The Funeral Of AEW Figures

Welcome to Episode #6 of the My Damn Creators Podcast! 

In this episode, MDT & WSC mourn the loss of the AEW figure line from Jazwares. It was announced last week that the AEW design team was let go at Jazwares & the boys talk through the highs & lows of the entire lifetime of the line.

They also name their 4 favorite figures Jazwares ever created under the AEW umbrella.

They end the show by answering fan submitted questions!

Instagram: @mydamncreators

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Hosts IG:

@mydamntoys

@wscstagecreator

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is good, everybody? Welcome into My Damn Creators episode number six. We are back with you this week, man. Hope everybody's doing blessed out there. Of course, as always, I am MDT My Damn Toys, and we have my boy Nate, WSC stage creator over here. How are we doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Doing good. It's uh bit of a tragic week. Unfortunately, the AEW figure line has gone under, and that's gonna be a big talking point of this episode. But otherwise, yeah, very chaotic. I've got a video coming out for the multiversal championship. So should be out very soon. Maybe, maybe by the time this comes out, it'll be out, and it was a lot of fun to shoot. And yeah, let's get into the topics today, Trey.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Let's go. Yeah, it's actually been a crazy last few days as far as you know, wrestling figures. You know, I think I guess we'll we'll probably get into it as this episode unfolds, kind of the different things that have developed over the years and everything like that. But good to know that the next multiversal matchup is on the way. And I've been I've been filming too. I've been filming too. We love to hear it. Yeah, we'll get we'll get into that, you know, later on. We got some questions at the end that we'll wrap up with to kind of get into some of that stuff. But we're gonna dive into the agree-disagree portion of the episode. You know, it's one of the staples of the show here. So we're gonna dive into agree-disagree right off the rip. And we got some AEW theme woman, Scott. We got some regular theme ones as well, as far as collections and you know, collecting and everything is in general. So let's get into it, man. Let's go with the first prompt. It's non-AEW, it's gonna be, you know, something to do with you know, wrestling action figures just in general. Kind of uh, I think this is Mattel specific, but our first prompt today, actually, dude, do you even have your agree-disagree? I don't. I was gonna say, hey, hold up. I actually I actually do have mine still. So let's go. All right. Well, I guess you're does it better if I don't have mine? Nah, I think we'll be we'll be okay, I guess, for today. Man, all right. Damn, hate to see it. All right. Well, the first prompt is going to be there are too many repaints from Mattel. So too many repaints, you know. Every line seems like there's another Cody Rhodes, there's another Roman Reigns. There's too many repaints from Mattel overall. I have to sit with this one a minute, I think, because you think so? Yeah, because I you know what, eff it. Let's go. I I think I think mine goes. I think I don't know. Look, I'll get into it. I'll I'll give my explanation. Just hear me out here, but I'm ready. I guess you're just you're gonna say yours out loud. I'll hold mine up and then I'll say I agree or okay. Yep, let's do it. Three, two, one. Disagree. Disagree. I'm gonna say agree, but there's a caveat with it, okay? I think we do get a lot of repaints. I think we do get a lot of you know the same characters. However, it's best for business. It's the it's the way, it's the way of the business, and I know people don't want to hear that necessarily, but the reasons we get so many Hulk Hogan's, the reason we get so many Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, John Cena's, etc., is because those sell really, really well, and they are what make the one-offs and the unique characters and the unique sculpts and the new things we get, all that possible. So without our 150 Cody Crybabies, we wouldn't get the the characters that we get. Why do you disagree?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Well, I like the repaints, to be honest. Like, yeah, it's annoying to get you know, Roman Reigns with the same head scan and same look. Well, I like it when it has different looks, right? So I like the Cody Rhodes with all the different attires. I like to have those, right? So yeah, it would be nice to have new molds, new head scans, and things, but I'm not gonna say that I don't want repaint repaints because I quite frankly enjoy, you know, having all those different attires.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You know that I'm in the same boat with you right there. I I completely am a fan of all the repaints. I talk about it all the time. Yeah, I mean, look, dude, I have a freaking wherever it is, I mean, everywhere, right? I mean, I I collect multiples of the same characters. I love collecting all the different attires of all the different superstars. So, but it's not a sense of I'm not saying I agree they put a lot of repaints out. That's kind of where I'm agreeing that they do put out too many repaints, probably. But I A, I'm a I'm a fan of that. I like that. B, it's what keeps the line kind of keep going. Like that's how we're able to get the things we get, is because they they give us four new J Usos. Well, the J Usos sell like hotcakes, so we're able to get, you know, bigger and better things later on. And that's just kind of how I think that's how the Mattel business model works. So I'm I'm all aboard it. I have no complaints about repaints, but I did that. We probably do get we probably do get too many of them, but I I enjoy them, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, yeah, I feel I feel like it's not necessarily a bad thing. I wouldn't, you know, complain too much about it. But yeah, I could see people get annoyed of like repaints and they want new molds and new exciting things. But yeah, I can get the frustration, but I do enjoy having repaints.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah, I think that I think it also saves you money, right? Wouldn't it save you money? Because I mean, if you as a business, or not necessarily just as a business, but I mean, if I'm a collector and I only want one Cody Rhodes, well, they keep putting out Cody Rhodes, I can save my money for the next time they put out somebody I really, really want.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Okay, are you ready for the next prompt? I am. Okay. Next up, uh AEW, as we know, just recently let go, which we're gonna get into. We're we're no longer getting AEW figures anymore. Very sad day, as we discussed, or we will discuss even further at length. But uh AEW, this is the prompt. AEW uh needs a new toy company to come in immediately and pick the license back up. So uh AEW needs a new company to come in as soon as possible, immediately today, uh, and pick this license back up and get wrestling figures made again. You ready? I am ready. Let's go. Okay. Three, two, one. Agree. Agree. I disagree. I disagree. You go first on this one.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Well, I mean, just optimistically, like, yeah, it depends what figure line it is. If it's a figure line that's not as good as jazz weares, that wouldn't be ideal. But you know, think of all the the figures and the attires, the future looks that we're missing out on now that jazzwear's aw line is cancelled. So yeah, optimistically, I would love for there to be another AEW figure line in the future. So why do you think disagree?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

