5 Fashionable Items of Pro-Wrestling Merchandise

We always see people wearing the merchandise of their favourite sports teams or bands, why don’t we see the same for Pro-Wrestlers? Is it because of the myth that their fans don’t leave their parent’s basement? Perhaps it's because they’re generally unfashionable designs? I hazard to guess that the two could be related, but what we do know for sure is exactly what SuNom expressed in the article that inspired this one: “A grown person wearing wrestling merch from today’s stars may be seen as cringe rather than cool.”

It’s a concept important to any clothes associated with a brand; if cool people are wearing your clothes then - theoretically - your clothes are cool (Gladwell, 1997). Thus, with consumers paying less attention to the sport than they did in the past, so too do the names and faces of the industry lose the cultural capital that their merchandise once had. But as a present fan of Pro-Wrestling, I know what a lot of people have forgotten. That there are still a heap of wrestlers who embody the admirable characteristics that would make people want a slice of their cool. So I’ve picked out a couple of T-shirts from my favourite athletes to prove to myself more than anyone that Pro-Wrestling is cool, though you might also want to buy some of them if you hop on the bandwagon.

I've started off here with two of New Japan Pro Wrestling's biggest stars, Tetsuya Naito and Kazuchika Okada. Naito is the current champ, but Okada has been the most dominant wrestler in Japan's largest promotion during the 2010’s. In many ways they are two polar opposites, with 'the rainmaker' Okada using exquisite technical skill to win his matches, while Naito tends to sit back in his 'tranquilo' (relaxed) state until he suddenly bamboozles his opponents with a rapid variety of powerful attacks. Both are also the leaders of New Japan's biggest factions respectively. If you're a fan of the abstract then you'll likely be more drawn to Naito's design, but if you primarily value cool clarity I can only presume that you'd be drawn to Okada's shirt; it's a comparison that's also discernible from their in-ring style.

Hiromu Takahashi is one of my favourite wrestlers in New Japan. He's a crucial member to Naito's oddball faction 'Los Ingobernables de Japon' because of his undeniable charisma. He always hits the ring in a pair of explosively coloured trousers with both legs cuffed in fur at the ankle, walking out alongside his plush toy mascot 'Daryl Takahashi'. Once he's inside the square circle however it's all business as he channels every inch of his expression into speed and force, taking down his opponents like a rabid chihuahua. The design that I've picked might be a bit strange for some, but I think that it's a creative execution, born from an idea strange enough to embody Takahashi when you wear it.

This graphic belongs to Bea Priestly, a past Stardom champion and one of the world's premier British wrestlers. Stardom is the biggest female wrestling promotion in Japan - if you haven't clocked already the sport is a pretty big thing over there - and for a 'gaijin' (foreigner) to take the company's top crown is a massive deal. Women's wrestling in Japan, and increasingly around the world, is just as hardcore as the matches that men have, and Priestly is one of the trailblazers in female Wrestling's popularity growth; if you didn’t know this before I said it then now would be the time to catch up...

Bruiser Brody is a Pro-Wrestler who has gone down in the sport's folklore, for both his time in the industry and his early exit from it. Brody was known in the 80's as one of the proverbial "baddest mother F'ers" on the entire planet. He made a living beating up pretty much everyone in a territory, then moving to another and repeating his rampage, and so on and so on. He was feared just as much in Japan, and the shirt I've picked heralds this fact, deciding to showcase Brody's famously wiley features and fearsome glare. In a case which has seen no justice to this day, Bruiser Brody was stabbed to death by a promoter he was working for in Puerto Rico, cementing further his legend in Pro-Wrestling as one of the most legitimate tough guys that the sport has seen.

This one might be recognizable to the older members of your family. World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was a viable competitor to the WWE in the 1990's, gaining enormous support from fans in the south of the USA due to their traditional, sports-based presentation. Unfortunately as the 90's closed, the promotion was removed from their slot on TNT broadcasting's schedule because the new owners of the company saw Pro-Wrestling as a blight on their brand. Thus, it was sold to the WWE at a cut-price rate in the year 2001 and has remained extinct up until today.

The WCW was home to a variety of huge stars such as Ric Flair, Sting and Goldberg, and their decade long rivalry with the WWE is one of the most important periods in the history of Pro-Wrestling. This shirt has that classic American Collegiate feel that will always be in fashion, so hopefully it won’t get buried in the back of your closet in a similar way to how the WWE seem to treat their old foe.

The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) was once the most prestigious organisation in American Pro-Wrestling; their world title was only ever held by elite competitors who every fan wanted to see wrestle. This champion would tour territories all over the world defending the title for, often times, a number of years before losing it. Unfortunately over the past years the NWA has been through the wringer under various poor ownership, but it has now seemed to find firm foundations under the direction of The Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan who bought the promotion in 2017.

The new NWA produces an excellent product for potential wrestling fans to get into, with a weekly youtube show featuring competitions based in a TV studio, as was commonly found before the 90’s in the southern States. This T-shirt belongs to their biggest female star Thunder Rosa, who has gained major support due to her tenacity, harnessing her MMA background to pose a threat to her opponent from any location in or around the ring. As of late she has also fulfilled the rich tradition of touring NWA champions, appearing on All Elite Wrestling to challenge their champion Hikaru Shida.

So how are you going to style these new T’s? I’d say that it depends on if you want to make a statement in your flash wrestling merch, or if you just want the piece to slip seamlessly into your wardrobe rotation. If you’ve opted for the former, then lean into the extravagance of Pro-Wrestling’s past with an 80’s themed outfit: Ornate brown cowboy boots, dark green drainpipe trousers, Takahashi’s embryo T-shirt (well fitted or tucked in), cream biker jacket, and whatever the hell Dusty Rhodes is wearing on his head in this 1978 promo… And if you aren’t trying to steal people’s attention? A pair of straight cut jeans of any color, paired with either some beaten trainers or Doc Martens, and crucially, the T-shirt of your choice in a size that is one bigger than you might usually choose; baggy shirts are the force that keeps the world of streetwear turning.

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