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Post by stc13 on May 27, 2024 23:21:33 GMT -5
Royal rumble elite hogan rhodes diesel,hurricane baf [redacted] What do you all think the Hogan apparel is going to be? By the time the Royal Rumble era began, Hulk had abandoned the headbands, right? So, I’m guessing yellow trunks and yellow boots with red knee pads, with which shirt and bandana? So, yet another mostly yellow Hulkster. Hmm. If they want to do an obscure one off, they could do RR88 and the Andre/Hulk contract signing. It would fit, similar to the camo attire in the Summerslam wave last year.
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Post by stc13 on May 27, 2024 7:31:01 GMT -5
The Jazwares acquisition was finalized in Dec 2022. In the first 9 months of 2023, they reported $847M in revenue, so they were definitely selling something. There were likely some production changes - Fortnite figures also saw a lag, and it would make sense if Berkshire streamlined manufacturing to plants they already own or work with. But regardless, the reality was that retailers weren't buying, whether Jazwares was producing product or not. We had seen multiple waves (at that time) end up essentially being RSC exclusives and pegs were backed up with multiple warmers. The situation didn't change until Jazwares did a multi-million dollar product buyback in late 2023. Either way, Jazwares has now had a year a half to pivot and they haven't. Time will tell if that's a meaningful choice or not. But at best it means that we're going to continue seeing outdated product hitting shelves for the foreseeable future. Just going back to some old threads to refresh my memory. Yes the merger happened in Dec of 22. Prior to its announcement we got the 3 commentators, B&G Thunder Rosa and I believe the Supreme Kenny & Malachai Black. We were already questioning what was going on before the announcement. New AEW product doesn't hit store shelves until roughly August of 2023 (I know because I was the one who made the thread about it when people were finding Unmatched 6 & Unrivaled 12 in Walmarts). I'm generous when I say 6 months tbh. It was probably closer to 10. I don't think you can chalk up nearly a year gap between retail releases because of peg warmers. At that point in time most toy lines were just sitting on the pegs. That buyout probably caused some shake up at Jazwares. Maybe some redundancies got let go, maybe they had to move factories. I don't know but it definitely had an effect on their output. And even though RSC was getting product, it wasn't showing up the 2-3 months ahead of retail as it used to. It was just weeks. I tried digging through Padawer's Twitter to try and get some more clarity on the subject but the guy tweets A LOT about crypto, Elon Musk, and responding "toyetic" to a lot of things. But I do recall either Padawer or someone who would have heard it from the man like the Major Pod guys mentioning that they had to halt some lines just to get things in order under Buffet's umbrella. Maybe that's where I got the 6 months number from. Not sure. It was 2 years ago. Apologies if I'm kind of all over the place All good. And there were definitely multiple factors at play. I'm happy to get what was shown this weekend, it just seems like a weird call to keep plowing ahead with these lineups that are very outdated. At some point they're going to have to make a pretty big time jump to get current on the product. RSC was obviously in attendance. It'll be interesting to see if we get any interviews with Magic or anyone else on the team.
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Post by stc13 on May 26, 2024 20:03:59 GMT -5
When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside...
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Post by stc13 on May 26, 2024 15:32:53 GMT -5
I don’t really understand the difference. Yeah, it absolutely hasn't registered on my radar. I'll gladly take the drop down hips if it means they phase out the horribly dated ratched legs.
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Post by stc13 on May 26, 2024 12:48:36 GMT -5
Has this been confirmed anywhere, or just speculation?
Confirmed. Jazwares parent company was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway (owned by Warren Buffet). While this was going on Jazwares seemed to just stop production. I recall Jeremy Padawer talking about it but I’m not about to deep dive into his tweets at 5am. We’ve talked about it a bit on this board back then too. The Jazwares acquisition was finalized in Dec 2022. In the first 9 months of 2023, they reported $847M in revenue, so they were definitely selling something. There were likely some production changes - Fortnite figures also saw a lag, and it would make sense if Berkshire streamlined manufacturing to plants they already own or work with. But regardless, the reality was that retailers weren't buying, whether Jazwares was producing product or not. We had seen multiple waves (at that time) end up essentially being RSC exclusives and pegs were backed up with multiple warmers. The situation didn't change until Jazwares did a multi-million dollar product buyback in late 2023. Either way, Jazwares has now had a year a half to pivot and they haven't. Time will tell if that's a meaningful choice or not. But at best it means that we're going to continue seeing outdated product hitting shelves for the foreseeable future.