So I disagree, I think, because of the wording of the prompt. So, you know, in the in the wording, it says immediately. I don't, I mean, does it need to be immediately? You know, not necessarily immediately, but yeah, yeah, I I think I disagree because I think you know, we can't we kind of have, I mean, I I don't, it's not everybody, of course. We're missing some. There's some characters we'd love to see, there's some looks we want to see, etc. But I mean, if the lot if they never made another AEW figure ever again, which would be very sad, like that would make me sick because we're talking about forever. That's a long time, right? That's a very long time. But let's just say we had to go the next three to five years without AEW figures, it would still suck. But we got some damn good ones in the meantime, and you could always, you know, you can go back in the well and pick up ones that you missed out on. You can go pick up those chases. You can, you know, there's different things now that now that there's a definite endpoint, you can kind of go back and get those figures you missed or pick up those ones that were lost or whatever. Because, you know, while I want more gears, better gears, different head sculpts, things like that. We do have a pretty good base collection to search out and go out and collect, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

We do, but yeah, it sucks that there's future looks, you know, and we're never gonna get Kenny Omega figures again, we're never gonna get MJF figures, Will Ospreay, we never got bored John Moxley. Like that sucks. So the fact that if there was a good figure company that could pick up the license, that would be fantastic. But I don't really foresee it happening. But in an optimistic world, I would love to see that happen.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, yeah. I and that's that's something we're gonna absolutely dive deeper into when we get into our topic discussion. So when we move on to our topic discussion, we're gonna discuss all these different varieties and different conversations. But let's move on to our next prompt here. Hunting at stores for figures is better than ordering online. Hunting at stores for figures, so going toy hunting in person is better than shopping online or ordering a figure online.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah, this one's that's tricky.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, there's some there's definitely some uh you got some things you gotta weigh out right here, but I I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Okay, uh I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Okay, three, two, one. Agree. Okay, yeah, I agree. Yeah, we're both agreeing here. Uh you go first. You go first.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I just think, you know, I personally I do order a lot of my figures online just for the convenience, but retail price, you can get figures for you know the cheapest possible, pretty much. You can actually see what the figure looks like in person, whereas if you buy it online, it could have all sorts of defects, and you know, then you're kind of screwed there. Uh, but yeah, retail price, see it in person, the thrill of the hunt, going into the store, finding it. Oh man, I found it. I found that figure I was hunting for, you know, it's fun. So I think all those things considered, I think that's it, it's probably better to hunt for figures in stores than buy online. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, I think I'm right there with you, man. All those points you just hit on are absolute money. You order something online, you're at the will of the Amazon Packer or the whoever took it and picked the figure. You know, they're not looking at it and analyzing it. You walk into a store, I see 10 Cody Rhodes or 10 whatever the hells. I can sit there and sift through, make sure the eyes are printed right, make sure the DK, you know, this one's got paint rub, this one's got a random thing on it, this one's missing the head or whatever. You know, somebody repack this. You could get a repacked figure in your Amazon order or or something like that. Like, could you?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Is that something that could have people get them all the time?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Like, people return figures to Amazon with a repack, and then they'll, you know, Amazon doesn't know, so they'll just put it in their stores.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

