Luke & Oli Visit A Wrestling Toy Shop: WrestleTalk Road Diaries

Luke proudly pushed the Basic Series #60 figure into my hands. The word ‘DIVAS’ was emblazoned across the packaging. This was pre-Revolution. I noticed she was shorter than the Isaac Yankem next to me, who, in turn, was shorter than the Andre the Giant Elite next to him.

That was one of the common complaints about the previous manufacturer, Richard pointed out. Before Mattel acquired the license in 2009, Jakks Pacific were responsible for producing WWE action figures. They paid little attention to scaling. Rey Mysterio would be the same size as Big Show when stood side-by-side; Spike Dudley a similar height to The Undertaker. In that respect, Mattel’s products were closer to real life—like the WrestleMania II Blue Cage playset, which was perfectly scaled to the Hulk Hogan figure poised in its centre. This was the closest I came to actually playing ‘wrestling’ with Richard’s stock. The toy ring gave me flashbacks to the joint WWF, WCW and Biker Mice From Mars promotion in the bedroom of my childhood.

“But who buys Renee Young figures?” I asked, half-expecting a creepy anecdote. “Is she a . . . shelf warmer?”

And this is where I learnt my second action figure-insider term: ‘Case Breakdown’.

It seems the collecting community has their own language, just like how wrestling fans have kayfabe, heels, and heat. For poor Renee Young, not all figures are produced equally.

While 300 new figures are released each year, Richard explained, only 25-or-so of those will be hot sellers. So in a ‘Series’ of five characters—let’s say Braun Strowman, AJ Styles, Heath Slater, Curt Hawkins and Renee Young—Mattel will produce each figurine to their estimated demand. In a box of 100, you might have 40 Strowmans, 30 AJs, 15 Slaters, 10 Curts and 5 Renees. That would be the Case Breakdown, and it’s one of the hottest discussion topics on collector forums.

“But doesn’t that undermine the foundations of business?” I enquired, fresh from watching the new series of The Apprentice. “You find out which products are hot, and you make more of them to sell?”

I had completely misunderstood the collecting industry. Supply and demand is ingeniously worked into the Case Breakdown concept. Mattel know the Strowmans and AJs are going to sell big, so to artificially increase demand for the less popular figurines, you don’t make as many. You make Renee Young rare.

That’s why Richard’s store held the occasional lonely item. A ‘Team Bad’-clad Tamina here (Basic Series #69); a JBL figure complete with Slammy Award accessory there (Basic Series #67). To me, they were ‘shelf warmers’, but to an avid fan, they might be the final, elusive part of their collection.

“Oh cool,” I exclaimed. “Is that Triple H’s entrance from WrestleMania 32?”

“31,” Richard corrected.

The Elite Collection Series #42 model had the Terminator-inspired King of Kings headpiece. The detail was noticeably more intricate from the ‘Basic’ figures we’d been mulling over earlier, and this Triple H had significantly more points of articulation. “24+,” to be kind of exact.

“They always seem to do WrestleMania entrance figures for Triple H,” Richard mused. “I wonder why,” I asked, having a pretty good idea of the answer.

We emerged from the underground bunker back into real life, one where people don’t know their Shelf Warmers from their Chase Variants. I, just an hour before, had been one of them. Luke, having worked in a toy store at University, knew every detail already.

Just when I thought I knew every square inch of wrestling fandom, Richard had revealed an entire subculture of WWE figurine collecting. And now, with a Renee Young Basic under my arm, I was in on the secret.

• action figures
• AJ Styles
• renee young
• Triple H
• BRAUN STROWMAN
• wwe

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