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Post by stc13 on May 26, 2024 12:21:33 GMT -5
There was about 6 months where Jazwares paused production while they were being acquired. It’s the main reason for the backlog. To their credit doing the ppv line to move some dated attires and freeing up spots in the mainline to plug in Copeland and Switchblade seems to have helped a little.
Has this been confirmed anywhere, or just speculation?
Jazwares was acquired by Berkshire. And while it absolutely may have had some disruption on day to day operations, it's not like the whole company would have just sat still for 6 months. That's not how corporate mergers work, and when it comes to absorbing companies Berkshire is about as smooth and seasoned as they come.
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Post by stc13 on May 25, 2024 23:24:47 GMT -5
If these are where the unmatched 10 protos are right now, i assume we won’t get them for awhile lol Does anyone know when the first digital renders of this Brandon Cutler set were shown? Has to be over a year ago...and just now we have physical UNPAINTED protos. I am not an action figure manufacturer, but I've been collecting and following figures for 20 years. This is not typical and quite hilarious. The Elite wave was announced September of 2022 and the render was shown May of 2023. Was Jazwares literally doing nothing for a year while product warmed? No clue how these are all unpainted protos. They should have just scrapped things and at least attempted to keep up with the current product.
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Post by stc13 on May 25, 2024 9:31:46 GMT -5
Savage is going to end up back under a WWE deal sooner or later. It's mutually beneficial for both sides, and if WWE truly was trying to push for exclusive licensing, I think they'll eventually back down. It's just a matter of whether that's happened already or has yet to happen.
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Post by stc13 on May 25, 2024 8:41:46 GMT -5
At one point it felt like E36 hung around forever and completely choked out anything showing up in stores for the next 4-5 waves.
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Post by stc13 on May 24, 2024 13:37:53 GMT -5
I have a running list for Classic Superstars that Mattel hasn't made. If you're looking for main roster Jakks that would be a much, much longer list.
Abdullah The Butcher Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz Adam Bomb Al Snow Andy Kaufman B. Brian Blair Bad News Brown Bastion Booger Big Cat Ernie Ladd Billy Kidman Bob "Spark Plugg" Holly Bobby Eaton Brooklyn Brawler Bruiser Brody Buddy Roberts Buff Bagwell Dr Death Steve Williams Droz Dynamite Kid Giant Gonzalez Grandmaster Sexay Haku / Meng 'Handsome' Jimmy Valiant Harvey Whippleman Ivan Koloff Ivan Putski Jack Brisco Jesse "The Body" Ventura Johnny Rodz Jumpin Jim Brunzell Ken Patera Kevin Sullivan Killer Kowalski Koko B. Ware Lance Storm Mr. Fuji Nikita Koloff Original Shiek 'Outlaw' Ron Bass Repo Man Ricky Morton Robert Gibson Sabu Spike Dudley Stan Lane Steve Blackman Tank Abbott Tazz The Barbarian "The Genius" Lanny Poffo The Mountie Tony Atlas Val Venis
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Post by stc13 on May 24, 2024 8:18:44 GMT -5
36 here and I'm still buying pretty much every Legends release. I've more or less stopped collecting current WWE outside of some Punk and Cody, and I've only been cherry picking AEW lately.
I took a lot of figures off display, especially where I had multiples of the same guy on a shelf. I don't need a dozen Austins out. I'm going to give it a while - I may rotate displays or eventually let some go.
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Post by stc13 on May 19, 2024 10:01:19 GMT -5
I have a different problem at my local store. There's 4 or 5 Hogan's clogging the only mnw peg preventing new stock going up. Likely these are the same Hogan's from the WrestleMania shipper. Because you know, they had to have 10 Hogan's and 2 hall, 4 takers and 1 scsa. Pretty dumb idea to not have equal amounts across the board. Would have likely sold the entire series. this is also what really really REALLY kills me. why shortpack from the getgo? mattel does not capitalize on secondary market prices. why create a shortage purposely and create a predatory market for YOUR product you wont see ANY profit $$ on? Hogan is 2x per case and all the others are 1x. I wouldn't call that short packing. Shippers had random packing depending what the person grabbed. They can only ship what Walmart orders. But my store received the shipper plus at least 3 restocks of individual cases. They've created the Best of, Greatest Hits, and Vault lines specifically to take advantage of figures that have high secondary market prices.