It's a crazy hack that I never like, not that I would do it, but like for the absolutely do this.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Uh yeah, I see it, I see it across social media all the time. Like, oh my god, thanks, Amazon. And it's like this completely awful repack. It's terrible. Yeah, people just taking head sculpts off or you know, for parts and all this carb garbage. But yeah, I I think I'd agree with all your points. Hunting it stores too. I think that you know, it kind of goes into my discussion about retail roulette. You ever heard about retail roulette? Yeah, I have. Explain it to everybody, though. So retail roulette is basically, you know, ringside collectibles or whoever puts up a brand new pre-order and it's like, okay, I can pre-order this. Obviously, if it's a ringside exclusive, it doesn't count, but it's like, okay, I can I can pre-order this ultimate edition and lock it down, or I can play retail roulette where I don't pre-order it and I'm like, I'm gonna find that on the pegs. Well, you are now rolling the dice on if you're gonna find that figure in person at a store or not, because if you do not find it at stores, you're gonna have to be forced to pay aftermarket prices when you could have just pre-ordered it. And so when you don't pre-order a figure, you're playing retail roulette if you really want that figure. If you wanted that new Eddie Guerrero, that whatever, you're playing retail roulette when you don't pre-order. And that's kind of, I mean, you're almost kind of forced to to pre-order sometimes. Like, okay, do I want to pay this premium price point? This is like a whole topic discussion we could get into, but it's uh it kind of sucks for collectors, but it's I mean, that's just the that's they don't hate the player, hate the game. Like that's kind of how it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, I mean, it depends what kind of figures, right? Like, say the newest elite wave, say you decide not to buy it from ringside, you go look for it in the stores. Okay, you can't find it in the stores. It now becomes cheaper the more you wait on ringside. So, you know, that could be an option there, unless like you got that FORMO and you really want that figure right away, then you know, you might want to buy it online.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Well, that's where it comes in too, because what if it's okay, let's just take Javon Evans? What if Javon Evans, you don't pre-order him, you're like, I'm gonna find him in stores. You can't find him in stores, and okay, they don't make another Javon Evans, or Javon Evans can't isn't, you know, they're not making another one right now. And that that's on back order, and it's on back order, and it's like, oh my god, I can't and now he's not now the shipments are done. I didn't pre-order it all those times. I was waiting to find it in the store. I can't find it in the store, and now after in the aftermarket, he's $75. Probably should have just pre-ordered at that point. It's kind of that's what that's the risk when you play retail roulette. That's the whole thing of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, I would say buy the figures that like you know are gonna be really hard to get and you really want them, buy them online. But the other figures, you there's no point paying the higher price online, to be honest. Just go wait and find a retail. And if you can't find them, they'll be cheaper on ringside at some point eventually. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah, 100%. I think people just, you know, people don't we we live in a microwave society, right? I want my I want my figure now, I want it immediately. You know, it comes at like a premium price point, right? You're paying for the convenience of it, you're paying to get it first, all those different things. Yeah, so it's just uh a whole rigamaroo. Are you ready for the next prompt? I am. Let's do it. This next prompt is going to be AEW CM Punks. AEW CM Punk figures that we got from Jazzwares are better than the Mattel CM Punks that we have gotten, or that, you know, I guess that the ones that I've released of all the CM Punks, or maybe you could I guess to be apples to apples, you needed to compare it to okay. This is a high take. Do you do you get to compare it to his before, or do you compare it to all Mattel CM Punks? I would say modern day. I think that'd be a more fair comparison. Okay, so the the hell frozen over punk or whatever, all the punks since he returned to WWE compared to his AEW ones. Okay. So AEW CM Punks are better than Mattel CM Punks. I think I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

All right. Three, two, one.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Strongly disagree.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, I also agree disagree. I disagree that AEW punks are better than Mattel Punks. I think that I mean, hot take, CM Punk might have. I mean, outside of missing hand tattoos and a couple bugaboos here and there, he might have some of the best elites right now in the on the modern roster. He's got, I mean, they they they're really effing good. They're really, really good. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, I mean, AEW innovated that, you know, the wrist tape thing, which was great. You know, Mattel obviously adapted that, but Mattel's head scans so much better than the AEW ones. I feel like the AEW ones really just didn't get the likeness. It was kind of cartoony. I don't know how would how would you describe it? Did you how do you feel about the head scans on those ABs?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, that that was probably my biggest gripe with punk figures overall from AEW and Jazzwares. I felt like they were a bit cartoony. They kind of uh they were kind of they almost seemed kind of stylized, you know. Like I think they had a couple good ones. I really like the Supreme, like yelling one, the blood and guts yelling kind of cool. Excuse me, like with the you know, the gnatted hair and stuff. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I I think that just the strict, like some of the some of the Mattel CM Punk head sculpts we've gotten in the last few years have been ridiculously spot on.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Fantastic, yeah. And you know, with the AEW, it's just you know, the the plastic and the articulation just doesn't really stack up to Mattel's, I would say. So that knocks it down a peg. But you know, I really like what they did with the tattoos, having the Pepsi logo, even though it wasn't like fully accurate. I really like that they added that. They never really missed any of the tattoos either, like Mattel has. But yeah, overall, overall, I would say that WWE's have been better than AEW's candunks.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, I also would agree there. I think that um I I I I also love that about the tattoos. Like it's like Jazzwares is just like, yeah, we're we're putting them damn logos on there, and you ain't gonna they change it a name. I don't know. Mattel's Mattel's just not gonna do that. It'd be cool if they did, but yeah, I don't I don't think they'll ever do that. But I I have really fondly and you know, CM Punk's always bat at a pretty high percentage when it comes to his elites. I think people like his figures. His figures, you know, I I I dunk on the Daniel Bryan torso. It's a he's a guy that could actually pull it off, and um, it doesn't make the figure look weird. And I like I love the new torso. A lot of people don't really like the new torso. I love the new torso, so I think it fits kind of a modern punk. So yeah, I I think I think we're both in agreement that Mattel punks are better than the AEW punks. Okay. Let's move on to our next general collector agree-disagree. What does that say? Most, let's see, what does that say? Okay. Modern collectors are fueled more by FOMO than by passion. Modern collectors are fueled more by FOMO more than passion. So if you don't know what FOMO is, it is fear of missing out. So the modern collector, if you agree with this prompt, you are saying that modern collectors let FOMO dictate their purchase more than passion, more than their own rules, more than their own vices or what they actually care about. Yep, okay. Okay, you ready? I think I'm ready. Yeah, all right. You ready?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

