Who doesn’t love wrestling merch?! You go to your first wrestling show, walk-in through security and see the number of shirts on sale, maybe some replica accessories or even a championship belt. If you’re young, you beg and beg your parents to get you one. If you’re older, you waste your hard-earned money on these items. Or, if you’re like me, you use the internet to buy random wrestling related items like a replica WWE Championship belt or a replica Undisputed Era armband. For non-main company wrestlers, merchandise is key for their earnings on top of what they’re paid by bookers. For main company wrestlers, like Impact or WWE, they collaborate with designers within the company to release merchandise based off of a gimmick or even a catchphrase, here’s looking at the Becky Lynch ‘The Mam’ t-shirt. However, some wrestling merchandise is downright weird and shouldn’t go on sale.
AJ Styles’ Questionnable T-Shirt – TNA
I had to get this one out the way first, oh my god, what was TNA thinking? It’s a simple black t-shirt, as most wrestling ones are, but with AJ written on the front and Styles on the back in what looks like white goo. Including drippage. Yeah…you can imagine what everyone thinks it looks like but I think TNA was aiming more for white spray paint or something along those lines as there are scratches in the white. As you can imagine, AJ probably wasn’t too keen on wearing this particular piece of merchandise as it wasn’t really around for long. Didn’t fit in with his ‘Phenomenal One’ gimmick at all, remember that this was TNA AJ who had the short hair and babyface look. Imagine if he was wearing that now with his soccer mum haircut and four young kids dates of births tattooed on his ribs.
Daniel Bryan’s Beard Hat – WWE
Who in the world would wear a baseball cap with a beard superglued to it?! I love a snapback, I own quite a few but none of mine has part of Daniel Bryan’s facial hair stuck to it. It was released during the highs of the Yes Movement, as Bryan’s fantastic beard grew even more and became the focal point of his look. After the WWE released the ‘Beard is Here’ t-shirt, to rival John Cena’s ‘Champ is Here’ shirt, you’d imagine they couldn’t get any more ridiculous. Well, you’d be wrong. It is literally a hat with a furry bill on it. Like, fans would wear that in public?! It really makes you wonder what goes through the head of the merchandise designers and creators over at Titan Towers. Visiting WWE’s accessories tab of WWEShop is always an interesting read.
New Day Booty O’s – WWE
This isn’t weird because it’s food, WWE has made an immense amount of food items. I class it as weird because it’s a WWE branded cereal-based off one odd passing comment made by The New Day. Don’t get me wrong, those three are merchandise machines and anything that comes out their mouth is gold. Not only did they get the cereal out of this, but they also got absolutely everything out of this design, including a giant box for the trio to come out of at Wrestlemania 32. The New Day and their merchandise are like a new age John Cena, completely aimed at kids and it’s evident with the cereal. But, knowing WWE and American food in general, I can’t imagine it meets our UK health regulations for sugar.
Scratch Off Lottery Tickets – WCW
Something we have never seen here in the UK, we have scratchcards but never wrestling-themed ones. If you’re over the age of 16, or you’ve got one for Christmas, you know the game of scratchcards. Scratch and find symbols to win money, simple. Well, in 1999, WCW released the same thing but with different stars emblazoned on the card and wrestling related games. The difference between these and the ones we have in the UK is, match-three t-shirt symbols and you can win a WCW t-shirt. I’d be happy with that from a $2 scratcher. It’s just purely weird and out there for WCW to make these, especially in 1999 where the company was coming to its utter demise. You can see if being a tactic to make any single scrap of money possible to keep the company going. Safe to say, I can’t imagine many people winning the jackpot.
Sin Cara’s Questionable T-Shirt – WWE
Another adult only T-shirt from WWE, absolutely wonderful. This time, it involves the former masked man, Sin Cara, and another questionable design related to the male anatomy with this strange optical illusion. The design of the shirt is really simple, it depicts Sin Cara standing with his arms crossed, the pose he used to do. Sounds really harmless, right? Well, he’s wearing white and gold and the design has dripped down the bottom of it and also from his arms. What is wrestling company’s fascination with dripping design on shirts? Considering, how unsuccessful Sin Cara actually was, you can’t imagine this shirt actually sold that many copies. Why would I want to walk around in a shirt with a picture of a dripping candle man with a mask on and a collar Eric Cantona would be proud of? Think it through, WWE.
