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Post by Stone Coke Miami Watson 🥃 on Dec 26, 2016 12:17:00 GMT -5
SMITH
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Post by Porky's Butthole on Dec 26, 2016 14:48:07 GMT -5
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Post by edgestar on Dec 26, 2016 15:16:12 GMT -5
8-Bit Cena, and Rise Above Hate
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Post by Gerard Gerard on Dec 26, 2016 15:20:27 GMT -5
Punk's first BitW is the first shirt since 3:16 or NWO that I've regularly seen outside of wrestling circles.
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Dec 26, 2016 15:29:53 GMT -5
Through collecting wrestling T-shirts, it tends to be weird for why I usually tend to go with actual promotion releases.
My answer is usually that a wrestling T-shirt, more than virtually any other merchandise, is one of the most obvious pieces of wrestling history there is. Other options- action figures, and in the modern day video game roster spots- are good signs you "made it", but since WWE's so good at merchandising figures so it's widespread, in WWE and NXT, legend and active...and with video games needing a virtually full roster- they lose the immediate aura. T-shirts, on the other hand, have remained pretty much a guarantee for it, usually only going to people who were getting really over, even for a month or two.
It's not hard to say as a conclusion: If a pro wrestler received a T-shirt from their promotion, they were SIGNIFICANT. Whether they were a star like John Cena or someone down to...well, James Ellsworth or Blue Pants- they were in the WWE, and for one brief shining moment they MATTERED.
---(serious said, now for the non-serious.)
This is the weird thing why I'd then say the greatest wrestling shirt is not an official one. But being a wrestling fan right now has a dual nature. The nature of what WWE wants us to want and what the fans want to want. The question of doing what we're told to do as "cast members" or doing what our own hearts want to do. The loyalty to the WWE or the loyalty to NXT...and from there, loyalty to WWE or loyalty to another promotion we saw the performer in. Even official Cena Sucks merchandise can't get that total dual nature.
The only shirt that really fit what a true wrestling fan is nowadays is the Finn Balor T-shirt with Roman Reigns on it. In one thing, you get all the questions. The most hated man in WWE, juxtaposed with the logo of one of the most beloved NXT performers in it.
Is Roman Reigns now Finn Balor? Is Finn Balor Roman Reigns? Are you saying that if Joe Anoai Jr. went to New Japan and was in Bullet Club like the sons of Haku, then went to NXT and had a longer run than just a couple promos before debuting, he would be Finn Balor? Are you saying that if Fergal Devitt signed with WWE and went through developmental, he would be Roman Reigns? Are you saying that the juxtaposition between "smark darling" and "mark darling" is as arbitrary as anything else in wrestling? Did Magiconz make this shirt to warn the world Finn Balor was a lame?
...the world may never know, but how can you not make the greatest wrestling tee such a statement of the modern fan?
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