Released in 2004 and modeled after the black mamba snake, this is the first Jordan release after his third, and final, retirement which came after the 2002-2003 NBA season. Two original colorways where released: white/flint grey and black/red. Three regional colorways and three special edition colorways were released. They consisted of the East, West, and Midwest edition for regular and West, East, and Olympic for the SE (special edition).

The Air Jordan XIX used innovative materials. The upper section of shoe was developed in collaboration with Material ConneXion Inc. from a sleeving normally used in architectural applications for protecting PVC pipes from bursting. In theory, this allowed for a lace-less shoe because the sleeving does not stretch, however the Air Jordan XIX model did include a set of laces behind the sleeve to better secure the shoe.