That's tricky. Okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Three, two, one. Agree. I also agree. I also agree, man. I know because it's bit me. Like it's bit me. I'm I also do this sometimes, especially when it comes to things that aren't wrestling, if that makes sense. I collect a lot of different lines, right? I mean, I say a lot. I collect I collect multiple lines. I collect a lot of Marvel figures, I collect a ton of DBZ figures, which I I I need to show more of those to on my channel and stuff like that because I'm really passionate about them. Like they're really fun to collect. But yeah, sometimes you're just I I don't want to pay retail roulette or I really want to lock down a pre-order. I don't want to see something. Maybe I'm not on fire for it, but I know that I'm eventually gonna want it. And so I'm like, damn, I might as well buy this now before it goes up a hundred dollars or whatever the case, you know, not a hundred bucks, but you know what I mean, before it doubles in price. Like I might as well lock it down. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yeah, there's a hundred percent fear of missing out in, you know, especially the the social media community, seeing everybody with the figures, and you want that too, so it's like, oh, he's got that, like I need that. I need to make sure I get it like straight away, you know, there's so much of that, and yeah, it it's it's interesting to think. Like, is it an addiction to like just like instantly like buy those figures, or is it like lack of impulse control, or like is that something that we all kind of need to get a a handle on, or is it just the way it is in this community, you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I think it's a little bit of both. You know, we just got through talking about microwave society, you know, like we people buy on Amazon, they door dash, they people are into instant gratification. They want it now, they don't have really any discipline, and not necessarily that that like you know, if you want that figure, just buy that figure. But I mean, there are obviously there's obviously collectors that should tone it down. There's obviously people out there that probably shouldn't buy, you know, out of FOMO and things like that. Like if you have the you got the bread and you, you know, you don't want to pay later or whatever the case is, then by all means, you know, you you have it's your money, whatever, do it, make the decision you want. But yeah, I think that a hundred percent, I think that it goes hand in hand with that. But also, like you said, I think social media and different things definitely don't help, you know. You know, your butt you see your buddy or whoever has the figure, and you're like, oh man, I really want that figure, even though it doesn't match your rules. That's why I say that you should have your rules when you create your collection. And I know it's we talk about this all the time, but like obviously my collection is stupid, but at the same time, it's a little bit different because you know, you're constantly making content around your collection. You're constantly, you know, needing things for comparisons and things. And I've discussed this before, too, is my collection would probably look significantly different if you know I didn't have a channel or I didn't make any content whatsoever. If I was just a normal guy that didn't have social media, even I'm sure you know all of our collections would look different, which probably goes into a whole nother thing where if social media didn't exist. How many people would even collect anymore in the modern day?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Ooh, that is an interesting point. But yeah, I think yeah, a lot of people don't have rules. That's the thing. They buy everything they buy out of impulse. You know, they get excited. Oh, pre-orders go up. I gotta buy it right away. Before even thinking whether or not, like maybe I should wait until retail. Should I do I need this right now? Can I just wait like a couple months and buy this figure? Like, why do I need it right now to display on the shelf? Or maybe you're a creator and like you do need it now, or you need to secure it for the future purpose. So yeah, I think a lot of people don't have rules or go against it because of impulse purchasing. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Well, that's that's interesting too, because then it's like, okay, I mean, now I don't want to get too deep, but I I'm sure, you know, Mattel knows these things. It's uh marketing psychology, things like that. I'm sure they have a bunch of numbers and stuff like that. But you know, but it's probably part of their model is creating that FOMO, you know. They they want people to have FOMO, they want people buying their products, so they they want to make things feel exclusive, they want to do these things that are, you know, marketing hacks and psychology hacks to make people really want to purchase these figures so that they spend more money, so that the, you know, their bottom line stays stays green, you know? So it all kind of goes hand in hand, but that's an interesting topic. Maybe that's something we can maybe expand on in the future. But I that's certainly a good discussion right there.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Do you think that pharma exists because of online purchasing of figures? Do you think that it would exist just purely retail?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Uh it would exist, but it wouldn't be near the monster that it is, I think.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

And I think because because online the pre-orders go up, you could buy it right now. Retail, you come across it or you're hunting it. You I mean, yeah, you do let's say online like social media didn't exist, you didn't know what was coming out. You would go into a store, you see it, and it's like, oh, that's really cool. And you might impulse by. But yeah, I think online fuels it a lot. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Oh, 100%. It 100% fuels it. But I mean, you remember being a kid, you didn't know what was coming out, right? You remember right, yeah. Yeah, and I'm actually I'm actually interested now. Like, I mean, I tell myself, me and my son kind of talk about things that are upcoming, which is kind of funny, right? You know, I'll be like, oh, dude, look what just can't like I'll you know, we share figure news together and we talk about it, and we're like, oh man, we gotta we gotta look for this. But you know, as when we were kids, you didn't know what was coming out. You may have a a catalog that you may see randomly in the summer, or the ABC catalog that's coming for the holidays, or one of these random catalogs, but you didn't know what was coming, right? You didn't have my damn toys uploading a damn 30-minute news video talking about everything that's coming. That didn't happen. So you you genuinely walk down the aisle and you're like, holy crap! And I don't know about you, but I didn't really keep up with series, right? I'm just like, oh, there's Chris Benoit buying it, or oh, there's new John Cena buying it, or there's Stone Colding. Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I mean, yeah, back in the day, I mean they still got it now, right? You see who's on the back of the box who's in the series, so that's the way you would keep up with it. 100%. But yeah, like you you pretty much didn't really know what was coming out, so yeah. Does the FOMO exist because of online, or did it always exist with retail? Is an interesting question, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

100%. Yeah, that's that one's that one's tough, but I th I think it's always existed, but not in the same way. I think it definitely created a whole new FOMO monster when you get into content creators videos and reviews and these different things, you know. I I'm sure people watch a review and they go, Oh, yeah, I'm buying that, no doubt, or God, I wish I ordered that, or whatever. And they don't want to feel that way. So they, you know, they pre-order and whatnot. But yeah, I used to just go down the aisle and you know, you you're down to like three figures, and you're like, God, I really want this, I really want this, but I really like this, especially if, oh, this one has a mattress accessory, or this one has the championship, and then this one has this, and you were like, God, which one do I want more? What you know, you kind of have to pick and choose.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Like, I was kind of like this the other day. Like, I saw the ultimate John Cena in the aisles at the store. There was only one left, he was the only one left of the series. And you know, do I need a farewell to a John Cena Canada gear? You know, because I'm not having him like, because I usually try my rule is to use them for the Fed or buy it for the Fed. Yeah, and it's like John Cena's not retiring in the Fed, so why do you need like a farewell tour? And you know, that torso we have major issues with, yeah. But I bought it, you know, the the impulse, the like, okay, you're never gonna get it cheaper than right here, right now. Buy it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

