How WWE Fell in Love With Streetwear: BAPE, John Geiger &…

Ric Flair strutting down the aisle in his feathered and bedazzled robes. John Cena battle rapping in the center of the ring in a crisp Mitchell & Ness throwback. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin stomping a mud hole in his opponent in a pair of jorts and an “Austin 3:16” T-shirt. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ripping someone to shreds with just his mic skills in some Versace silk. The WWE has had its fair share of stylish looks over the years. Yet, its merch offerings haven’t always lived up to that standard.

For years, the WWE merch formula has been simple: a black T-shirt with the wrestler’s logo on the front and their name written across the back. This has satisfied plenty of loyal fans, but since the Attitude Era in the ’90s, WWE merch has lacked the same level of character and creativity that made many of those designs live on as coveted vintage pieces. Until recently, that is.

We’re in the midst of a wrestling merch renaissance. In recent years, we have seen collabs here with prominent brands like Palace and The Hundreds, but these types of projects were few and far between. Throughout 2025, WWE has consistently tapped prominent figures in streetwear to create official merch that resonates beyond ringside. And it’s working.

It kicked off in January when Rey Mysterio wore a T-shirt to pay tribute to the late legend Eddie Guerrero on the premier of RAW on Netflix. It was part of a collab with Los Angeles streetwear brand BornXRaised and fans immediately asked how they could get their hands on it. For WrestleMania season in April 2025, Hellstar dropped off a collection of graphic tees and hoodies with its signature all-over print design language inspired by legends like The Rock and The Undertaker. That same weekend, Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack released a WWE merch collab of its own. The rapper even wore a zip hoodie from the line on his way to the ring during the main event of WrestleMania 41.

More recently, Pittsburgh-based footwear and clothing designer John Geiger dropped a well-received collab with WWE in partnership with Lids. Pieces featured Geiger’s signature overlapping logo design across hats, tees, and hoodies. A pop-up at Lids’ Times Square location garnered nearly 1,000 guests and the capsule sold out within hours. Even Cena asked Geiger why he didn’t do a design inspired by him when he ran into him backstage at RAW.

“I didn’t know how big it was going to be. I just knew the fans that followed John Geiger would like it. It blew up like crazy,” says Geiger. “I went to the show at Madison Square Garden and everyone in the crowd is wearing it. Everyone backstage was wearing it. It was a surreal feeling.”

The latest example pairs WWE with one of the most iconic brands in streetwear history, Bape. Superstars like Cena, Stone Cold, Cody Rhodes, and Roman Reigns appear on T-shirts in the brand’s Baby Milo art style in celebration of Survivor Series 2025. By partnering with one of the biggest, most respected names in streetwear, WWE demonstrates a newfound commitment to merchandise that resonates with a more fashionable sector of its fanbase.

“I don’t think [WWE] could have collaborated with a bigger brand,” says Austin Puckett, longtime wrestling fan and owner of the brand Off The Rope. “I love it.”

How did we get here? Cena deserves much of the credit. His “Doctor of Thuganomics” character from the 2000s heavily leaned into the hip-hop uniform of the era: he wore throwback jerseys, velour tracksuits, and Reebok Pumps into the ring. Nowadays, it’s fairly common to see WWE superstars work matches in pairs of Nike basketball sneakers and Air Jordan retros. Back then, Cena was one of the few individuals bridging that gap.

Cena isn’t the only example. Rey Mysterio wore lucha masks customized with Louis Vuitton and Gucci monograms for major matches. Stars like Kofi Kingston would wear Nike LeBrons. Roman Reigns would show up to main event pay per views in his own Jordan Brand wrestling boots and make appearances on RAW in the hottest sneakers on the market like “Brick By Brick” Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4s. Dominik Mysterio would hit the ring with an Off-White flannel tied around his waist and Travis Scott’s Air Jordan 1 Lows on his feet. A business that traditionally followed a lot of unwritten rules slowly but surely let its roster of stars embrace a bit of their personal style on its programming.

Before WWE was offering official streetwear-leaning merch, independent creators like Matt Botvin and 3CountStudio developed cult-like followings by filling the void with their own bootleg designs inspired by classic moments. Puckett’s Off The Rope, launched in 2016, drops wrestling-inspired flips that pay homage to everything from the DX Invasion to Kevin Nash’s FUBU-rocking era in the ’90s.

“Nine, 10 years ago, it was still kind of weird to say that you watched wrestling,” says Puckett. “Now, you can go buy a cool-looking wrestling streetwear shirt at the mall or whatever. It’s wild to see the difference in 10 years. With merch being such a big thing in streetwear, I think it only makes sense that WWE is part of that now.”

The vintage market has also played a major role in making wrestling merch feel special again. Vintage tees for superstars like Stone Cold and Mick Foley skyrocketed in popularity around 2020 and continue to fetch hundreds on the resell market. Collectors like Aziz Khan and World.widevintage have entire social media pages dedicated to showcasing their one-of-a-kind collections of rare tees.

“I think the main movement that really sparked all of this to begin with is vintage,” says vintage collector Blake Pals. “This generation buying these vintage wrestling T-shirts also really helped the streetwear industry boom. That partnership is just cohesive.”

Pals notes how the modern collabs with Cactus Jack and John Geiger in particular heavily borrow from the vintage look with flips of retro designs, distressing, and vintage washes. He hopes that inevitably all of WWE’s merch output can match the level of execution achieved by these recent collabs.

The dominance of hip-hop can’t be overlooked either. Wale has arguably been the most visible wrestling fan in the rap world for well over a decade; shouting out superstars in his raps; he even released a collaboration with Asics in 2016 inspired by the Intercontinental Championship. Smoke DZA has also been a squared circle fanatic throughout his career. Most notably, he released nine Ringside mixtapes from 2013 to 2020 that consisted of him freestyling over famous wrestling entrance themes.

Westside Gunn has been a more recent ringside fixture at WWE events, even going so far as to release his own wrestling-themed pieces through his company Fourth Rope (the Buffalo rapper recently severed his ties to WWE after he was thrown out of a November 2025 event with no explanation). Lil Yachty has sat ringside for numerous events throughout the year. Even Drake has attended some and called former women’s champion Rhea Ripley his current muse on stream. It’s a level of mainstream admiration that we haven’t seen since the Monday Night Wars in the ’90s.

“The front row at RAW looks like the MTV awards,” says Puckett. “The biggest artists are there. That definitely opened up a lot of people to it.”

Simply put, wrestling is cool again. So, where can it go from here? It’s unlikely that Supreme will drop a Rey Mysterio photo tee next season or Roman Reigns release a signature sneaker with Jordan Brand (we can keep dreaming)—but this isn’t a passing fad either. Netflix is currently in a 10-year, $5 billion deal to exclusively stream RAW on Monday nights. In 2022, Fanatics kicked off a long-term partnership with WWE that includes e-commerce and licensed merchandise. If anything, the output in 2025 is just a sign of things to come. Pro wrestling is yet another subculture caught in the streetwear web.

“I love that [the WWE] is working with smaller brands,” says Geiger, “It’s something that I can’t do without them and they can’t do without me. It’s true collaboration.”