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Heated Rivalry: Sneakers Representing Legendary Sports Match-ups

Heated Rivalry: Sneakers Representing Legendary Sports Match-ups

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 15

They’re fashionable status items that lots of people love to collect, but let’s not forget that first and foremost, sneakers are athletic footwear. Most of the pairs we’ve come to know and love were originally created for competition, so it comes naturally that some of the great sports rivalries have been commemorated over the years. Whether it’s dipping someone’s signature shoe in enemy colors or packs that reference both sides of an ongoing war, these colorways get us up in arms just like the games.

Expressing rivalries with sneaker designs is a trend that’s been alive for at least four decades but has really accelerated of late with so many more different colorways releasing in recent years. And with sneaker designers increasingly looking to incorporate stories into their color and material recipes, we can only expect more moving forward. So with a couple of ‘Rival Packs’ on the horizon and the March Madness associated with the NCAA Mens’ Basketball Tournament right around the corner, let’s look back at some of the best rivals releases on record:

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 11

adidas Rivalry (1986)
Perhaps the first true example of a shoe with colorways designed specifically with an ongoing feud in mind went as far as using the concept for its name. adidas Consortium brought back the original Knicks and Bulls lows on Black Friday 2012.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 8

Ewing Athletics (1990-present)
Patrick Ewing braved the jump from adidas as the first star to start his own brand. Nike’s extremely successful Air Jordan line proved that a singular talent could take a company to new heights and MJ’s influence was so profound, his Chicago Bulls colors graced many of the original Ewing models.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 2

Reebok Pump Graphlite (1992)
Reebok’s ‘Dan & Dave’ ad campaign pitted America’s two most promising decathletes against one another in a Vector-branded race to Barcelona gold. Dan O’Brien’s pole vault failure at the US Olympic trials had him sitting on the sidelines both in real life and in the summer’s ongoing TV spots, as Dave Johnson went on to capture the bronze. It all turned out fine in the end, with O’Brien coming back to capture the gold in Atlanta four years later and the ‘secret weapon’ Graphlites returning this year.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 13

Jordan “6 Rings Packs” (2009)
Not too long after launching the Six Rings hybrid, Jordan Brand went through the teams on the other side of those NBA Finals contests. Each of these sets included a 6 Rings as well as two Air Jordan 1 Phat Lows in home/away colors for the five franchises Chicago defeated for their six NBA crowns.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 14

Air Jordan VI (2010)
About a year after all the ‘6 Rings’ packs, Jordan Brand once again gave us multiple releases in tribute to a title. These pairs referred to MJ’s first championship in 1991, when he finally got over the hump against the Detroit Pistons and then crushed the Lakers in the Finals. Not only had Chicago finally ascended to the game’s pinnacle, they did it by stomping out the two teams who had won the last four NBA titles.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 5

Nike Zoom Huarache 2 “Chicago Pack” (2011)
The lone baseball-themed entry on this list took one of Nike Training’s modern Huaraches and pitted it against itself with two Chi-town colorups. White Sox and Cubs pairs celebrated the city with insoles featuring subway maps and the team’s respective north/south affiliation by way of compass graphics.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 12

Air Jordan 4 “Cavs” (2012)
If you were going to create a backhanded tribute colorway as Jordan Brand has become increasingly fond of doing in recent years, there are few moments more fitting than ‘The Shot’. History says that the Richfield Coliseum was demolished in 1999, but we’d argue that Michael Jordan’s series-winning jumper over Craig Ehlo caused enough horrified gasps as to implode the Cavaliers’ old building a decade earlier.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 9

Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG (2013)
The original ‘NIKE AIR’ branding returned to the Air Jordan 1 High in 2013. Along with OG colorways, Jordan Brand introduced a few new styles based on teams related to Michael Jordan’s illustrious career. Among these was a pair with a parquet-detailed green and gold colorway referencing those great 1980s Boston Celtics, and one with a filmstrip texture calling out to MJ’s fellow high-flying dunking machine Dominique Wilkins.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 6

Air Jordan 1 Mid “Rivalry Pack” (2013)
The Air Jordan 1 Mid revisited those late ’80s Lakers and Pistons powerhouses with pairs released in the second quarter of last year. These pairs foreshadowed a handful of similarly themed AJ1s in both mid and low to come later in the year.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 3

Air Jordan VIII (2013)
There was a little confusion regarding the story behind this Air Jordan 8 Retro. Some people called them ‘Knicks’, others ‘Suns’. Jordan Brand may have found a perfect way of celebrating MJ’s third championship on its 20th anniversary by finding middle ground between the teams his Bulls conquered in the Eastern Conference and NBA Finals, respectively. Nobody mentioned the Cleveland Cavaliers also matching the accent colors (remember the black/blue/orange ‘Cavs’ Jordan 4 a few pages back), but coincidentally, they had been Chicago’s second round opponent. There was already a ‘Playoffs’ Jordan 8, but this one certainly represents the 1993 postseason in its own right.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 10

Air Jordan 1 “Formidable Foes Pack” (2013)
The Air Jordan 1 silhouette has been treated to so many colorways in recent years. 2013 followed the ‘Rivalry Pack’ pairs with more from the ‘Formidable Foes’ range, which went a bit wider both in the teams it covered and in including both the Air Jordan 1 Mid and Low silos. In addition to Finals opponents Suns and Sonics, the Atlanta Hawks were represented as they had been with the AJ1 Retro High OG.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 7

Fila “Tobacco Road Pack” (2013)
Fila gave us a unique way of seeing rivalry-themed sneakers with this duo last year. Instead of applying colors to a shoe that its signature athlete would have hated, these Grant Hill and Jerry Stackhouse sigs captured the bad blood that along with just ten miles separates Duke and UNC.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 4

Nike Air Trainer SC High “Alabama” (2013)
Three weeks before arguably the most exciting college football game ever played, Nike Sportswear cranked up the intensity in the Iron Bowl rivalry. The use of Air Jordan Elephant print on the Crimson Tide colorway was brilliant but the reason this pair made the list is the SC’s long history with Auburn alum Bo Jackson, including the Tigers-ish OG colorway.

Sneaker Rivalry Releases 1

Air Jordan 1 Retro KO High (2014)
The latest releases celebrating bad blood reach back to a period before the start of this list. Michael Jordan’s 1982 NCAA Championship-winning jump shot was the first time he got the best of Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing but not the last. Ewing’s Hoyas cut their own nets down in 1984, and these teams represent a golden period in college basketball. They’re pitted against each other in a two-pack of Air Jordan 1 KOs releasing this Saturday as well as two releases from mid-Atlantic skate shops on the Nike SB Dunk High a week later.

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