Blankets have long been a part of our lives, providing warmth and comfort. But did you know that wrestling-themed blankets have a unique history of their own?
The story of wrestling blankets starts with a love for the sport. Like other young wrestling fans, they would call each other to discuss the storylines in their wrestling figure promotions. These two had a love for wrestling like many fans, at an early age.
They would begin their careers in depths lower than the backyard, the basement. Laying down pillows and blankets, Lee & Parker would start wrestling in the basement before moving on to the backyard.
After putting their time in on their backyard federation, wrestling under not so creative names like Hulk Hogan, they’d begin to develop their own creative personas.
Our luxuriously soft blankets are available in two different sizes and feature incredible artwork on the top surface. The bottom surface is white. Our 100% polyester blankets are available in two different styles: plush fleece and sherpa fleece.
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Plush fleece blankets are soft and fluffy on both sides, whereas sherpa blankets are smooth like a soft sweater on the artwork side (i.e. shorter threads) which provides for a sharper image. Looking for a recommendation? Go with a 60" x 80" plush fleece blanket. It's soft and luxurious on both sides... the artwork looks incredible... and the size is just right for everyone. Machine wash cold and tumble dry with low heat.
A sleeved blanket is a body-length blanket with sleeves usually made of fleece or nylon material. It is similar in design to a bathrobe but is meant to be worn backwards (i.e., with the opening in the back). The product has been marketed by various brands but the original company was Slanket created by Gary Clegg, then other companies like Snuggie, Snuggler, Doojo, Oodie and Toasty Wrap, copying the brand later.
The product became famous after a direct response commercial promoting the product was aired. It was featured on television programs like Today, where cast and crew donned Snuggie blankets for a segment, which was described as looking like a Black Protestant choir.
Others have described mass-snuggie wearing as looking like a Harry Potter convention. The Associated Press likened it to a "monk's ensemble in fleece" and proclaimed it the "ultimate kitsch gift". The Slanket was mentioned in an episode of NBC's 30 Rock entitled "The Ones".
On January 30, 2009, a group organized a pub crawl wearing Snuggies in Cincinnati. In the following months, they went on to complete over 40 more across the nation. On March 5, 2010, at a Cleveland Cavaliers game, Snuggie wearers broke a world record for sleeved blanket wearing.
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Over 22,500 fans wore custom-made, limited edition Cavaliers Snuggie blankets for 5 minutes. The Slanket was created by Gary Clegg using a sleeping bag in Maine in 1998 (before the Snuggie). Clegg's mother made him a blanket with a single sleeve for use in his cold dorm room. The Snuggie sleeved blanket product has been sold in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The rock band Weezer released its own Snuggie blanket in November 2009, which is available in solid blue, green and burgundy with the name "Weezer" on it in white font.
A trade court ruled that the product should be classified as a blanket, rather than clothing, as government lawyers had been trying to claim.
WWE’s Attitude Era is closely associated to so many groundbreaking moments, but nothing quite compares to the seismic ascent of the Wu-Tang Clan of sports-entertainment factions, The Nation of Domination. Besides bringing the ruckus inside the squared circle, these were a barrier-breaking bunch who changed the game forever.
Within its star-studded weight are WWE Hall of Famers, World Heavyweight Champions, in-ring mavens and a trail-blazing, eyebrow-raising People’s Champ - all proof that the greatness of its whole is equal to that of its individual parts. The Nation had many members in its day, but its most impactful roster was comprised of Ron Simmons, D-Lo Brown, The Godfather, Mark Henry and The Rock.
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These game-changing Superstars shook up the industry with unapologetic pride and absolute domination. Before taking over the WWE Universe by any means necessary, The Nation of Domination got off to a slow start with Ron Simmons, then known as Faarooq, planting the seeds at Survivor Series 1996.
He formally introduced the faction’s first multicultural incarnation at Royal Rumble 1997, featuring the likes of Crush, PG-13 and Clarence Mason. Savio Vega would join the ranks a week later.
D-LO BROWN: Before I got the call from WWE to come up, The Nation was already running strong for five months with Ron Simmons, Crush, Savio Vega and PG-13 as the two hype men. They also had Clarence Mason as the lawyer. I didn’t know exactly what the details were for my position, Jim Cornette just told me to be in New York on a Saturday.
MARK HENRY: I grew up watching wrestling, so I wanted to be like Ernie Ladd. I wanted to be like Tiger Conway, Sr., and Tiger Conway, Jr. I grew up watching Tony Atlas, Kamala, the list goes on. They were black role models for me in wrestling.
