BarberShopWindow.com: Wrestling Merchandise I'd Actually Wear

In all my years of fandom, I have purchased a total of 5 shirts: NWO, NWO Wolfpac, Andre The Giant, EC F'N W and the yellow CM Punk Nexus shirt.

Am I embarassed to admit I like wrestling in public? No, although I do feel that way at times while watching something particularly horrible. The reason I never purchase wrestling t-shirts is that they are consistently some of the worst designs I have ever seen. Browse WWEShop.com sometime and it's easy to notice that most shirts had very little time put into them, with Sin Cara's famous penis shirt being a good example.

But don't fret! In a case where someone had a good idea and went with it, they made a success out of what a giant corporate entity doesn't have the business sense to even see. While I would love to go on a rant about how Corporate America ruined Professional Wrestling on a national level, this isn't about that. This is about a fantastic upstart company by the clever name of BarberShopWindow.com.

Just one look at the "Overstock Bin" section will clearly display that these guys are top notch designers. It also becomes obvious that they are actually die-hard wrestling fans as well, which makes me want these guys to succeed even more. After the jump look at some of these shirts and tell me they wouldn't sell well if sold at Hot Topic:

I spend a lot of time on this blog pointing out the shortcomings of those in power at the major companies, so it is refreshing when someone sees how they are failing their fan base and utilizes that to their benefit.

Most of my friends who enjoy professional wrestling are really smart, I would usually put them in the top 25% of intelligence in the country, defying the oft told stereotype. THIS is the audience WWE neglects and ignores, the intelligent "smart" fan who wants to enjoy a product that doesn't insult their intelligence. It would be difficult and stupid to cater to this audience exclusively on the television properties. It would be easy and smart to cater to this audience on the merchandising front.

It should't be long before someone in WWE, TNA, ROH or hell maybe even UFC offers these guys a lot of money to join their team. BarberShopWindow.com are presently selling some shirts for ROH and indie talent, but these seem to be items that were created upon the request of the talent and not from the company itself. It says something when unsigned independent talent are bright enough to get a t-shirt made that people will actually wear, but none of the high paid executives in any of the companies ever contemplated this.