X-Entertainment.com X-Entertainment.com A Proud UGO Affiliate
My dying wish is for an owl/camel hybrid, which I call camowl.
« [Main Index] »

Bootleg Wrestling Figures Update!

Got some interesting e-mail about those bootleg wrestling figures. Apparently they have a history!

Chris B. writes: I am a longtime reader of your fine site and a first time writer. I don't know how many have contacted you about this yet, but I figured I'd throw this out to you...

In a local dollar store around my parts, we have plenty of the cheap, crappy wrestling figures that you recently profiled (the ones with the dude on the card that has Benoit's face and Saturn's eyes). I >had< to pick one up.

I don't know if the cheap ones were made by San Francisco Toymakers (the group that produced the original ECW figures, as well as the original WCW ones [such as "Ric Flair with Double Ax Handle action" and "Atomic Elbow Curt Hennig"]), but the body molds are the exact same as the original ECW figures, only with a different wrestlers' heads placed on them. For example, "Crazy Animal" has Justin Credible's body; "Belt"'s originally belonged to Taz; "White Collar Whitey's" was Tommy Dreamer's; "Johnny Underground"'s was formerly Raven's (note the leather jacket); and so on and so forth. The ones I saw in the store went on to rip off the molds of Sabu and Rhyno.

I'm not too sure about the faces, except they look as though they are cheap distortions of originals. White Collar Whitey resembles Little Guido, and Crazy Animal further resembles Justin Credible. I vaguely remember the ones in the store being shameless repaints of ECW men, but I might be wrong. And, to digress a bit, is it just me or does "Adam Appleseed" resemble Lex Luger?

Anyhow, I just wanted to throw that out on you. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and keep producing excellent, well-written articles on stuff I forgot about a long time ago.

"Death" also chimed in: I know that you've probably gotten one or two e-mails already but, those bootlegs are just leftovers from a different toy line. They didn't even repaint a couple of them. Those are the ECW toys that the Original San Francisco Toy Makers made like three years ago. The same company used to make WCW figures that vibrated to stimulate "pumping up action" or some shit like that. But the guy with the silver cyborg leg is actually a Balls Mahoney figure with a different head. You could probably find pictures of the ECW toys somewhere on the internet. Damn am I feeling like a nerd. Anyway your site is great. I have to go back to the nerdery now.

So there you have it. I'm working on an article about some pretty obscure Mortal Kombat cartoon that fell in my lap a few months ago - should be up late this afternoon or tonight.

Posted by Matt on 11/05/2002. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 20 comments

Upon closer inspection, Ive noticed a few other things:

-Adam Appleseed’s frame is suspiciously similar to that of Mike Awesomes ECW figure

-Doesnt the body (minus the head and arms) of Chilla remind you of Jerry Lynns old look?

-White Collar Whitey looks too fat to be Dreamer…was there ever a Sandman figure?

-Belt’s face looks ALOT like Bret Hart’s

Chestnuts roasted by AL @ 11/05/2002 4:19 PM

I was told that Whitey was indeed Dreamer, though to me, it looks more like Rico.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/05/2002 4:29 PM

Oh no. Now I’m going to be reloading until the MK review is up. I’m pretty sure I have the cartoon in question. Might be right next to the MK CD (*not* the movie soundtrack). The only game I ever became obsessed with. "Foward, foward, back, back, block" is my mantra.

Chestnuts roasted by Eve @ 11/05/2002 6:34 PM

Is it true that you can get wrestling toys that come with a little bottle of fake sweat? My flatmate swears he’s seen them, but I find it hard to believe.

Chestnuts roasted by The Rocky Shore Pervert @ 11/05/2002 8:18 PM

Yepp, "Maximum Sweat" Action figures. They were like gross exaggerations of standard figures, and they sweat. STUPID idea

Chestnuts roasted by AL @ 11/05/2002 10:01 PM

I had a crush on sub-zero when i was 12… I shouldn’t have disclosed that.

Chestnuts roasted by Sarah @ 11/05/2002 10:38 PM

Anyone remember these figures that showed up on dollar store (Dollar Tree for me) shelf’s around early 2000? They were total rip offs of the old WWF Hasbro figures. The figures looked just like past gimmicks, such as Razor and Diesel. A friend of mine told me about them but I’ve never seen them up close.

Chestnuts roasted by Rein-o @ 11/05/2002 10:47 PM

Yeah, I noticed that Belt looked alot like Bret Hart.

Great article. The picture of Chris Benoit with the eyes really freaks me out.

Chestnuts roasted by Dustin @ 11/06/2002 4:01 AM

remember the old spring arm action wwf figures of the early 90s? hulkster with the hulkster hug etc? well i as a nipper once bought a pack of 8 tiny clones of those figures, but apart from the size, cheapness and lack of posable parts they were IDENTICAL!!
NOW CAN YOU DIG THAT?

