Zubaz
Zebra-striped, radically baggy, elastic everywhere — the workout pants pro wrestling's Road Warriors helped dream up for guys too big for regular jeans, which somehow ended up on NFL sidelines, in JCPenney, and on your uncle at every 1991 barbecue.
Zubaz began in 1988 with the Road Warriors — wrestlers Michael Hegstrand and Joseph Laurinaitis, Hawk and Animal — brainstorming with their gym-business partners about pants that could actually fit bodybuilders: comfortable, baggy, built for big guys at the gym or on the couch. The result was a wildly patterned, tapered-leg, elastic-waist design trademarked in 1989 under a name Laurinaitis has said came from nonsense playground slang in his native St. Paul. The slogan told you everything: "Dare to be Different."
The Road Warriors wore them on national wrestling broadcasts, and the look detonated. JCPenney picked up distribution, NFL stars like Dan Marino signed on, and the company reportedly sold $100 million worth of product in 1991 alone. For a few loud years, Zubaz were the official uniform of gyms, stadium parking lots, and dads who had never set foot in either.
The crash came almost as fast: the original business went bankrupt in 1996 as the look curdled into a punchline. But co-founders Bob Truax and Dan Stock bought back the trademark, revived the classic prints in 2007, and relaunched the brand fully in 2014 — even opening a store near Buffalo in 2016, a nod to the Bills fans who never stopped wearing them. The pants outlived the joke.
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