Top 7 Pro Wrestling Boots

Sometime in the last few weeks, this whole thing with WWE & AEW blew up into a war. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but there’s definitely been an uptick in the smack talked between the wrestlers & fans of these two promotions. One of the strangest parts of this dispute has to be the sneaker war between the Young Bucks and AJ from the Most Wanted Treasures show on A&E.

Hold on. Ah. I’m being told he’s now known as Top Dolla of Hit Row, the massively popular NXT faction that recently got called up to SmackDown. OK. In any event, there was some smack talked between Mr. Dolla & the Bucks about the sneakers people wore on television. I think we were supposed to care about whether or not the shoes the Young Bucks wore on TV were real or not, and we were also supposed to care about what they wore off of television. I did not, but I am not the average person that spends all day on Wrestling Twitter trying to get clout amongst reprobates.

As little as I cared about this whole situation, it did get me thinking. Who wore the best shoes/boots in the history of pro wrestling? It wasn’t Top Dolla or the Young Bucks, I can promise you that. Here’s a magnificent list!

7. Jake Roberts’ Snakeskin Boots

Jake The Snake was my very first favorite wrestler. I’d like to say it was because of his superior in-ring psychology, but it was probably more due to the snake. Kids love pets, what can I say? A few years before I started watching, kids loved the British Bulldogs because they walked Matilda to the ring. Koko B. Ware had Frankie. Jake had Damien. Jake also had cool looking ring attire, including his snakeskin boots.

Hindsight being 20/20, it does seem strange for a man that kept a snake as a pet to also wear snakeskin boots. Mixed signals, right? Eh, it is what it is.

6. The Loaded Boot

As it was explained, Len Denton had one leg that was a little bit longer than the other. Therefore, he needed to wear lifts in his boots that kept things evened out. Otherwise, his opponents would have had quite the competitive advantage. The state athletic commissions bought this argument, so The Grappler was able to compete with medically approved boots. Of course, there would be a point in every Grappler match where he would kick his boot against the mat a couple of times while the referee wasn’t looking, then he would deliver a kick to his opponent that looked a little bit more devastating than his usual strikes.

His opponents would complain that he was loading his boot, but the man had medical permission to wear it, and they couldn’t prove that there was anything in the boot other than his feet. Just one of those things you had to be ready for against The Grappler, or other wrestlers that had questionable foot attire.

5. Rick Steiner’s Non-Matching Boots

The Dogfaced Gremlin was always a different cat. Early on in his career the story was that even though Rick was a gifted wrestler, he wasn’t exactly the brains of the operation. He had an imaginary friend named Alex. He easily fell prey to the charms of “Robin Green”, later known as Woman. Oh, and he’d also bark like a dog & run around the ring. A subtle way to play into his mental aptitude, or lack thereof, was for him to wear wrestling boots that didn’t match. You didn’t see many wrestlers doing that, and you still don’t!

4. John Cena’s Reebok Pumps

I know this one will get me some heat. Or at least it would have back when I started writing on this website, which was way too long ago. Back in the day, wrestling writers weren’t allowed to like anything about John Cena. Even if we saw the potential, or thought he was a good speaker, or that he wasn’t completely awful in the ring…we weren’t allowed to like John Cena. The readers would have none of that nonsense. Of course, with lots of hindsight, now many of those same readers are ok with some John Cena. Funny how things work out.

Here’s the thing: I always wanted some Reebok Pumps as a kid of the 1990s. Never got them. Then John Cena starts wearing them in the 2000s as part of his wrestling gimmick. Why wouldn’t I get behind that? PUMP IT UP! Absolutely tremendous. HATE ALL YOU WANT! I loved the Reebok Pumps. Sorry!

3. Cowboy Wrestling Boots

If you happen to be in my age group, which I’ve learned from reading the comments on these things most of you are, you remember a certain style of wrestling boot popular amongst Texan wrestlers of the 1980s & 90s. An eagle would be on the front half of the leg, while the back half would have lines running down it, typically with the wrestler’s name written on it. Dusty Rhodes made it famous, but the person I most associate with it is Barry Windham. Which makes sense, as Barry was practically one of Dusty’s sons. Long before everybody in NXT became a Dusty kid, Barry learned at the feet of the American Dream.

Which is kinda weird because Barry’s father was also a very famous wrestler, that crazy Blackjack Mulligan. And maybe Barry would horribly disagree with my take on the situation, if you will. But my childhood memories involve Barry & Dustin Rhodes wearing those cowboy boots, then Barry wearing them later on as part of the New Blackjacks, which were much better action figures than wrestlers at that point in time. Unfortunately, the Barry Windham of the late 1990s couldn’t hold a candle to the Barry Windham of the late 1980s, who looked ready to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. We had this discussion during the recent Ric Flair list. I’m getting off topic, the point I’m trying to make here is that those cowboy wrestling boots were nice.

2. Persian Boots

While I’m not sure who the first evil Middle Eastern pro wrestler was, I can tell you who the most famous ones were. Any conversation on the topic has to start with The Sheik, who wreaked havoc in rings across the world and was one of pro wrestling’s top heels for at least two decades. Two of the things that made him stand out from the pack were on his feet. The curl at the end of the boot looks dangerous. You could put an eye out with that thing if you point it a certain way! How is that even legal? Obviously, the Persian boot was a custom for Sheik’s people going back centuries, so it had to be allowed.

The Persian boot became a staple of Middle Eastern born or billed wrestlers. Including the man who would become the most famous transitional champion of all time. He built the bridge from one American hero to another. Of course we’re talking about the Iron Sheik, who has credited the original Sheik & Jimmy Snuka for giving him the idea of wearing the dreaded Persian boots. Sheiky Baby would also load the darn thing up like he was The Grappler. Just an evil individual, which is why we love him so. If there’s one thing I want to happen as a result of this particular column, it’s some young wrestler reading it and realizing that loading their boot would be a great gimmick. It definitely needs to make a comeback.

1. Furry Boots

To the best of my knowledge, Bruiser Brody was the man who popularized the furry boot. He might not have been the first, but he was certainly the most famous. John Nord, shown in the above video as the Berzerker, utilized a lot of Brody’s mannerisms in his own act, and also wore furry boots. Since he was a viking it seemed to fit. Later on, Jimmy Jacobs would wear furry boots very early in his career as part of his Barbaric Berzerker gimmick. Traci Brooks was the first woman I know of to wear furry boots in the ring, and Taya Valkyrie would bring the fur back to WWE when she became Franky Monet.

We all know that the man then known as Daniel Bryan made history when he won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XXX. What you may not remember is that Bryan had fur on his boots for the occasion. He explained to WWE.com that he wore the fur in honor of Brody. Though Brody was about a foot taller & a hundred pounds heavier than Bryan, his reputation as a true pro wrestling outsider was something that the anti-Authority Daniel Bryan character could identify with. They were also both highly intelligent men with questionable grooming habits.

Have a better idea for a magnificent wrestling list? Hit me up at [email protected], or @stevecook84 on the Twittah!