Hi, just registered to give my opinion about these. I’m an old head and comparing the Air Span II to the Air Base II release I would say Nike has learned from their mistakes. I hope they fired the guy that thought it would be nice to have a yellow midsole at the Base II’s, not thinking about the fact that Base II’s would never get yellow at all..… And also the missing of the name at the heel and at the tongue was a big, big mistake. And the shape of those where off, totally off…
Now we have a Nike Air Span II with lettering at the heel and also a at the tongue: nice! And also a normal white midsole. The colours they used are pretty accurate comparing them with the OG’s. The shape is not perfect but could be much worse as we have seen at the Base II’s and much other Nike-retro-releases!
In my case they fit a half size up, I wear them in a size US 9.5 where I normally wear a US 9. After a tight lacing they fit me perfect, like a glove. And when I walk on them I feel like I’m walking on clouds: Nike Air as it supposed to be!
Back in the days this was the first Nike Air-shoe I learned to know. A week later I saw a first pair Air Stabs. Especially all those letterings / visible airunit at the Stabs / bright colourways triggered me to become a Nikehead at 1989.
Offcourse I have owned some OG pairs Air Span (II) over the years and in the EU where I live they are very collectible in the OG-sneakerscene. So offcourse the price of a DS-pair Spans would be aroud $ 500.- or up. The retailprice back in the days was around $ 150.- in the EU. Now after 30 years they can be bought for $ 100.- including free shipping. For me as a old head that’s a party, I have bought several pairs (enough for the next 20 years) of the released OG-colourways: for this price I’m not taking any chances to miss on them in a outlet.
That being said I want to say something about the non-OG-CW’s. I don’t like them at all, I think it’s almost a insult to the model. Some of them don’t even look like a Span anymore due the overwelming colours. Only the white / bordeaux CW is classic and fits the model. Probably this is where I need to understand that the OG-heads don’t like them and the “kids” nowadays like these kind of colourways and not the OG-CW’s. It’s hard to understand for me: I’m getting old, or, maybe: I just am old
To conclude: I think this is one of the best retro’s Nike has produced the last decade and after the Air Base II-debacle this is a relieve.
(sorry for my english, it’s not my first language as you probably have read)
