Designed for competition only, this boot meets the exacting need of professional boxing. The boot was originally developed for the Chinese National Boxing team, and has been used competitively by Manny Pacquiao, Axel Schulz, and Zou Shiming.
A zipper?
Who woulda thunk?
Nice.
That’s a great looking boot/shoe! Great work.
Not that you’ve asked, but my only complaint is the prominence of the Nike Swoosh. Everything else on the shoe is so understated and well proportioned, that the BIG Swoosh looks a little out of place. Maybe it’s just the white on black contrast?
Regardless…great stuff. Love the sketches.
Thanks for the comments.
The oversixe swoosh was very intentional (and heavily debated) This boot is about 30% lighter than the lightest boxing boot on the market… making it a faforite with lighter faster guys. Since the boot is not for sale, I wanted to make the swoosh prominent so that in a TV still of someone getting punched in the gut (as above 
) you get a nice logo hit! The rest is as simple and functional as I could make it.
Glad you cut the star. I understand the concept but wouldn’t want it sending mixed messages about some converse collaboration or something to the casual observer.
I love the big swoosh, and that outsole is real nice as well…
The star still appears, but only on select Chinese competition color ups that are all red with a large yellow star with the surrounding 4 smaller stars of the chinese flag…
you right Skinny, otherwise their could be brand confusion (even with a swoosh the size of Arizona)
The Swoosh is so big it actually wraps around to the medial side of the shoe…
Thanks for the compliment on the outsole. My intent was to keep it a thin (for weight and flexibility) and simple as possible with all over herringbone. The canvas can get pretty wet during the course of a fight and these guys use their whole body when they punch, so we needed as much traction as possible.
nice. wouldnt be that surprised to also see this in some lifestyle shops some time in the future (ya, boxing boots are a bit 2002, but you never know)
…Sure those Sports Couture guys could at least steal some elements…I for one like the oversized Swoosh. Kinda reminds me of the over the top BB shoes (cant remember the name off hand, but saw them in the Brendan Fraser movie Tarzan last night), with the GIANT “AIR” word that takes up the whole quarter.
another hit, Michael.
cheers,
R
^Rich, I thik you are referring to the Uptempos that Wilson Smith did.
Yo- Looks really good, man. Very clean and functional. I always wondered what the science was behind boxing shoes. Do you have any insight you picked up while researching this project or did you already understand the needs? Good work!
id also be interested on the difference between functional performance shoes like this and others like the adi prajna, boxing shoe, and nike car racing shoe (a la puma race cat) that seem to be more lifestyle oriented.
are ther any speciific performance aspects incorporated into into the design?
R
A lot of the upper considerations are very simple and were tested and refined with the Chinese National team in terms of getting the best fit. The tooling was designed around the specific foot placement techniques the teams use. There are points when the boxers lean back heavily on one foot or drag their heel, which is why there is quiet a pit of outsole around the heel. I was surprised how much force they would be putting on the roe of one shoe, with the boot hyper flexed, and simultaneously on the heel of the other.
interesting. Hey MD, what’s the “Roe” of a shoe? Never heard that before.
oops, I guess that would be Taiwanese for “Toe” 
Hi Yo, do you have any more close up images of the outsole for this product?
Looks like an interesting project
Great project, and I like your approach to branding and tackling some performance issues in new ways.
Im interested about the zipper application for this boot.
Is there any kind of elastic gore or gusset around the zipper or in the back of the boot? How do you get a good fit on the legs of people with different size calfs? Especially with athletes like boxes, I assume there must be some guys with really big legs compared to other (depending on boxing weight class?).
Are there lcaes under the zipper? cant tell from the pics…
another great one Yo,
R
Sorry about that, the pic looks pretty dark when compressed: This shows it a bit more. There is a row of internal webbing loops that are sewn into an internal saddle. The actual shell is a thin layer of mesh.
Here’s that outsole pic as well.
nice. i like the full throat-to-top tongue lacekeep. does the mesh stretch to be able to zip the zipper up fully tight?
R
Yup, its a 2 way stretch, you can see how thin it is where the top of the eyestay folds back in the pick.
that’s a hot boot! so now i want to start boxing just so that i can wear these
it’s interesting how the zipper solution really worked great here, but on sneakers/running shoes, i’ve never seen a good application.
what i want to see is some kind of ziplock solution.
Nice and simple design. Cool the study of each detail, function driven design!
I like it.
I have a couple of questions:
-
the flexion joint in the forefoot of outsole is placed right below the metatarsal head of toe. This is usually one of the parts of the foot were you need to have the best traction. Usually the flex line is between fingers and metatarses…Is it because the boxer movements, like, counter-flex that part of the outsole (flexion opposed to conventional direction) at a certain phase of his punch move ???
-
as asked before by one of the other guys here, what about different calves size of boxers??? In your boxer’s punch picture the cut of the boot is slightly more diagonal (like I’ve always seen) than what appears from other pictures, is there a flexible material to allow different calves “volumes” ???
3)…sorry, one more question , what about the ring floor surface??? From tv it looks like plastic fiber which becomes very slippery when wet. Seeying from boxers shoes midsole thickness (…well, lack of midsole…), it also seems like surface is quite cushioned on its own. Ground feel is very important, but did you put some EVA or phylon layers or just comformable sockliners with shockpads?
Thanks and ciaoooo
MC [pietro]