Pros
- Provides complete freedom of movement
- Good design
- Light
- Longer slits provide a lot of freedom for kicking
- Very comfortable
- Many color selections
Venum Amazonia 5.0 is the latest version of Amazonia series. It has a bit longer slits on the side and it is well positioned. Thanks to that your short won’t have much-stretching deformations. So you can expect to use this short more than other Venum Amazonia series. Because these generally lose the stretching first.
Shortly you can expect to roll on the ground and kick with this short around 2 years and considering that it is made of polyester, we can agree on that the design is solid.
Why Venum Amazonia 5.0 on this list?: Well, I don’t have any direct experience with Venum, however, I found MANY verified purchase reviews. I think I read more than 20 reviews and all of these give great feedback for the training performance. With that, one of my buddies also used the older model of this short (Amazonia 4.0) and stated that he was really comfortable with it. The material of Amazonia 4.0 and Amazonia 5.0 is the same so I can say that Amazonia 5.0 is also comfy enough.
Price: Go on Amazon for the most recent price and it has awesome color selections.
3. Anthem Athletics RESILIENCE
Durability: 9.3 / 10
Quality / Price Rating: 10.0 / 10.0
Pros
- Very quality material (Suede)
- Light
- Provides a lot of freedom for kicking
- Incredibly comfortable
- I have really good experiences with it
- The best quality-price ratio among the MMA shorts
My Experiences: This is the only short which I have direct experience with. I trained with it in Martial arts gym in Samut Prakan, Thailand. Basically, I could do stand up striking and kick extremely well with it and I understood why people religiously buy Anthem shorts. Anthem shorts have the same designs and aggressive slits, which are my favorite, provide a lot of freedom.
If you want to get amazing training performance, you can go with Anthem Athletics Resilience.
Material quality is made of sweat resistant fabric and even though it is not premium, it will give you 2 years of solid training sessions.
As a side note, some people wear Anthem Athletics as normal wear.
It is the only short on this list which I have experience with and I am %100 sure that you will like wearing it.
Price: You get more than what you pay and this short has the best quality-price ratio. If you are interested, have a look at the price on Amazon.
4. Anthem Athletics INFINITY
Durability: 8.8 / 10
Quality / Price Rating: 9.5 / 10.0
Pros
- Quality material
- Anthem design
- Light
- Comfy enough
- Cheaper Anthem Athletics alternative
- Very popular
- A myriad of color selections including orange and green
Anthem has one more incredible short which has the same good design. Again you can kick high or do ground work without any restriction of movement. INFINITY has the same aggressive slits which provide you to kick high and the stretching is also good.
When you consider the training quality, it is basically the same short above.
However…
The material quality is a bit lower than Anthem Resilience (the model above) and as you can guess Anthem INFINITY has a cheaper price. With that, people on MMA forums claimed to use this short 1-2 years and if you are on a budget and want to have Anthem design, then you can go with INFINITY.
As a final note, the company gives 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don’t like this short in any way, you can just return it and get your money back. Considering my experiences and ratings, I really doubt that will ever happen.
Also, you have many color selections including purple, blue and red. I also loved the army-black design.
Price: Go on Amazon for the accurate price. You can also find the sizing information at the product page as rest of the shorts on this list.
5. RDX Clothing MMA Training Short
Durability: 8.7 / 10
Quality / Price Rating: 9.5 / 10.0
Pros
- Will do the job just fine
- Light
- Provides decent training sessions
- Comfy
- Cheapest MMA short which has good quality
- I constantly see it in MMA Gyms
RDX has some more stitching than usual for extra durability and it does the job well.
Based on my research, you can expect to have a very slight resistance when you do ground work. However, it is not much because, people, who train with it, give good feedback for it.
The waistband is tight and holds the short in place.
As a side note, it does not have a lot of fabric at the groin area so it does not bunch at all. I wanted to mention that because, all other MMA shorts, which are in this price range, seem to have this problem and it just feels awkward.
As an only negative side, RDX does not provide freedom as much as the other shorts on this list.
I have seen that many people wear RDX MMA Short in MMA gym classes and obviously, the most important reason is that RDX MMA Short has a high rating and very affordable price at the same time.
According to my researches, RDX is one of the most sold MMA shorts online.
Price: Have a look at the price of cheap and good quality RDX MMA Short on Amazon.
MMA Short Brands
Anthem Aesthetic: Anthem Aesthetic shorts have incredible design and these provide a lot of freedom. As you may read above I also have experiences with it and in my opinion, it is the brand which you can completely trust about MMA shorts.
Hayabusa: Hayabusa produces many MMA short types. Even though almost all of them have good quality material (fabric) and good design, there is not any Hayabusa short on this list. But these are not top notch shorts at all. I have good experiences with Hayabusa Kyuodo. With that, I felt some restriction while I do ground work and truth to be told it was a bit annoying. You will also see many “decent” rated Hayabusa MMA shorts but if you want premium, there are way better shorts which provide better material quality and training performance (high kicking, freedom of movement etc.)
RDX: I trained with RDX MMA Short and I also have many friends who trained with different models of RDX. The products always have at least average quality and according to my experiences, you can go with any RDX product and expect good quality. The company uses T3 stitching and it does a great job for extending the durability.
Venum: Quality varies a lot. Some Venum shorts are made of polyester which is really low-quality material for shorts. It also has shorts which are made of the highest quality materials. The design also changes one short to another so training quality also changes a lot. Shortly, you should definitely have a look at the reviews if you think of getting Venum MMA short.