So that succumbs to all of us. Yeah, that's the thing, is if I don't buy this, that's what sucks, right? Like, I have a bunch of ideas for Monday Night War Austin fix-ups, right? I walk into the store, there's six of them. Okay. I don't really want to buy six of them, but they're the cheapest they're ever gonna be right now, right here. You gotta pay that 200 or 150 bucks right now to buy all of them, right now, or you're gonna have to buy them in the future for a more expensive price if you want to actually do that fix-up, if you actually want to do that. So that's like the that's kind of like the you know, duality of man that you have to deal with when you're collecting and buying. Love to see it. Alrighty. Are you ready for the next prompt? I am. Let's do it. Okay. AEW figures helped push Mattel to step up their game. So when AEW figures were in the game, they were at their peak, they're competing, they're making you know, monthly releases or whatever the case was, they helped push Mattel to step up their game. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Three, two, one. Agree. Also agree. Also agree. You go first on this one.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

I think you probably have more ideas of like the things that they specifically motivate them to do. Top of my head, you know, the the wrist tape on the punk. But yeah, I think competition always brings out the best in you, and seeing other figure lines doing some unique new stuff, it would push you to, you know, experiment and try new things. And you know, if you like what they're doing, you implement some of that, maybe improve on it upon it a little bit. But what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, 100%, man. You know, rising tides lift all ships, I guess is what they say. So yeah, when when there's another company out there making wrestling figures, well, Mattel doesn't want to be the second best wrestling figures on the aisle. You want to be the best wrestling figures on the aisle, or at least that's what these companies think. That's that's how me and you think. You want to you want to strive to be better than you were previously. You want to provide the best show, you want to provide the best quality possible. And I think that 100% they pushed them, whether they want to admit it or not, or whatever, they 100% are, and like, you know, the all those, you know, all these different employees and people that work in the industry, you know, they're they're constantly talking. They're they're buddies, they're you know, they're mingling together, they're talking about the things that they're you know doing and showing. And you think that when Jazzware shows off new figures, Mattel guys aren't looking at it and going, oh snap, that's actually pretty cool, or oh, that's innovative, or whatever. They're absolutely monitoring each other to, you know, either say, oh snap, that was a good idea, or you know, that that's what you do. So I think that, and I think it's not only just wrestling figures. I guarantee that Mattel looks at other companies making stuff like Hasbro and the Marvel stuff they make, and they're constantly, you know, trying to figure how they can implement some things that they're doing into their own line, especially if it benefits them or if it's something that they can implement that improves their stuff. 100% I think that the AEW figures helped push Mattel to step up.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah, for sure. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah. All right. Next is going to be as we know, Mattel loves their goofy head sculpts, right? They love the goofy. They love they love to push the envelope. We've seen multiple examples over the years with the Austin Theory selfie faces, the SummerSlam Undertaker funny faces, the the rock meme face. What are what are some others? Uh the Sami Zayn Elite from WrestleMania. Yeah, that was good. They love their goofy over-the-top head sculpt expressions. So this next prompt is the Mattel goofy heads or the the goofy expressions that they make that Mattel does are doing too much. Whether they're, you know, they're too over the top, they're doing them too often, they're whatever. Mattel's goofy head sculpts are doing too much. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Three, two, one. Agree. Agree. Wow. I disagree. I disagree. I think personally, I think at the end of the day, it's toys. I think that it's it should be fun. It should be goofy. It should it should be like, why, why is I don't know, why like why does uh why is there a skunk on that tire that Jax used to do? Why is there these goofy things that happen? I think that you know it's toys. It's like supposed to be fun at the end of the day. And I think that I think that a lot of the stuff they do in terms of those goofy over-the-top head sculpts, I think that I don't know. I I like that they kind of lean into that stuff, you know, and I know it may sound crazy coming from me personally, but I I kind of like I kind of like the goofy stuff that they try sometimes. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Well, I don't have a problem with goofy stuff, uh, but I want balance. Like that Sami Zayn, that head scan was whack. It was pretty weird. But if you included unstraight face Sammy interchangeable head, no problems. That would have been fine. The Austin Theory heads, fantastic. I think they actually represented the faces he made, but we need a straight face head scan with those figures, you know? So I all I want is balance. You know, I like the screaming head scans, the gritt teeth, the laughing, like the brawn breaker comes with the the screaming head scan. I love that. But can we get a straight face brawn breaker head as well so we can interchange it and not have him his mouth open the entire time, you know? So if we can get some balance with it, I think that would be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, I think I can also agree there too, because I I always do like this thing in my reviews where we get like a bunch of yelling heads, and I'm like, why is he yelling? Why are you yelling? What what what why are we yelling all the time? Everybody's yelling, and I felt like for a minute there, it's like every it felt like every head sculpt I got was yelling, or maybe it was a specific character. It's like every time we got the character, it was yelling. I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was Jimmy Uso or something. It's like, why is he still yelling? Yeah, right. Every damn time he's yelling. Yeah, like literally, even the recent one, is he not yelling, or he's got that big smile? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