Chestnuts roasted by tin man @ 11/06/2002 4:52 AM

did anyone else think mk3/trilogy was a hideouse messed up waste? cutting people in half leaving their hands floating there, i mean ‘kin’ ‘ell!

Chestnuts roasted by tin man again @ 11/06/2002 4:56 AM

Back to the subject of MK, Goro was supposed to be half-dragon, like Sheeva. They even put out a techno c.d. with songs for each of the original characters and two theme songs: the mortal combat theme and the "original" theme which was never used because it sucked too much. All in all a good cd if you don’t mind the horrible techno music with a stunning 5 tone of the same "beep" noise.

They even have old school rap for Rayden’s theme song. Jesus Christ this cd is hard to listen to

Chestnuts roasted by Phil @ 11/06/2002 7:21 AM

Rock on. Can’t wait until you review the other videos that I sent.

Chestnuts roasted by Jason Havoc @ 11/06/2002 8:52 AM

Jason, shit! Send me an e-mail, I’ve been trying to find your e-mail address for weeks. :D

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/06/2002 9:05 AM

You’ve got mail.

Chestnuts roasted by Jason Havoc @ 11/06/2002 7:24 PM

Rocky Shore Pervert – Rather depressingly, those figures do, indeed, exist. Not only are they as bad as they sound, but they’ve made every wrestler look as if they’ve taken a Scott Steiner-esque amount of steroids. Here’s a link, although it doesn’t have much detail. http://www.igadget.com/mgmsaf.html

Chestnuts roasted by The Rugged Kentishman @ 11/06/2002 8:33 PM

Just to add my 2 cents to the Mortal Kombat discussion. The Mortal Kombat theme song (and original game soundtrack) is actually by the Lords Of Acid, who is a somewhat respected Techno/Industrial group.

Chestnuts roasted by Somewhat Respected Todd @ 11/07/2002 1:20 AM

Those wrestling figures have had a ton of variations.

They had ones the exact same size as the ECW figures, but minus the action features. They aren’t the same bodies, but are slightly retooled. They’re not made by SF Toymakers but are definetly using the molds for those toys, slightly altered.

The older releases had pics of The Rock fighting HHH with the faces blurred, and those guys only came with one accessory, some the same kind of things the ECW guys came with, some were copies of the stuff WWF Jakks figures had (like the door)

They then released smaller guys, like the ones in the article. These aren’t the ones reviewed in the article, Im pretty sure those are the bigger ones mentioned above. I take it that there are 20 guys, as at one time I had 19 of them, all but the Kane one. The only one that is a direct copy of a real wrestler other than Kane is one that is painted to look like Sting, despite having a beard and a headband molded in the plastic his facepaint covers.

These guys broke easy, which means I don’t have any of them anymore. My cat liked chewing on them, too…

They came with stupid crap. Electric guitars, BUZZSAW GUNS, and tools and other assorted crap that wouldn’t fit in their hands.

Some had cool breakaway tables though. Breakaway crap rules, and anyone who ever played with the Karate Kid toys better agree…

They had varient wrestlers of these guys. They didn’t come with any weapons, and had big freaking keychains attached to their heads. Keep in mid these are action figures at around 4.5 inches, to be used as keychains. I guess if any gas station needs a rasp so someone won’t steal the key to the crapper, they could just attach good ol BELT to the key…

They were later repainted and sold as Martial Arts figures, at cheapo dollar stores around the country. These were actually pretty cool, as one looks a lot like Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China.

Those ones, the paint literally rubs off in your hands. They have cooler accessories, like nunchucks, boxing gloves, and BOB. BOB is this punching bag that is molded like a real guy, a legit fixture of many martial arts schools.

Those are a lot harder to find, though…

Chestnuts roasted by Casey Jones @ 11/07/2002 3:29 PM

"Yepp, "Maximum Sweat" Action figures. They were like gross exaggerations of standard figures, and they sweat. STUPID idea"

I have the Maximum Sweat Kane action figure… my pride and joy, considering you can’t get ‘em in New Zealand, and ’cause YOU CAN TAKE HIS MASK OFF. The guy looks like the result of a hot affair between the Undertaker and a Meat Lovers pizza. Plus he’s almost as big as my Devastator (y’know, big green gestalt Transformer with crappy English skills but a decent ham fist) …so I guess with all these giant toys knocking about in my room, I shouldn’t be wondering why it is that I’m still single.

*sigh*

Chestnuts roasted by Troy - NZPWI #1 ANNOUNCER! @ 11/16/2002 8:11 AM

I actually have 2 of these figures. Obvious ripoffs of the old ECW line of figures. I have a guy who is a blatant ripoff of the Lance Storm with a Chris Candido head, I like to call him Johnny Thunder. Then I have another guy who is an obvious Raven ripoff, but I have no idea where the head came from. I call him Spider.

Chestnuts roasted by Greg @ 02/17/2007 7:55 PM

Add A New Comment!


This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 5th, 2002 at 12:46 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.