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Post by stc13 on May 17, 2024 11:22:28 GMT -5
can’t we just enjoy wrestling. "Smart" wrestling fans are some of the dumbest people around and aren't ever happy unless they're upset about something Arguing about the merits of wrestlers is dumb. Arguing about whether toys should be made of top merchandise sellers is even dumber. But it or don't buy it. If you don't, someone else will.
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Post by stc13 on May 16, 2024 20:18:06 GMT -5
When is the last time we got a brand new elite Ultimate Warrior? Is it the RSC WM12 one? Seems like it’s been forever since we got Ultimate (not Dingo) Warrior as an elite that wasn’t a re-release or is there one I am not thinking of. Far too long - I get the rereleases with updates, but so many rereleases after another is crazy (along with Ultimates of figures prev released as elites). They really only needed to do the Hall of Champions. I wouldn't be surprised if E26 and the HOF two pack (WM 8) are released before a new attire. When they started doing different hair styles and releasing more heads, I thought for sure we would of had rope shaking hair by now. Generally speaking, I feel like the UE line has lost a lot of its luster. While they weren't all perfect, a lot of them really did feel like a defining or unique take on a wrestler. The unique heads, high demand attires, etc. They're cranking them out at a crazy pace, with more figure per wave, sub-lines, etc now. So there's no way they have as much design time or budget per figure. And Warrior was already very deco heavy. But totally agreed that it's a bit of a bummer that his alternate heads have all been pretty run of the mill despite getting a bunch of Ultimate figures.
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Post by stc13 on May 15, 2024 21:36:54 GMT -5
Gibsonia had a case of MNW2. I grabbed a full set, but hopefully they restock soon. HHH is two per case and the others are 1 each.
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Post by stc13 on May 15, 2024 20:54:14 GMT -5
Ringside has pics up now. What's the Chase and rare.... Claudio and Reynolds? Yeah.
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Post by stc13 on May 11, 2024 19:07:32 GMT -5
voicesinmyhead Flair Forever I am just taking the mans word for it right now. "I signed a deal for action figures, and i think I have 11 months left on that deal." He mentioned mattel several times. If you're taking Eric Bischoff at his word, I think we can safely lock the thread and move on with our lives.
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Post by stc13 on May 11, 2024 13:40:43 GMT -5
No man we have heard for years and years from bill and steve that (insert wrestling talent name here) can not have a figure made because they are not under a legends deal. If that has changed recently because of the tko merger ok, then say that. That is there only excuse now if bischoff is being honest. I and others have said repeatedly "why can't a person just have a separate deal to have figures made ?" I am not letting mattel off the hook on this one, a lot figures have not been made because of this red tape excuse. Now look they could have done a figure only deal with talents. WWE have restructured their deals for alumni. Mattel could only create figures of talent under Legends deals as those seemed to be the only merchandise deals being offered. In recent times they've restructured and some talent (eg Headbangers) have what is called "nostalgia" deals which appear to differ from Legends contracts. I assume Bischoff is under a similar deal. Same logic applies, regardless of the name of the contract WWE provides the talent with, the talent still needs to be under a merchandise deal with WWE for Mattel to be able to release a Figure. There's absolutely no indication that legends or nostalgia contracts are any different from one another. The contract language has said "WWE nostalgia program" going back at least a decade. www.documentcloud.org/documents/3549783-Bryan-Clark-Legends-Contract-OCR
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Post by stc13 on May 11, 2024 13:39:42 GMT -5
For all intents and purposes, Legends contracts don't exist. The language in the deal Bischoff signed most likely references the WWE Nostalgia Program. So no, he probably has no clue what a Legends contract is. But they're the same thing.
I don't know why people keep hoping there is greater mystery than there is to who is or isn't likely to get a figure.
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Post by stc13 on May 9, 2024 17:27:12 GMT -5
I’d take a re release Sycho Sid in the black trunks. In fairness that's a good choice... I'd honestly love a Sid UE with a bunch of different facial expressions. But a re-release wouldn't be terrible in this line.
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