He's got a weird smile, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, that ain't big Jim. That's not my big Jim. Nah, that ain't him. That ain't him. But nah, yeah, I like the goofy head sculpts. I kind of like the, you know, but I do agree, you know. I AEW, that's one point you gotta make. AEW did a great job of interchange. They included interchangeable, it seems like with almost everybody. Like some people, I think Tay Conti got interchangeable head sculpts. You're like, damn, even Tae Conti gets an interchangeable head sculpt, and we can't get, you know, different head sculpts for certain characters. Yeah, I 100% agree. I also think that they need to, I would love to see more serious, like angry, determined head sculpts for Mattel. I feel like we don't really get a lot of those. Like, don't get me wrong, we get them. It's just not in the same vein. I feel like it is there's a the majority of them are smiles, would you say? Would you agree that maybe more of them are smiles?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

I don't know if that's yeah, all blank expressions, which I don't mind. Maybe it's hard to pull off the angry expression potentially. I don't know what the reason is, but yeah, I agree. I I definitely would like you know a Roman Reigns like angry expression, but closed mouth.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, I want a determined Roman Reigns with the the beard so bad, just like a standard like the the top picks is very close. A lot of people dunk on the head sculpt, by the way. They do not like it.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

The top picks is just blank expression, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

He's just blank, he's just kind of chilling there. I all they had to do was make his eyebrows angry, and it would have been way better.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

But I think we're on our last agree-disagree prompt here, and it's about AEW, and it says AEW figures or AEW with their action figure model should go smaller and make premium collector only figures. So maybe the model should switch to whoever picks it up, not just Jazzware, whoever, whoever ends up getting it or if they ever get it. They should not do mass retail. They should stick to only online. Maybe they make it one to two figures per quarter and they're 40 to 50 bucks, and they're they're equal to ultimates or supremes. They have a bunch of accessories and they just go top of the top, and maybe there's limited of them. Maybe they're only 3,000 or 5,000 or 2,000 or whatever. AEW should go smaller and make premium collector only figures. Are you ready? I'm ready. Let's go. Three, two, one. Agree strongly. Yeah, also agree. I think that, especially since I mean, I guess we've kind of seen this thing play out. I don't, I mean, I don't know. Like, we don't know the we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, right? We can just go based off what we've observed at retail, what we've observed of the line itself when it was coming out. And I just think that online only and making these things really exclusive is probably the best way to go. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, I think I don't know why that wasn't an option before it all got canceled. You know, I think that would have been the best course of action because I feel like part of the reason, you know, why they, you know, went under, I guess, is because of the obscure characters they were doing. And maybe they weren't selling as well. But you have so many great top star wrestlers that you could be pumping these figures out of and making them exclusive and getting the hype around them. I think that would have been the perfect model. And it's unfortunate that you know Jazzwears, you know, packed up shop and didn't go with that. I think that would have been the right course of action. So if any figure line, any figure company picks up AEW, I think that's the way to go.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, I think you're I think you're onto something there because two, I think that the you know, I think like WWE has such a long history, okay? So you get a lot of casual collectors that collect what we collect. And it's there's a lot of casual collectors out there that they they're not in the loop. They don't follow closely, they're not really deep into the weeds of the community. They just go to the store and they see John Cena and they buy that. They see Hulk Hogan and they buy that. They see Stone Cold, they buy that. You don't really have that with AEW. So I don't know if cat, like, yeah, you could push the figures on AEW Dynamite. You could get it in front of people online if they really wanted it, you know, especially if it was in higher quantities. I don't know what the quantities were for some of these figures we got of AEW talents, but you know, I don't know how many casual collectors really would even want a $40, $50, really high-end Kenny Omega action figure. Maybe they would.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

That's true. Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting to think. Like, is Mattel held up by their legends, by their Austins, their Hogan's? Like, are they the ones that are really bringing in the money for the company? Like, take those away. Would they be in trouble? Would would that affect their business in a big way? Maybe that's what AEW was lacking, and maybe that's is you know, that was to their detriment. I I think that is true.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

I think I think like it goes back to the the point I was making about the but they had flair and sting at the end, right? So But they I don't think they really capitalized on that, you know. They didn't know it just a lot of people were disappointed with that, with the Luminaries collection, you know. They really wanted like there was so much potential with the Luminaries collection. I just don't think they had the I don't think they had the wrestlers, maybe. And I know people say, oh, they had Aaron Anderson, they had Jake the Snake, they had, you know, these different characters, but I don't know if like I feel like like partly it my brain tells me, okay, if they if they had the if they were able to, they would have. Or if if it was a great business model, they would have. But I don't know. You know, we're not in those meeting rooms. We don't know what their plan, their course of action was, but I just feel like um, yeah, it definitely seems like, and of course, hindsight's 2020. You think that uh they should have done this and they should have done that when you don't know the full story, but I don't know. Part part of me thinks that maybe they I don't know. Like, I don't know. I I think that they did get in front of a a lot of eyes. I just don't know. I just think that probably modern action figure collecting, at least for wrestling, is just tough.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Yeah, especially in the economy today, you know, everything's so expensive. And yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it was really it was really the the brand of AEW that you know probably was a deciding factor of you know why you know the figure line didn't last, to be honest, because they're not as established as WWE, and that's just a fact. But yeah, what was the prompt again?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

The prompt was AEW should go smaller and make premium collector only figures.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Well, yeah, yeah. I think I would love to see that. I think they do have some great talent and they could get some hype around it, but yeah, there may be some barriers there that we don't know about on the financial end of you know the cost and benefit of all that. So yeah, I'd love to see it, but who knows if it's you know a good business idea.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

