Making The Transition

I remember the first time i saw the ttl figures i did not like them i wanted the bca series to keep going i bought two from the first ttl set and put them on a shelf in my room most of my ttl's were for display only i never really played with them.I got out of collection when the r-3 tech came out and i did not get back into collection until the classic series came out i seen the first set at wal-mart and i bought triple h (i still kick myself for not getting hbk) when i got back into collecting i decided i was only going to collect classic superstars and triple h stuff. from then on i have not looked back.

I remember I welcomed the change of bca to TTL since I didn't have that big of a bca collection and ttl's played much better. But i remember at first thinking that the ttl scans were awful. At first I didn't really like R3 as they were smaller and really thin. I didn't really like the part choices. The switch from R3 to RA was great since i didn't own that many R3's and all my ttl's were in scale. My switch to mattel has been fine since I only had 6 Ra's (cena, hhh, batista...who i customized and added tats, and all 3 members of legacy...i turned a dibiase into sheamus). I'm using orton, batista, and sheamus with my 8 mattel figures...and i'm gonna try and get rid of my cena, hhh, and rhodes

My first wrestling figs were either Remcos or LJNs. I loved the Remcos -- my brother and I got as many as we could. Flair, the Road Warriors, Rick Martel, Baron Von Rashke, Brunzell and Gagne, Regal and Garvin, and so on. I never liked LJNs much. I had Hogan, JYD, and maybe a couple of others. Cheap rubber compared to the Remcos that had cloth attire (Flair's figure was rocking his robe way back then), accessories, belts, and actual moving parts. Even as a kid I hated toys that seemed like the people who made them didn't care. There wasn't much cross-play between my Remcos and LJN, since I couldn't really "play" with the LJNs. I did like to carry my Hogan around though.

I didn't buy or collect any wrestling toys after that until I became a collector as an adult. Honestly, Hasbro, Galoob, and Jakks BCA figures all look pretty funny and stumpy to me, so I would never have been interested. I didn't really love Jakks RA-style figures when I first saw them, either. Something about the big thighs and weird proportions. But the great headscans and detail of the classics line won me over. And the sheer range of the line! I never would have become such a big collector without the lure of all the NWA and older territories wrestlers.

As for the current transition, I don't expect to be collecting Mattel WWE figures, unless they make a classics line that extends beyond A-list WWF/E stars. I just don't see that happening. As for the figures themselves, I like the improved scale and more realistic proportions, but I don't like the less-detailed head sculpts and weirdly sculpted musculature. As the board transitions to being more Mattel oriented, I'll probably end up being left behind.

wow, g8 idea for a thred man...
well honestly for me it was a long road...lol my first wrestling figures were the wwf ljns... got the big ring, hulk hogan,big john studd,jyd and a number of others in the first few sets...

however a few speciffic memories i have is, the king kong bundy figure was super hard to find forawhile...most likely is surge to top heel in wwf with his fued with hogan...

i did eventully get him after a long search...
but then i was introduced to the world of remco figures (which came out before the ljns but not in my area due to limited distrobution i guess)


and i was faced with a aggravation that would last until jakks CS collection...
on the one hand the ljns represented the mega star power of the wwf and had some cool accessories...

but they were posed solid rubber and honestly the ring should have been bigger with a leg in the middle to take the pounding of them landing on it all the time...

they were representing the larger then life wwf charecters, but it was really hard to get a good match out of them...a good see saw battle...

and the ljn mat would eventully curve in after a few months of matches and in one body slam match i had with bundy,studd and long hair andre actully crack!

yet on the other hand one remco became available it was fresh star power that wasnt offered in the ljn line...guys like ric flair, the road warriors,baron von rashki, the long riders and may others... they came with better accessories( except for there belt..a sticker on plastic vs the ljn belt that was a molded design)

they fit much better in the ljn ring and you could pull off really good moves from power house basics to high flying excitement.. even tricky moves like the suplex and pile driver came out better with them then the rubber guys...