BROWN: To rewind back some years, looking at someone like Ron Simmons on TV, I saw a man who looked like me and he opened that door for me to even believe I could be in wrestling. When I saw guys like Butch Reed and Simmons, I was like, “Man, there’s actually black guys that don’t suck in the wrestling ring and are actually beating people up.
RON SIMMONS*: Talking to [Mr. BROWN: When I first joined The Nation, I was alongside Savio Vega, Crush, Clarence Mason and PG-13 for about three or four months. I came in around January 1997 and by March, I remember my first WrestleMania, WrestleMania 13 - it was The Nation vs. The Road Warriors in a Chicago Street Fight.
By the time of Survivor Series, we had The Gang Warz and we’d all broken up by then and they went on to create their own factions - Savio with Los Boricuas and Crush with The Disciples of Apocalypse. A week after Savio Vega and Crush caused Faarooq to lose a match against Ahmed Johnson and The Legion of Doom on the June 9, 1997, edition of Monday Night Raw, The Nation leader fired his entire roster, except for D-Lo Brown.
That following week, he introduced the WWE Universe to the newest recruits: Kama Mustafa, formerly known as Papa Shango, and Ahmed Johnson. This marked the beginning of a new chapter, but The Nation’s road to domination would experience a few bumps along the way.
THE GODFATHER: This is a true story, the thing about me is I love wrestling, I respect the business, I’ve made money in this business and I’m in the Hall of Fame. Man, I couldn’t have had a better career in WWE. But what most people don’t realize is, wrestling was always my second job.
I always had clubs in Las Vegas. I’ve probably made as much money in the clubs as I’ve made in wrestling, but that was my job. I got into wrestling because I was such a crazy dude that it was a way for me to escape and have fun. At the time, I was coming back as Papa Shango, more menacing and a little bit more serious.
I showed up at TV, I don’t remember where it was, thinking I was going to be Papa Shango or the reincarnation of Papa Shango, and Vince called me to the office and said, “Change of plans, we’re going to call you Kama Mustafa and we’re going to put you in The Nation of Domination.
Ultimate Warrior is left writhing in pain after Papa Shango puts a curse on him. See more than 25 exciting new hours of Superstars from the 1990s, available exclusively on WWE Network.
HENRY: Godfather had been around forever. Him and Undertaker were best friends. They had been around since the beginning.
GODFATHER: I became part of the crew, and I was cool with it. At the time, I didn’t know Ron Simmons that well, and that was my first time really meeting [him].
BROWN: From there, Godfather, just became crazy more confident. Ron was like the dad of us all, he was just running the ship.
HENRY: Even though The Nation was a functioning group, everybody didn’t get along. I think everybody hated Ahmed Johnson. I can’t speak for everybody, but I could tell you he was not liked and he was a damn liar. He would rather tell a lie and climb a tree than stay on the ground and rake the leaves.
GODFATHER: Ahmed, he just didn’t get it. I’ll let it go at that. SIMMONS**: Me, being the man that I am, said, “Listen, this is what they want to do with you. The man likes you, he sees nothing but promise in you.” Then they say, “Let’s put him in The Nation.” First word that come out of [Ahmed Johnson’s] mouth was that he wants to be the leader.
GODFATHER: He just never picked it up and got it. I think it was more about him, than about everything else. [Whereas] with us, it was about the business and doing a good job. HENRY: I think [people] not wanting to be associated with him is what killed him. Ron Simmons hated his guts.
On the night of Aug. 18, 1997, a new member joined the ranks of The Nation of Domination. A young Superstar with beaming potential, he struggled to endear himself to the WWE Universe in the months since his November 1996 in-ring debut. His name was Rocky Maivia.
GODFATHER: Vince called me and Ron Simmons into the office when they were going to put Dwayne [“The Rock” Johnson] in The Nation and honestly, I didn’t know who he was. I knew his father, Rocky Johnson, really well. Ron knew who he was, and so Vince said he was going to put [Dwayne] in The Nation and once [fans] got through hating the kid, he would be the biggest thing wrestling had ever seen.
SIMMONS**: [Dwayne] was struggling for a minute [at that time]. They tried to do the same traditional thing with him. HENRY: He was always thinking of something. A lot of times, you’d be talking to [Dwayne] in the car about anything and then all of a sudden it would be one-hundred percent silence.