100%. Yeah, man. Well, that that is our agree disagree segment there. I felt like we dove uh deep into some of those topics. I like that. That was good. Yeah, so that's good. We're we're gonna move on now to our topic discussion, and we've kind of discussed quite a bit already, so we may not have too much to linger on there, but we're we're gonna get into it anyway. So if you guys were unaware, last Friday afternoon, I guess, Jazzwares was do uh cleaning house a little bit, man. Apparently, these companies they like to do their you know their letting go on Friday so that they have the weekend to kind of let things simmer down before restoring on Monday, kind of gives you the weekend to settle up. And apparently this past Friday, AEW, the AEW design team that works on the AEW action figures at Jazzwares were let go. And I was told that they're it wasn't just the AEW team. They actually were letting go quite a few folks, quite a uh quite a lot of employees. So you hate to see that, of course, anytime anybody loses their job, as we've discussed with different WWE cuts over the last few years. But yeah, so AEW action figures are no longer a thing, which we've obviously discussed here. You know, it's uh it's something we kind of alluded to, but I think the writing has kind of been on the wall for for this a little bit. You know, we've kind of seen over the years the releases have slowed down, figures have been delayed, you know, different things have led to this, and it just sucks overall, man. It sucks overall. What's your first thoughts there?

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, it really sucks that it's not going to continue. You know, I feel for all those people who lost their jobs there, you know, they were doing great work, all things considered, even though people had their issues with you know the figures and whatnot. But it just sucks that we're not gonna get, you know, more Ospreys, Darby Allen, MJF, Kenny Omega's the young bucks. We never got the board, Moxley. I'm salty about that. But yeah, man, like it sucks now. We all got to go back to customizing them. You know, the customizers are gonna make a whole lot of money now. So and and it helped the customizers too to have some head scans and stuff that they could use and parts and things. And there was great, you know, accessories and you know, the cloth goods and whatnot. But yeah, it really sucks. Uh, and like we said in a previous episode, like the golden age of figure collecting might have might have passed us by. And unfortunately, you know, we're without the AEW figure line these days. So yeah, it's a very sad week.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, it sucks, man. It sucks. Just all those points you just mentioned, it just it it kind of just feels like, man, damn, we do we really know how good we had it, right? Because there were so many bangers that they released. And of course, nobody bats a thousand. We talk about it all the time. Nobody bats a thousand, nobody bats a thousand, but it's it's truly great when not only are we getting modern scale elites and ultimates and all these fantastic figures that are under the WWE umbrella, but getting talents that you would never ever see was just such a fantastic time, man. I mean, and we've been around long enough to remember all the customs and the the meta. For those customs. Like, oh, you gotta to make Kenny Omega, you gotta have this torso, this, this, this, and you had to round up the parts and you had to send them off to a customizer unless you made it yourself. And you know, you got to get this, and you gotta get the Daniel Bryan head, and you gotta put the DDP hair piece. All that stuff was like the meta for making Kenny Omega. And then Jazz made it where none of that ish mattered. We got some fantastic Kenny Omega figures, and now all that stops for the foreseeable future. And there's really, I don't I don't know if they're gonna be able to pick it back up. Like I don't, I don't know who in 2026 is gonna pick up that burden, fill in that hole, and make action figures. I just I just don't think that it's uh especially it's not like I don't know, like AEW is not necessarily doing horrendously, I don't think, or something like that, but they're certainly not just, you know, I don't think they're on fire. You know, they're not, you know, just sweeping headlines and just making jaw-dropping television to where people would be like, oh yeah, they're gonna get they're gonna pick them right back up and immediately go, like we've touched on with their history. They don't have an illustrious history, they have a they have a solid base of history so far, but they haven't been around like WWE where oh yeah, I'll pick right up and I can print Hulk Hogan's and make money immediately.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah, think of how crazy it was in 2019-2020. The fact that they just started the company and then they started the figure line straight away. How crazy is that? And to think that now, like six years in, is it seven maybe? The fact that they can't continue, it's unfortunate, you know. But now, you know, we have the benefit of 3D printed head scans, so that helps a lot in the customization. But it's always better to get a manufactured head scan that doesn't chip. You know, it was great to have, you know, despite what you might think of the articulation and the look of the figures, it was great to have a cheap alternative to customs of getting those those characters of figures that you wanted.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

No doubt, man. No doubt. And uh it's just you could make a I mean, even if you talk about like they the figures were certainly it doesn't matter what you dunk on about them, they're certainly good enough to create a really cool display with, right? You can create a really cool wrestling figure display. If you're if you just want a Kenny Omega to sit up there, have the gun out, you know, championship and have him, you know, decked out. Like, certainly, like they fulfilled, they fulfilled so many, so many needs and checked so many boxes for so many collectors and fetters and all these different things. And I hope that history looks at it, and I'm gonna do my damnedest to make sure that people look back on that era fondly, regardless of how you felt about the figures. They weren't they weren't perfect by any stretch, but there's some all-timers in there that I would say can hold their weight, certainly, and they're gonna age pretty damn good, which we'll get into when we get you know later into this episode. But man, there I I it just sucks. At the end of the day, it sucks that we will no longer be getting them. But at the same time, we do have a nice, you know, portfolio of really good AEW figures.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Do you think that you got the most out of you know the AEW figures like you're content with what we have now?