APA: Always Pounding Ass T-Shirt – WWF
You can see where WWF was going with this shirt, beating someone’s ass is a phrased used in relation to beating someone up. The APA at the time were portrayed as hard b*stards who’d beat you into next week for looking at them weirdly. Combine the two aspects I’ve mentioned together and it creates a T-shirt with ‘Always Pounding Ass’ emblazoned across it. Do you get it? The three first letters are APA, standing for the Acolytes Protection Agency. Yeah, I can’t sugar coat it, it just screams problematic from the get-go and considering that one of the men in the APA was form Texas, I can’t imagine he was too keen on it. What made the shirt even weirder is the background of the writing is like a steel plate and it has ‘bar and grill’ written underneath the HUGE writing of ‘Always Pounding Ass’. Since when did Bradshaw and Farooq own a bar and/or grill?
A Little Bit of the Bubbly – AEW
This entry, like Booty O’s, is in here for the pure reason it is so odd to see it made off one sole line. After winning the AEW World Championship at All Out in 2019, Jericho would walk backstage talking trash as he always does and come across a table full of champagne. This created the meme, the catchphrase and the physical champagne entitled ‘A Little bit of the Bubbly’. In a collaboration with Nocking Point, the winery co-owned by a friend of Cody Rhodes and star of CW’s Arrow, Stephen Amell. You could, and still can go buy a couple of bottles of sparkling wine, it’s not even proper champagne! But, buy it and sit in a hot tub and wish you were Chris Jericho. Would set you back $48 for two bottles, us UK citizens know you can get about eight bottles of sparkling wine for that.
“Superkicks” – AEW / ProWrestlingTees
As far as I’m aware, AEW is the first wrestling company to fully collaborate with a shoe designer and release AEW Superkicks. I’m sure you can guess who struck up this deal. Superkicks have a partnership with Pro Wrestling Tees, where you can get non-AEW stars merchandise but they aren’t affiliated with an official wrestling company shop. Heading over to shopaew.com, you can select between designs ranging from the Inner Circle to Darby Allin. All for $99 a pair! Who would buy a pair of trainers that looks like someone has gone to Primark, bought a £5 pair of hi-top trainers and printed logos on the side and tongue? Fully intended to be worn like 2000 skaters with the tongue hanging over the laces so everyone can see your socks. On top of all of this, you have to wait three to four weeks for them to be shipped!
Replica Fiend Championship – WWE
The price of this alone gives this the place on the list and possibly even top spot if it was to be ranked. WWE fans around the world, including me, yearn to get a hold of a WWE title, which we can by buying a replica. I have one, it set me back about £300 but I love it. I wouldn’t, however, spend $7,000 on a replica title. That’s how much a handcrafted replica of the title would cost. The reason for this price tag was the limited number made, all by Tom Savini, who is known as the ‘Godfather of Gore’. Whether it was made by him or anyone else, $7,000 for a championship replica is ludicrous. The title isn’t even pretty, it’s horrific to look at, which it should be because of who it’s in relation to. I think I’ll be sticking to my replica WWE Championship and want for the Edge spinner belt for now.
Sable Teddy Bear – WWF (Part of a set in 1999)
Considering this was made for children, it’s a teddy bear with Sable’s infamous handprints stuck on its chest. Remember that segment? When Sable stood in the ring, barely topped with just latex handprints covering her ‘puppies’ (thanks Lawler…) I get it, the Attitude Era was a different time but you cannot market a teddy bear for children based of a sexualised segment. It was purely weird and if my parents ever bought me that when I was younger, I wouldn’t think anything of it because I was young. Now, I’d be ashamed of them. Awkward product from WWF to do with women they really didn’t treat with the most respect.
I really hope I don’t see anything like the above ten or following number of articles we do because it’s like burning money. We love merchandise but always remember, if it’s t-shirts or hats, we have to wear these in public.
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