YO! REEBOK PUMP UP, AIR OUT!

Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks was an early adopter of the Basketball Pump, but in the following months, different bladder designs would allow the technology to be added in a less bombastic ‘robo-shoe’ style. Why not shift to another type of court? Michael Chang was duly added to the Reebok roster. Chang was an appealing proto of the Energizer Bunny – fast and relentless – not to mention the youngest-ever male winner of a Grand Slam singles title (French). His signature model became known as the Court Victory and contained Hexalite as well as a nifty tennis ball trade on the usual basketball Pump mechanism. The same year saw the release of the Twilight Zone, arguably one of the finest basketball shoes of the time, taking Pump DNA and streamlining it. Getting the Chicago Bull’s John Paxson and Horace Grant on the books didn’t hurt either.
 
In 1991, Nike’s implementation of Pressure on their Force 180 and Air Command Force (endorsed by David Robinson and Woody Harrelson as ‘Billy Hoyle’) felt a little tokenistic, arguably ruining the silhouette of both shoes. This was the final year of Pressure, but for Reebok, Pump escalated into cross training (CXT and AXT), off-road (OXT ‘Off-road vehicles for your feet!’), golf shoes, walking shoes, aerobics shoes and running, with the Pump Running Dual a perfect example of how the technology could be pared down. At this point, six different modes of support were on offer – fullfoot, midfoot, collar, arch, footbed and the more elaborate Dual Chamber which required a switch on the heel to differentiate between bladders.