they also had the one big thing that ljn sadly skipped....you could pose them...there heads arms waist and leggs all moved thus making moves more cool looking when ya did em...

i thought back then that if only they bent at the knees and elbows we be all set...

but for as good as all that was with the remcos...for the big names they did have to a old school multiple federation fan such as myself even at that age...the big lacking thing is... they couldnt match the over all star power of the ljn roster...

so as with im sure many other kids of that time, i was annoyed that the road warriors looked like midgets next to bundy and studd...but i still combined the collections and had those big dream matches.. unfortunetly trying to beat up bundy and studd made the warriors loose as all heck...

since then i had tried other lines with little or no real joy... the hasbros were cool in there own way..we got more body parts that moved but often the legs were a solid and they had wind up parts that would make doing normal moves a real pain..

like that puch action the piper fig had..and rick rude i couldnt get a good match out of do to hi perminate arm issue..lol

however the bright spot for me at this time was that galoob had made wcw figures that were in scale to the wwf ones...but this time it was the nwa/wcw guys that went in staue mode...

but the 2 collections blended in a bit better so i did get some enjoyment with the matches i could do...

around the time the bone crunching guys came out i was beginbgin to think that there would never really be a line that captured most of the big names in wrestling history all with in close scale...im not one to be anal about scal,to say that jakks curretn scale ra and cs is perfect but im also not one to lie like some and claim rey or hardy are they same height as big show...

any way back to bone crunching...they were one or 2 sizes up from the hasbros had simillar moving bodies like the remcos and offered a chance to pull off good matches again...

in this era i was also begining what i thought at the time was something only i was doing...lol
i was pulling heads off of my hasbros and customing them on to the bone crunchers..then out came my trusty old box of remcos and bam a really fun run with those guys again...

i thought as far as my perefferences for star power and the abillity to do good matches that,that was as close as id get...

now addmittedly when i first saw jakks RA build.. i thought to myself right off 2 things... love the scale! and also, to much articulation... so didnt jump right in on them due to me picturing all the new joints getting loose and the guys not being able to support there own weight let alone do much else...

so i stuck with my roster of hasbro heads on bone crunching bodies mixed with my remco guys... but then a friend told me (think it was 2001 or 2002 maybe)
that jakks was going to make a classic line...

at first i didnt get to excited as i recall jakks said they were making legends before and when i finally saw them it was those god awful staue looking things..freddie blassie captain lou and andre who looked like he was morphing into the hulk...

and i thought to myself that they would never make warrior or bruno and any nwa guy was off limits all together..aybe a hulk if vince wasint having another temper tantrum but that would be it...

but then that first line CS 1 came out...and with warrior and bret hart in the mix i thought wow maybe they are serious here... so i went a bout 2 cheap ra guys while waiting for cs 1 to become available in my area...

and went threw the process of trying to figure out how to make them only as articulated as i wanted them to be... i forget now who the 2 were but as i said i began testing em in my ring to figure what articulation would give me in ring trouble and evaluate what articulation they didnt need...

in the end i glued the ankle joint so the ffeet wouldnt move,the flex joint in the palm, the sholder joint so that the arms would not become lose and thus a body slam would not work to well, and the elbow joint for that same reason...

the arms are often glued when the shoulder joint is out a little so the arms still have a kind of "grabble" position and the elbows are bet in just enough for them to be curved to hook suplexs,pile drivers, belly to bellys, hip tosses and so on...
basically they now had the same articulation as the remco guys but with knees that bent also arms,neck waist and leggs all moved and thats it.

after the glue was dried i did a test match with them..and for the next 40 mins it seems like a vintage flair vs steamboat match...back and fourth,move for move,striking moves,running moves,submissions moves,cross bodys,adominal streches,figure fours, ddt off the secound rope and so on...

that match sold me and i decided then and there that the time i had hoped for back in my ljn/remco days had finally arrived... the chance to have a roster of incredable star power, that could also have fantastic match ups...

