Nike ad campaign nicknamed Michael Jordan the 'Black Mamba' years before Kobe Bryant adopted the persona

Chris Cwik Thu, February 26, 2026 at 4:18 PM UTC

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Roughly halfway through his Hall of Fame career, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant adopted one of the most iconic nicknames in NBA history. Bryant started referring to himself as the "Black Mamba." The nickname stuck, reaching a point where Bryant's final words as a Lakers player were "Mamba out," and the whole world knew what he meant.

But that pairing nearly never happened. Years prior to Bryant announcing himself as the "Black Mamba," Nike had other plans, ones that would have resulted in Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan going down in history as the "Black Mamba."

It all started with an ad campaign built around the Air Jordan 19 sneakers, per Baxter Holmes of ESPN. While working with a new sneaker material called Tech Flex, Nike executive Gentry Humphrey started thinking about snakes.

Humphrey decided to research "the most badass black snake there is," and immediately stumbled upon the black mamba.

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From there, the Nike team started building an ad campaign for the Air Jordan 19s built around that nickname and imagery. With that campaign in a pretty good spot, Nike ran into a pretty significant problem: Jordan didn't like snakes.

After trying to sell Jordan on the idea, the Bulls legend ultimately agreed to allow one ad to run before asking that the rest be changed. An advertisement of the Air Jordan 19s — with black mamba imagery — appeared in an issue of "ESPN: The Magazine" in 2004. After that, the sneakers were advertised without black mamba imagery.

A month after the Air Jordan 19s launched, the film "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" was released. It was that film — which mentioned a black mamba — that eventually inspired Bryant to later adopt the "Black Mamba" nickname and persona.

Bryant was referred to as "Mamba" in a 2005 article on ESPN, per Holmes. And appeared on the cover of SLAM Magazine in 2006 holding a snake. The nickname stuck, and Bryant ran with it, launching products featuring the nickname and eventually naming his book, "The Mamba Mentality: How I play."

In an alternate universe, none of that ever happened. If not for his intense fear of snakes, Jordan may have gone down as the NBA's "Black Mamba." Bryant almost certainly would have discovered a similarly fearsome nickname for himself years later, but it's tough to imagine that working out the same way given how synonymous the "Black Mamba" and Bryant became during, and after, his career.

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Source: “AOL Sports”