Then, you’d look over there and he’d have a look on his face. You’d be like, “Man, what you thinking about?” and he’d go, “I’m tryna figure out how to get this in my match.” He would have the matches in his head and copy it in the ring. He lived wrestling, twenty-four hours a day. That was the difference between him and everybody else. We would have wrestling on our minds, three or four hours a day. Even when he wasn’t wrestling, he was thinking about it.
SIMMONS*: My fondest memory is when we were getting ready to go live during Raw with [Mark Henry] and [he] was just walking into The Nation. HENRY: Well, me and Dwayne were talking about it in the car and [he] was saying, “Hey, I think that we gonna bring you in to The Nation and have you be like the muscle.” I’m like, “That’s cool.” When they came to me with [the idea], I was already up for it, I just acted like I didn’t know nothing.
SIMMONS: [Mark] was still young. He was still distracted with a lot of things out there. HENRY: I think my maturation process went in overdrive when I had Ron Simmons and Dwayne both saying, “Hey man, this is what you need to do...” I had been in the business for a while, but it was like master class being able to sit, watch, stand up ringside and be security.
BROWN: We were all trying to work forward for a goal to make this Nation thing work. We all wanted to add to the puzzle of what we were, and we wanted to bring our uniqueness to it. Being in the Nation allowed you to experiment and try to find the thing that would add to your character.
In the months after The Rock and Mark Henry’s arrival, The Nation plundered the likes of Los Boricuas, The Head Bangers, and The Disciples of Apocalypse. By Dec. 1997, The Rock added championship gold to the group when he became two-time Intercontinental Champion.
GODFATHER: When that entrance theme song hit, “We are The Nation…,” people hated us. They just hated us [Laughs], and we loved it. HENRY: It was no punks in that group. The last thing you wanted to do was get into a physical altercation with us. That wasn’t on people’s minds too much. But there were a couple of times where we had to go into the building with blankets over our heads in the backseat because if the people saw us in the car, they would beat the car to death.
They totaled the car coming out of The Garden. We couldn’t even make it to the airport. Like, they beat the car to where the carburetor got shoved in. SIMMONS*: When it got out in the streets, you had to keep that separation with [Nation of Islam] to let them know [it was] no disrespect, because there was a time where we were in Chicago, I was at the [hotel] front desk doing something, I’m [dressed] in full Faarooq [gear], and lo and behold they were having a conference there.
So, [one of the members] spotted me at the desk, and said, “This is wonderful! Would you come in, brother, and just say a few things for the crowd, just to get the conference started?” I was like, “Just give me a moment, I’ll be right back.” So, I call [JBL] and I’m like, “John, please rush down here right now.
BROWN: Matches to me are blended together, except my matches with X-Pac. I could probably tell you everything that happened in every match. The chemistry was there. Our bad matches were really good.
HENRY: Everybody that was in DX, it wasn’t uncommon for Ron Simmons to be wrestling Shawn Michaels and The Rock wrestling Triple H, and me and D’Lo against Billy and Road Dogg. That’s three matches on the card without Godfather wrestling.
BROWN: I think the peak of The Nation was right before Rocky started to take over. When [he] started taking over, we kind of had an understanding that The Nation was going to start falling apart. HENRY: Dwayne was going the opposite direction, and he was The Rock. Me and D-Lo went our merry way, and The Nation eventually kind of dissolved. Kama became The Godfather and started doing his own thing.
Me and D-Lo was what was left of The Nation, and D-Lo started the chest protector thing and became his own deal. BROWN: When the Nation was done, we all left Nation better in our careers than [when] we started. I usually think when factions break up, you may have your standalone guy, who the faction was built around, keep going.
SIMMONS*: As you know, most of those factions like that can turn out to be either great or [disastrous] but, in this case it just so happened that all of us came into it with individual personalities and we had something that we’ve already built off of and the best part out of it was this: that we all cared and loved each other.
BROWN: Here, you got these four, five strong and young black men standing up for themselves. GODFATHER: These were all guys that had come up the hard way. HENRY: The Nation came in and said we ain’t taking no shortcuts, I don’t care who you are or what group you in. We’re here to dominate, so get the hell out of our way.
Trace the evolution of an icon with The Rolling Stones "Tongue History" Silk Touch Throw Blanket, featuring a vibrant collage of the band's legendary tongue logos through the decades. From classic designs to bold artistic reinterpretations, each version stands out against a sleek black background, creating a striking tribute to rock's most recognizable emblem.