Since the inception of wrestling merchandise, the top promotions in the industry have cranked out their fair share of iconic wear. From the infamous nWo shirt to the Austin 3:16 t-shirt, fans have proudly represented their favourite wrestler(s), tag team, and faction with pride. However, even though we’ve been treated to such legendary apparel or swag, there has also been the fair share of absolutely horrendous threads, toys, and whatever else that our favourite wrestling companies can think of pumping out merchandise into the world. After scouring the internet, I’ve found a few pieces of merchandise from both WWE and WCW that are worth highlighting due to its sheer stupidity and existence.
4.) Chris Jericho “Wanna-Bee” T-Shirt
Quite possibly one of the most abysmal pieces of merchandise ever created for a Superstar who’s reached such legendary heights, WWE released the “Wanna-Bee’ t-shirt for Chris Jericho on WWE Shop. If anyone actually spent money on this awful article of clothing, then I can only imagine what their sense of fashion was like. An incredibly hideous shirt that was a terrible play on “wannabe,” the front features a dead bee, with the back of the shirt showcasing a large can of bug spray with Jericho’s iconic pose. Much like what happened with the E.T game that was released back on the Atari, one can only hope that whatever remnants of this shirt were buried deep within the depths of the earth, never to be seen by anyone ever again.
3.) Looney Tunes Themed WCW Merchandise
From 1998 through 1999 (a short amount of time thankfully), WCW released Looney Tunes inspired merchandise to the public. A vast majority of these shirts are available for purchase through eBay surprisingly, which unfortunately means that more than a few poor souls sadly spent money on these items of clothing. As clever as “Taz World Order” potentially could have been, particularly for ‘The Human Suplex Machine’ Taz, that slogan was in regards to the Looney Tunes character. There were plenty more shirts where that came from, and not a single one of them are any good. However, I’ll have to give credit where credit is due, because it was a rather smart move to plaster Looney Tunes characters on wrestling apparel, a smart way to get kids to look into the cartoon who either weren’t familiar or for adults who were to wear merchandise featuring their favourite characters.
2.) Kevin Nash Comic Book
Published by Image Comics, the company who’ve given us their most notably famous character and I.P., Spawn, brought to us the breakout comic book series ever to hit store shelves in the Summer of 1999. ‘NASH”, co-written by Kevin Nash himself surprisingly, and the synopsis is as follows: “In the year 2023, there is no money, no middle-class, no justice, and no hope. Food is the only commodity in a world divided into two social classes: the affluent elite, who live in the domed cities; and the tattered poor, who inherit the unwanted wastelands. In the middle of the injustice steps a massive man intent on giving the establishment an ass whooping and the poor a piece of the pie. The legend of Nash spreads hope outside the domes and fear into the heart of Cyruss Storm. Storm, the self-proclaimed leader of the World Food Distribution Corp., a.k.a. the WFDC, controls the world’s food supply and thereby controls the world. Nash, the only man with the balls to stand up to Cyruss and the WFDC, has his own ideas of social change and a new world order.” I am actually very curious if there are any avid comic book readers or wrestling fans who weren’t comic book regular’s who actually went out and read one of (or all) the issues from this series. We’ve since seen wrestling make the dive into the comic book world numerous times after this series was released, however, the premise of the series is so out there, that I don’t think we’ll ever see anything like this ever again. Hopefully.
1.) KISS Themed WCW Merchandise (The KISS Demon)
Wrestling meets Rock & Roll, seems like an easy recipe for an absolute win, especially when it’s involving legendary rock band KISS, right? Wrong. In 1999, KISS performed on WCW Nitro, lip-syncing along to ‘God of Thunder’ in what was considered an absolute bomb in the rating department. In an excerpt from ‘The Death of WCW’ documentary, it was reported that, “Nitro had drawn its lowest number in years, a 2.92. The KISS concert, as expected, bombed, doing a 2.25 rating. Nothing like spending half a million dollars to get a number like that.” An absolutely odd occurrence, considering the stature that the band holds within the rock world and the reputation that they’ve amassed, one would imagine that a litany of fans would’ve tuned in in droves to watch the performance, unfortunately, though, that was not the case. The gimmick and character itself, The Demon, played by nWo member Brian Adams, wasn’t even bad either, all things considered. However, Adams actually had zero interest in playing the character, something he felt that was forced upon him, as he actually knew nothing about the band KISS, so the gimmick was given to Dale Torborg. Many KISS fans evidently loved the character, with Dale apparently still making convention appearances as The Demon as well. Actions figures of The Demon that were made can still be found on eBay, as well as old postings that have since been purchased from die-hard fans. It’s incredible, yet odd, to see an experiment that many would’ve considered a success to fail so bad, yet still resonate with wrestling and KISS fans still to this day.