Golden Gear Sets a New Standard in Fight Equipment

When fourteen-year-old Danny Goldberg (Long Beach, NY) first began boxing, he loved pretty much everything about it: the self-discipline, physical rigors, and unmitigated focus needed inside the squared circle. 

But he definitely did not love the equipment. 

It was too expensive, too flimsy, so he did what any burgeoning entrepreneur would do: He started his own line of gear. 

Four years later, Goldberg’s Golden Gear boxing and MMA lines have garnered the attention and respect of renown combat athletes across the globe.

In 2007, Danny, then a freshman at Solomon Schechter High School, had been training at Cannon Kickboxing in Long Beach and had grown tired of constantly having to replace overpriced, underwhelming boxing and Muay Thai equipment.  He knew that there had to be a better way for combat athletes like the guys he looked up to at the gym to train with quality stuff, so he contacted Fairtex – he liked them - and subsequently received a batch of gloves at wholesale.

“I started selling it on e-Bay to some gyms and I did really well with that. But after about a year, all I was doing was selling someone else’s product. I wanted to sell my own product, my own name.”

Goldberg knew a little about business, but plenty about what he wanted for his own line. He developed a working knowledge of what a product should be when he discovered hand-sewn, top-of-the-line leather gloves from Thailand that would last 3-5 years.

He experimented with gloves, shin pads, and head gear that he was sent from overseas to see what he liked the best and began putting together his own designs. Before he knew it, the kid who had been busting the seams of his gear at Cannon Kickboxing had traveled to China and Thailand to learn everything he could about manufacturers, factories, and overseas production specs. Golden Gear was in full swing.

Today, the ambitious Goldberg is not only turning out enhanced versions of what’s already on the market, but he is revolutionizing the technology of combat gear. He is working on improving knuckle protection for gloves, as well as “a no-tie lace-up glove that you could put on yourself,” he explains. How, you ask? He’s reinventing the premise of draw string technology. No big deal…

The focus on quality and comfort of Golden Gear products has so far paid off for Goldberg, a seventeen-year-old freshman at Bentley College, whose goods have been embraced by high-profile combatants and their teammates whom he’s either solicited on his own or whom h met at the UFC Fan Expo in Boston last August.

“A lot of [making connections with pro fighters and their gyms] is never stopping. Just keep going and going,” he explains. “All I ask is for them to try my brand. If they like it, I’ll send them more, and if they don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine, but just give me some feedback so I can work on improving my line.”

MMA fighters like Ryan Bader, CB Dalloway, Efrain Escudero, and Todd Duffee, as well as boxing luminary (and a personal favorite of mine) Dmitri Salita are some of those who can be counted among Golden Gear’s faithful.

Ultimately, Goldberg’s goal is not be bigger than the Everlasts or Fairtexes of the world, nor is it to crank out skull-and-cross t-shirts for kids at the mall. He is a devoted fan – boxing, K1, Muay Thai, MMA – who admires fighters and wants to put out a superior product for them.

For Goldberg, quality is everything - even his fight shorts (pictured above) and walk-out robes are hand-stitched in Thailand! – and his uncompromising commitment to quality has resulted in Golden Gear being the most affordable hand-made line on the market.

So if you’re looking for durable, top-shelf, hand-sewn training gear that won’t knock out your bank account, be sure to check out Golden Gear products at East Coast MMA Fight Shop in Rockville Centre and over at GoldenGearMMA.com.

In fact, if you spend $90 or more online, enter promo code 15percent and save 15% on these sweet ass Thai pads (also pictured below) that are already marked down $35 as part of the pre-sale promotion. This offer is good until October 1, so get on it before they're out.

Stay tuned to Long Island Fights for more on the fast-rising Danny Goldberg and his Golden Gear Corp.