as the cs line went on and i noticed nwa guys in the mix, while other complained about a head being one size to big or small..or sid being to short(big show boots have been proven by alot of us to work great!) i just tinkered with what i felt jakksdidnt do right oftem times a mere part switch and some paint was all that was needed...

while some complianed i enjoyed the CS ride...i never bought anyone i didnt want and the ones i did want that need a lil work,insted of doing lengthy posts every day with gaga or drama id whip out my trusty parts box,my paints and make the adjustments based on what i like...

wow that was a book...lol sorry folks... let me finish by desplaying some of what i consider my finer fixes...in some cases i really had to think out side the box with my part combos but in the end its all parts made by jakks and then a little help from me to utilize them in a way to improve some of there sort of quickie efforts...
enjoy:)

I said i wasn't going to get Mattel figs when i 1st saw them as i'd been through the BCA-TTL-R3-RA [didn't got for DA] & didn't want to have to start over with my collection but after seeing other peoples pics of the Mattel product i was hooked on wanting Elites, thus buying the the set [well ordering them] but i decided not to buy the Basic line [apart from those who want be in Elite eg Austin] as Elites will be in scale & have the better movement & gear they come with.

I started buying figures in 2001. My first was a TTL Benoit. I went along with the TTL style and bought any figures I could get my hands on. Eventually, I discovered the R3 line and my friends and I had mixed reviews. I really liked them for the most part, while my friends told me they looked bad. I still bought whatever ones I could get my hands on. I did the whole R3 thing until RA's came out. My friend and I discovered these new style of figures in KB Toys back in 2003. We didn't know anything about the switch to the new style, but I remember how we tried them out and loved them. I went on and bought figures until around RA 3 or 4, and then decided to stop as I was being told I should've been growing out of figures.

So, I got back into figures in March 2006. It started with a trip to Wal-Mart. I was a big fan of the spinner belt back then and decided to look for a toy one. I hit the toy section and found a huge front display of figures, which was AD 17. I was like, "wow, they're up to 17 already"! I saw the Cena/Angle set and saw it came with a spinner figure-size belt. I had a good look at the pack, decided if it was worth buying, and boy, was it. I became hooked again and decided that this time, nobody would ever talk me out of doing something I enjoy. After the AD 17 set, I searched online for a few different figures just to see what was going on. Shortly after those two figures I got a few more like the IE Batista, CS 9 Flair, RR 18.5 Batista, etc. It was a great time for me, as I finally got back into something I was able to enjoy.

Fast forward to 2007, where collecting really got the best of me, in a good way. It was great to see all these new figures out there and have a fresh start in a new year to really start buying more. The year went very well for collecting, and I had a blast. Wow, now that I look at it and think in depth, we're really out of the Jakks era. As of now I am going full-force with the Mattel line. It was certainly harder to decide if I wanted to make the transition, comparing back to TTL-R3-RA. I'm kind of glad I went along with Mattel's product. They are certainly producing excellent figures and are really catching my eye. I haven't been so excited for figures in a long time, especially considering how Jakks pretty much ruined our last 6 or so months with their line. So yeah, there you have it. I bought Jakks figures for a good amount of time and have built up a huge collection. But now, it's time for a new era and a fresh start. I have no problem buying the Mattel product because well, they're WWE figures, they look good, and they are going to keep me busy, lol.

Good stuff, guys.

I started back in the mid 80;s with the AWA Remco line and the WWF LJN line. I hated they did not match up. I ended up playing with AsWA line mixed in with Rocky figs and other figs in similar scale. I did not collect for a long time and did not get back in until JAKKS BCA and WCW Toybiz. I felt like they were close enough and enjoyed them as well as the OSF ECW line. TTL turned me off but when RA 1 came out I took a chance and got back in full force. The CS line sealed the deal. If it were not for JAKKS making RA in the NWA and TNA line I would probably be done.