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New wrestling figures!


King Pitcos

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5 hours ago, Nick Soapdish said:

Bringing us nicely back to on topic as these are now at Smyths

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They just don't do it for me, I'm afraid. I can see why they made them, but for me personally the draw of the Hasbro's was that I had the exact same figure as a kid. The interest I have in starting to collect them, is to try and rekindle the same feelings I had as a young 'un, or to pick up the ones that I so desperately longed for, but never managed to get my hands on. I just don't see how buying a Hasbro style John Cena(for example), a bloke who wasn't around when I was in the early throws of my mega-fandom, will do that. If they had remade the actual figures they used to do, then it may have been different.

Those are just my opinions though, and other will have different motivations for buying the,,,

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Without a doubt, the appeal is 100% nostalgia, it's the reason why I decided to finish of the collection. They were a huge part of my childhood and I have loads of very fond memories that include hasbros. 

I don't have the same feeling towards the older LJN figures as they were slightly before me time. My brother who is slightly younger does like hasbros, but his heart lies more with the original JAKKS BCA figs from 96/97.

I have to give Mattel some credit for knocking this new line out. It's a decent attempt to reach out to a specific wrestling figure collector market who are spending good money on figures, but just not on theirs. On top of that, until now they have been hard to get hold of, limited release, exactly the kind of thing that catches the eye of collectors/completists. Now that that market has had its fill, they are starting to mass release in shops like smyths for a reasonable price in comparison to other lines. Due to that and them looking more cartoony with no small parts, they are ideal for the much younger fan.

I know a few collectors who paid £25-£30 each for these a couple of months ago.

Edited by Kaz Hayashi
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On 7/8/2017 at 10:51 AM, wandshogun09 said:

I bet Yoko and Bam Bam were a lot of peoples' last ones when you think about it. The set that had Gonzalez, Jannetty, Ludvig Borga etc wasn't really sold as widely over here, was it? Seems like there were only select places you could pick them up. So the Yoko/Bam Bam set were probably the last ones that were easy to find. 

Who else was in that Yoko set of Hasbros, actually? Yoko, Bigelow, was that the set Narcissist Luger was in as well? And Doink? 

I grew up in Inverness and the main place to get Hasbro's were Woolworths and Index. The last set I remember clearly seeing were the Purple Cards in 94 (Steiners, Doink, match attire DiBiase, blue singlet Jim Duggan). I bought Scott Steiner, Doink and Duggan, but remember the popularity of WWF at my primary school dipping around this time (in hindsight can remember nobody talking about Luger in a positive or negative manner, it was all still Warrior-Hogan-Macho). On a side-note, The Jolly Giant toy superstore was a good place to get figures at reduced prices if they were an out-of-date character. I remember picking up heel Boss Man (long after he'd been a face), Nailz and Greg Valentine cheap.

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4 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

They are the same scale as the Hasbros, seen reviews of them when they came out in the US that put them side by side with the old figures

There was talk earlier in the thread about the new ones being a different size, but if there's video proving everyone was spouting nonsense then fair enough.

I still don't like the chest joints. I can understand them not being able to use the same moulds as Hasbro's figures, obviously, but they could stay a little closer to the spirit of those designs.

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1 hour ago, Uncle Zeb said:

There was talk earlier in the thread about the new ones being a different size, but if there's video proving everyone was spouting nonsense then fair enough.

I still don't like the chest joints. I can understand them not being able to use the same moulds as Hasbro's figures, obviously, but they could stay a little closer to the spirit of those designs.

The chest joints are just for the two who do the FU type move aren't they?

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4 hours ago, Kaz Hayashi said:

I don't have the same feeling towards the older LJN figures as they were slightly before me time.

Spot on here. I get the appeal of those LJN's, but I jumped on board the WWF train when the hasbros were all over the place. I honestly couldnt tell you if they were even a big thing in this country, because my knowledge of LJN's were solely based on American collectors experiences. Were they around much over here? Cant recall them.

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59 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Spot on here. I get the appeal of those LJN's, but I jumped on board the WWF train when the hasbros were all over the place. I honestly couldnt tell you if they were even a big thing in this country, because my knowledge of LJN's were solely based on American collectors experiences. Were they around much over here? Cant recall them.

