What's so bad about TTL figures?

i grew up with bca and ttl figs. compared to today's elites, the articulation on ttl figs are horrible. the first few lines (before real scan) had some of the worst head sculpts ever.







jakks would also people over by sculpting the arms of jackets on figures (like edge and taker) instead of making them removable.



with that being said, some of the ttl figures were amazing like Rikishi who even had cellulite on his ass cheeks.





there were also some people who were never made while we had an abundance of stone cold, rick and undertaker figures. way more than the john cena figures of today. also to answer your question, TTL figs were very popular and took over bca in no time. especially when they started doing the real scan heads. these figures were super innovative for wrestling figures back then and they were very popular at the time. towards the end of their lifespan i think people were ready for something new. i had a few RA figures before i stopped collecting but i didn't really think they were all that much better than the ttl figures besides the extra arm articulation. i remember a lot of people on here would get pissed when jakks would use leftover ttl parts and put out ttl figures in random lineups (classic superstars 1 undertaker) when we all wanted RA figs at that point.

I don't understand the TTL hate either, i love them.

I largely loved them. Some early pre-scan figures were awful, and some of the body molds were ludicrous like this one brood Christian (don't remember the wave, he has perlescent white tights with the brood stuff and a signature on it) with a positively shredded chest. It looks gross. However, other body molds were pretty decent. The asymmetrical stance didn't help the arms look any shorter though.

Some people probably hate the fact that the figures were largely in street gear. It was in fact pretty hard to find guys like Stone in ring gear. Also, many guys like Triple H got so many releases it makes Mattel look restrained with it's number of Cena releases.

I personally liked the street gear figures, that was a great part of attitude. The storylines were great and the soap opera and backstage brawling were my favorite part of every episode. I miss seeing more backstage stuff every week. You had playsets with these figures that emphasized street fighting, dirty fighting, and of course, trash talking, although my language was definitely saltier when I played. I was about 12 or so when these first came out. It was a good time for action figures that weren't traditional super heroes. I remember seeing crappy x-men and spider-man figures and thinking I'd rather have these guys. It was a very crazy transitional period in my life and these figures make me happy when I think back about those days.

Love them, all the attires made are great so there is a lot to choose from for 1 definitive figure for each wrestler.

I initially HATED the transition from BCA, but they grew on me big time. I prefer them over any other forms. Ruthless were great for articulation, but it killed it for me cos doing powerbombs/hurricanranas sucks. TTL's have no such problem.

All this talk makes me want to buy a boat load of them moc, then open them for that new toy smell and play with them endlessly. What a kid I am

My favorites I still own are my complete Unchained Fury series 1 figs. Pure class.

TTL's are great.
..or an example: try to execute a Piledriver with a Mattel Basic oder RA-figure.
I'm still searching for TTL's over RA.. at least on guys who had both.

I hated that the arms didn't have elbow articulation early on because I was spoiled by my WCW figures.

I still enjoy TTL figures and have a lot of admiration for them. Sure, certain things about them like the articulation and scale aren't up to snuff with the figures of today, but TTLs were so innovative. The realscan technology was introduced by the TTL line, and that was probably the biggest innovation we've ever had in wrestling figures.

Plus, that time period was one of the best times to be a fan, at least for me. Wrestling was so fun and my friends were still into it, and I still enjoyed it relatively purely back then rather than enjoying it but doing that thing we all do nowadays where we complain that Vince McMahon doesn't know how to book wrestling as well as we do.

A major plus point for me was the street/promo outfits on guys. Wrestling was full of that stuff back then, and people were always wearing different outfits for promos and getting new t-shirts and the TTL line really captured that. If Stone Cold went through fifteen t-shirts a year on TV, you could get most of them in TTL form. I remember when Mattel started, I was always wanting them to produce street/promo gear versions of figures, but then I thought... Wrestling doesn't really even have that anymore. Daniel Bryan's been positioned as the top babyface on Raw for the last nine months or so, and I think he's worn jeans about twice in that time. He's always in his wrestling trunks. Randy Orton's worn a suit a couple of times since the Evolution reunion, but for his whole "face of the WWE" top heel run before that, he was always in his trunks too. In 1999-2000, it seemed like every episode you'd have Rock/Austin/HHH in a tracksuit or shirt and pants etc.

There are certain TTLs that I still want to keep as part of my collection, and they're usually stuff like guys in certain t-shirts that we're never going to get in any other form.

The awesome boxsets that used to come out back then were the best, too. BCA was great for that also, but TTL took it to another level. Huge ten-packs, sets with rings and entrance stages and accessories... Good times. I've still got the Edge & Christian "picture perfect" set.


That's a massive plus point for the Jakks figures for me, and I wish Mattel would do it now and again. It works tons better than the oversized, bad-looking cloth coats that both companies use... And it's more playable/posable than the good-looking plastic coats that Mattel use.

Eh, not really. Different articulation and the TTLs are a bit bigger.

Some TTL figures were okay. I had Jeff and Matt Hardy TTL figures, and I liked them. They even fit in well with the RA style of figures, cause they could move pretty well for TTL figures.


But the first few sets of TTL figures made me stop collecting wrestling figures. I was a BCA guy, so when they went to TTL, I just felt so lost that I had no more figures to collect.

I think I got into TTL figures in late 2001, I bought a few. But then I stopped until late 2003 when I got back into collecting when I seen the RA style of figures. To me, they were much better than the TTL ones.