Air Jordan 8

Tinker Hatfield wanted the Jordan 8 to not feature a Nike sign. He thought the Jordan Brand was strong enough at this point to hold its own. Tinker brought up to Nike that the Jordan line was strong enough to start eliminating the Nike sign at the AJ VI. After Tinker was done telling his story, Nike pretty much laughed in his face.

It took a lot of time, and a lot of convincing to make this happen, but it finally went through. If you look at the Original Air Jordan VIII model you will notice there is no Nike sign.

The Air Jordan VIII started a lot of talk through sneaker heads, basketball players, or people that enjoyed a pair of Nike’s. The design was crazy, the AJ 8 also had a polycarbonate torsion plate, and to top it all off, the color ways blew people away.

A sad feature about the Air Jordan VIII was they were not as comfortable as other Air Jordan models. The straps (also called bunny ears) would make the shoe tight on the sides, so people with wide feet had a hard time wearing them. What the Jordan 8 did have going for it is: durabuck uppers, Air sole, Huarache inner sleeve and anti-inversion cross-straps (aka bunny ears).

In 1993 the Original Air Jordan VIII released in three color ways. The Color schemes were White/Black-True Red, Black/Bright Concord-Aqua Tone and Black-Black-True Red. They sold for $125.00. When 2003 came, Jordan Brand released two more models of the Air Jordan 8 selling for $135.00, also two low cut versions of the AJ VIII were released and sold for $110.00.
The Air Jordan VIII (8) was released in 1992/93. The Bulls got their third consecutive NBA title. Jordan himself got his seventh straight scoring title and reached a milestone in his NBA career when scoring his 20.000th point. Seemed as if nothing ever could stop this high flying athlete…

Hot and heavy
The eighth model of the Air Jordan was one heavy thing. Its base was clearly close to its predecessor but it had a lot more details, color and accents. It had cross-over velcro/leather straps and was so padded your foot got surprised.

Due to the thick padding the shoe was heavy and also easily got very warm. Who knows, maybe the heat could have been the reason why Michael was bothered with athlete’s foot infections during the season.

Where have all the flowers gone?
On the tounge of the White/Black and All-star versions you could almost make out a peace sign and some collectors came to call this the flower-power Air Jordan.

Very surprising was that this shoe was only made in three different color combinations. Previous models had sold very well and so did the Air Jordan VIII’s so it’s really a big surprise that Nike decided not to make more of these. Even the quantity of shoes being produced were lower than the Air Jordan 7 (VII)s.