I'd personally never heard of the LJN's until I got back into wrestling years later. In fact, the only other wrestling figures I knew of were the WCW Galloobs(which although I had two, I couldn't really see the point of). 

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2 hours ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Spot on here. I get the appeal of those LJN's, but I jumped on board the WWF train when the hasbros were all over the place. I honestly couldnt tell you if they were even a big thing in this country, because my knowledge of LJN's were solely based on American collectors experiences. Were they around much over here? Cant recall them.

We didn't get them mate. We did get the bendie figures and the thumb wrestlers, but not the standard 'wrestling superstars' solid lumps.

It's funny, because I've found them at car boot sales before in typical 'emptying the attic' type stalls, not traders or obvious collectors. I always wondered how they would have come across such figures, especially if it ends up selling for 50p at Sedgefield racecourse. So I can only assume that it was picked up by the kid when he was on holiday in the US.

The final line (black cards) are the most rare due to LJN shutting up shop meaning far less were made and I think mainly knocked out in Canada. Some cool proto figures too.. so get your wallet back out Zack. From what I know, series 7 was never made and there haven't been any pics of said figures, or even sketches, but real images of the supposed line was promoted on the back of a million $ man card. (Image nicked from wfigs).

 

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Oh and Zeb, as mentioned the Mattel figs and Hasbro are almost exactly the same size. An interesting thing is the fact that JAKKS knocked out an LJN range of figs in the mid-late 2000's. They were often the chaser figure in the large containers that arrived at a store, they came with the classic superstars line from series 13, the first one being the undertaker. contained one of these. 

Some of them looked pretty nice as far as the statue style goes, such as the Eddie below... however, they were a Fucking entire inch smaller than the original LJN line. 

 

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Edited by Kaz Hayashi
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59 minutes ago, Uncle Zeb said:

Like Ultimate Warrior?

Yeah. Compared to taker, reigns and brock. Think of the old gorilla press hasbros but they go side to side on the body rather then back to forward in the arms. Look at the authentic move on the package 

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The black card LJN Hogan was featured on one of the Toy Hunter episodes. He buys it and sells it to one of the Black Eyed Peas who's a wrestling fan and collects retro toys.

As for the bendie LJNs I could never find Hulk. They had a 1985 production date on them IIRC so there was characters which weren't available in the Hasbro line like JYD, Big John, Animal Steele et al. They had bendie managers too like Capt Lou and Bobby The Brain. Did the whole lot get a UK release or just selected ones?. I had JYD, Andre, Hot Rod, Studd, Orndorff and Steele. 

protos.jpg

Edited by Really Big Shoe
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If I knew as a kid there was a figure line that included managers, I might have had to find someway to get over there and buy them all. Did we get a reason why there wasnt a manager series in the Hasbro line? You cant tell me Heenan and Jimmy Hart wouldnt have sold as many or more than the likes of Koko B Ware or El Matador.

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Never really been explained and I agree it's a massive shame. I can only assume Hasbro didn't think kids wanted to play with managers... so wrong.. especially when there were re-releases of exactly the same figure in different series, such as tatanka.

On a similar note, I can understand why guys like diesel missed out on a figure, even though planned, but it was due to when he joined and when the line was coming to an end. 

But for every Bezerka and Warlord, you were missing a Barbarian. For every savage and warrior you were missing a Jim powers... inexcusable!

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Had to look up JLN as I didn't know what they were and it turns out I had one! My nan used to pick up any wrestlers she could get her hands on from car boots and I had this useless figure of JYD. Probably still have it at my mums. It was a bendy one but you couldn't do anything with it.

Image result for Junkyard Dog WWF LJN

I think the Galoob WCW toys being stuck in position was a major factor in me choosing a side when I got into wrestling. I had a Sid Vicious in a pink singlet, Ric Flair that couldn't do a figure four, two Stings, one with salmon coloured tights, one in really cool black tights but with a hand missing, Lex Luger figure that was in a position to carry two mini rolls perfectly but couldn't do a torture rack and one of Doom, but couldn't tell which. The best one was PS Hayes because he had cool tights and facepaint. 

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