Sanabul: The material quality is really bad and it does not provide good stretching or freedom. I had to use it in Thailand because it was the only short which my friend brought for me from Croatia. After a couple of months, I could not train with it anymore. Basically, I could not kick properly at all. I thanked my friend a lot for that short. According to my experiences, just avoid it. You may see good reviews online but honestly, these people probably just want to make some money.
Disclaimer: I write all brand overviews based on my own or my friends’ experiences. Some are good and some are obviously bad. However, I always check the quality thoroughly before I write anything on here. With that, these are my own experiences with some products, obviously, I have not used all MMA shorts of every brand out there. So before any brand sends me a message, please read here first. Because sometimes I get a myriad of emails from brands and I honestly don’t want to answer them one by one.
MMA Short Types
Vale Tudo: Many fighters actually prefer Vale Tudo for better training performance. It does not restrict movement while you kick or do ground work. If you will fight, definitely go with this one.
Board: It looks better than Vale Tudo style and I even see that people wear board type shorts in daily life. It is comfy and has Velcro waistband. With that, many of them have different slit types.
Hybrid: As you can understand from the name this style has some qualities of Vale Tudo and some qualities of Board style. Basically, it has the compression of Vale Tudo and the leg compartment is a bit tight. With that, it has velcro closure like board style. Even though the general hybrid style is like this, there are other hybrid styles as well.
Which Style do People Choose? Well, firstly it depends on you. If you are serious about MMA training, I suggest you experience all of them and then you can decide which one is more suitable for you. For example, I like board style. I just feel better with solid Velcro closure.
How to Choose the Right MMA Shorts?
Materials: Suede is the most quality material for MMA shorts. It can stretch well and it can stretch without harming the durability of it and it loses the stretching ability the latest.
Even though I have not used a short which is made of Micro-fiber (whatever that is), it gets quite well ratings.
These both materials are also “light” and get rid of sweat very well. Polyester is a bit low-quality material and if the short has not a good design for kicking or ground work, it simply does not last a long time. So if you are thinking of buying a short, which is made of polyester, you should definitely have a look at the reviews before you buy it.
Training Quality and Comfort: Does your MMA short give you enough freedom? Can you kick freely? Are the slits well positioned? What about ground work? Basically, you need to check out the overviews before you invest any money in MMA shorts.
Sizing: You generally will see sizing information at the product pages of Amazon but is the fitting rate any good? Even if you get the right size (Small, medium…) it may not fit you well. So you need to check the fitting rates as well.
As a side note, all shorts on this list have really good fitting rates.
Final Thoughts
These shorts get amazing ratings from everywhere. However, fair is fair, Clinch GEAR has premium materials and the design. You can kick and do ground work freely and use it at least 3 years. It is seriously the best MMA short on the market with amazing reviews. If you are interested, have a look at the price of Clinch GEAR on Amazon. These are all I wanted to say about the subject and if you have any more questions about any of these quality MMA shorts, please have a comment below.
Hello there. Very thorough overview of MMA shorts. I really like the design of the Anthem Athletics Resilience shorts. I’m not doing MMA but I think they would be also great for other types of training where you need the freedom of movement. And they look good enough so I would consider wearing them as normal shorts:)
I tried to include all my experiences and research in this writing man.
Anthem can be used for anything. MMA, weightlifting or even regular shorts 😉
Thank you for this excellent review. You provided thorough details about each product, which can make anyone who wants to buy an MMA short decide easily which one to buy. Best wishes.
Hey, thanks for this thorough and in-depth MMA shorts review + comparison. You mentioned that Clinch Gear can be worn for about three years. What about the rest? Which has the highest cost performance index/value?
Anthem Athletics Resilience gives you way more than your money’s worth. The materials are quite durable and it has a good design as well.
Nice article on different types of short you can get. I always thought that some baggy sport shorts will do the trick but it seems like getting something specialized seems a lot better. Thanks to your article I will read a bit further into it to get myself a proper pair for training. Good work and thanks!
Great post about different types of mma shorts out there. Actually did not realise that there was this many!
The right MMA shorts is incredibly important as it can actually make or break your performance. Most of the so called brands out there really restrict movement.
In terms of support and warranty, which brand would you recommend to be the best one?
I know there are a quite few shorts out there which is not any different than regular shorts and are waste of money.
Clinch Gear’s materials are better and man it can stretch. Also, you don’t even need to worry about it losing that ability. The warranty can change time to time so I really don’t want to give any information about it. You need to talk with the manufacturer or seller.
I actually found your site while looking for some boxing gloves, as part of a one year project I am doing to improve my overall health I purchased speed and heavy bags and plan to do some boxing cardio.
After reading your testimonial I’m sold and will be following one of your links to make a purchase once I decide which pair would be best for me.
Seeing as my plan is to shed about 60 pounds over the next year- is there one pair that is more adjustable than the others? This would save me from buying multiple pairs over the year, but with the price being so great its not a huge deal I suppose.
Thanks!
That is quite normal since I have lots of writings about boxing gloves : ) You prepared yourself quite an MMA gym and having MMA shorts definitely help with freedom of your movement during bag work.
As I understand it you will do regular sessions with these MMA shorts and having a good pair of shorts, which has great air regulating qualities, is what you are looking for. In my opinion, you can go with Clinch Gear (first one) or any of Anthem Aesthetic Shorts on this list. One year is not a long time at all so the durability will not be a concern with any of these shorts.