Crapper Jonathan Stefancin writes:
Have you ever been able to find video of Ahmed Johnson in his original flame/fire tights? I haven’t but you’re the YouTube guru around here.
Photos of this ran in WWF magazine and I think there was even a photo of him against Skip The Body Donna wearing this ring gear but nothing found online.
I’ve never seen him wrestle on TV in those. Maybe he wore them for some dark matches or house shows?
Man; with those pants combined with the one earring we can see, he looks like some kind of angry gay stripper (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, or angry for that matter).
Oof…
Crappers; have you ever seen him wrestle in these tights/pants before? If you can find a clip of him wearing them, please post it in the comments section below!
Thanks for the submission, Jonathan!
Drew Bludd sent in this magazine article with another picture of Ahmed in the trunks.
Maybe Vince was looking to branch out and create “Harlem Heat North”?
On another note, what was the deal with Ahmed and the two sets of kneepads he would wear to the ring? Was he pulling a Ric Flair, but in reverse, seeing as Flair always wore his kneepads below his knees, and Ahmed wore his second pair on his thighs?
Ha!
Flair wore his pads low in order to hide his non-existent calves (a story he has confirmed on more than one occasion). As for Ahmed’s giant dual set of kneepads, I always assumed that maybe it was injury-related from his days in the NFL or something.
Didn’t the Harlem Heat wear something similar?
Yes, yes they did.
Didn’t Ahmed go to WCW and wrestle as part of the ‘new’ Harlem Heat alongside Stevie Ray as Big T? Could this picture be from then?
Yes, he did; but by that point he was… not as buff as he was in WCW. The picture is from his WWF run for sure, not his later WCW run.
This is a publicity photo from before his WWF debut. There was an article in WWF Magazine about this new superstar that had this photo and one of him in the ring pressing Chris Candido over his head. When he debuted on WWF TV his was by then wearing the small red trunks instead of these full leg/pants flame design.
Also, I’m not typing in all caps but it appears to be going in that way.
Yeah, sorry about that. It’s a bug with WordPress.
I hate to be a freudian-slip-stickler, but:
“with those pants combined with the one EATING we can see”
Let’s hope he’s not going to throw his giant package through the window of a McDonalds!
Ha! Damn typos. Fixed! Thanks.
Paul’s idea that he may have only worn these during dark matches is probably correct. But that’s not to suggest that videos of these pre-debut efforts don’t exist. I seem to remember a dark match of Brock Lesnar losing to Mr Perfect via the Perfect Plex. Brock’s “gimmick”, if that, was not yet of the monstrous “Next Big Thing” but as an amateur wrestler (a la Alex Porteau) and he was sporting bright blue “Face Randy Orton” style tights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwuLB4419Og
I remember seeing some pictures of Kurt Angle wearing black tights while wrestling “Dude Love II” Stevie Richards in a dark match. This was in one of the WWF magazines. I also recall promo shots of Team Angle/World’s Greatest Tag Team in plain singlets…
Kurt in black tights…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGez2RgY5fM?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360]
I’d have preferred if he wore these during his WWF run instead of those trunks that seemed to convert into a thong during his matches…
I saw “Ahmed Johnson” and “hot pants” and assumed this would be about his infamous wedgie-prone tights.
Sorry to disappoint. 🙂
those tights must’ve partially inspired solofa fatu’s rikishi look
It’s pretty sad that we all made references to Harlem Heat when we saw this photo. Either when Ahmed first came to WWF, or when he went to WCW. 😛
The only thing I can add is…. “Eat a reef!”.
Vince: “Kids love this Urkel character, hike up your pants!” (Higher than Corey Haim)
I could very much imagine Vince saying that…
There’s only one thing to say here.
SAND RIPPA!
“IF YOU WANNA STAMP UP! TO PUNCHY! BACON OFF!”
What exactly did somebody buy here? I know I’m not buying your logic in posting this.
Well; Ahmed (presumably) bought the pants… and also I wanted to help a Crapper get his question answered Plus, the pants looked stupid and made me laugh. So there you go. 🙂