SPEAKER_00 47:27

I think so. Just to stay consistent with my prompt earlier when I said that, you know, I don't think they need somebody immediately to come in and pick up all the pieces, but at the same time, I mean, yeah, like I don't think they perfected MJF. I don't think there were perfect Bucks out there. I don't think they really I don't really like the Bucks. I like the Walmart Bucks, and I like the most recent unmatched ones in the orange pants. I thought those were pretty cool. Head sculpts were kind of hid and miss with the Bucks. I mean, you could say that about uh maybe a few different characters, but I don't think they perfected the Bucks necessarily. I don't think they perfected MJF. I don't think they perfected Hangman. Like that, I think there was some meat in the bone on the bones to be had, but we like at the end of the day, we got damn good Kenny's Darby's, you know. Moxley, probably not the greatest percentage, but we did finish with the Supreme.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah, I think Moxley had a a pretty good track record, although the figures would have been a bit too tall. But I enjoyed the Moxley's. I thought the head scans were pretty good there too. But yeah, I think I think there was a lot of good figures there, and and it sucks that we're not gonna get those characters anymore in figure form. So yeah, it's very unfortunate and sad, and you know, I I guess we're just gonna see an uptick in customs.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

Yeah, I'm hoping that uh I I do hope, regardless of if it's immediate or in the next year or two, I do hope somebody eventually tries. I'm just not too optimistic that it'll happen. I want to see it happen 100%. I just don't know if in the modern day with the prices and the tariffs and the hey, hey, it hurts me, right? Like there's just so much, there's just so much, so many variables that I don't know if somebody's gonna like the the the reason I say this too is you know, Jeremy Padaurer is a psycho when it comes to wrestling action figures and wanting to make really cool things and make things for collectors. Like he's a he's like into stuff like that. Like he enjoys that. It's a passion of his. And I'm hoping that it wasn't just, oh, this AEW figure line was just kind of a passion project. He gave it all he could, but at the end of the day, he couldn't make it work any longer. I don't know if anybody's gonna be able to match that with like his passion level for this, you know. And not that he couldn't hire designers and stuff. I'm talking behind the scenes really pushing these things and making things feel special to get it off the ground. I don't know if it's if it's possible. I don't know. I don't know, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

What do you think killed the AEW figure line by Jazzworth?

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Oh, I think I think some of it, I think it was a mixture of probably a handful of things. I think that, you know, it was probably probably a lot of things that were out of their control, probably a lot of things that, you know, maybe they couldn't control necessarily. It could have been, you know, probably performance at retail, probably probably delays or or you know, not getting things out as quickly as as they should have or could have. Um I don't know. I I don't know entirely. What what's your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_01 50:46

I think, yeah, it's a couple things. One, I think it is the fact that they went down the rabbit hole of obscure characters. One, because AEW is, you know, a competitive brand to WWE, but they are still on the come-up, they still have to establish their talent. And I feel like a lot of the kids, you know, dominate the market of people who buy at retail, especially. And if if the kids don't know who these characters are, they're not going to buy them. There were so many tay contes on the shelf, shelf warming in Australia. It was crazy. But like, yeah, it's if the kids don't know who these characters are, they're not uh gonna buy them. And yeah, so I could see shelf warming being a big thing there because they're not an established brand and doing obscure characters definitely hurt them. I think the quality too, the staining of the figures, the articulation, I think that put a lot of people off. And there were some hardcore collectors that refused to buy AEW figures unless they were using them for customs. And then, you know, maybe it's just the hype of it kind of died, you know. At first, everyone was hyped because okay, we're getting Kenny Omega, we're getting Young Bucks, and then, you know, now that it becomes a regular thing, it it's just not as special anymore. And, you know, maybe it's people's opinions on the AEW product as well. Who knows? But yeah, I think all those factors combined, I think that's the reason why the AEW figure line was canceled.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Yeah, I think I'm I'm completely on board with you right there. I think everything you just said is 100% valid and has some, if not all, truth in it. You know, it's I think they they probably made some characters or some deep cuts that maybe not should have been made, or maybe there was too many figures at once, or maybe they were trying to keep up with a demand that wasn't there, you know. Maybe they they should have scaled back how many they were pushing, or maybe they shouldn't have gone to retail at all. Maybe that's I don't know. I don't know how, you know, maybe they shouldn't have gone to retail. I don't but again, we don't I don't I have no idea what that entails, right? I don't know how many units they have to have to meet those requirements or how many stores and distribution and all that. You remember, I don't know if you remember this, but do you remember like the launch day? Remember it was it was kind of confusing. I don't know if you remember this, but no, they I don't remember if Jeremy or somebody said that there was a launch day where these figures will be on shelves this day, and so people are going to Walmarts and stuff looking for them on the stage. It's like they're not they're not putting these figures out. And it was, I think, weeks later or maybe a month later or whatever it was, they finally hit. I remember making a toy hunt because I ran into this crazy dude on the aisle the first time I found AEW figures, and he was doing like a macho man impression, and it was like really funny. I'll have to, I don't if I can, I'll try to plug it in. But he was he was like doing a macho man impression, and it was like the first time AEW figures were on the shelves. I don't know why I remember that, but it was it was funny. And then they had the whole debacle with like the factory. Remember, they had the pale skin tones and stuff, yeah, you know. I don't I don't know if that necessarily played into the downfall, but I don't know, maybe I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

I don't think so either. But they rectified that pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Yeah, and they, you know, I I I just I hate to see it. And I I know we haven't really touched on the Supremes too much, but they packed so much damn value into that box, man. It I mean, you're talking about some of the Cody's had like a three in one. There was like a three or four in one. You had yeah, Cody and these tights with jacket on, Cody and these tights with jacket off. You can switch the tights and have them in the jacket with that. You can have no jacket and have it as a duster, you can have them with the t-shirt, you can have them with the screaming head. There was like four or five figures in one legitimately on those Supreme figures that you could make.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Yeah, it was fantastic. I love the Supreme line. I thought that was fantastic, and the value you would get for that was incredible. But yeah, I mean, yeah, there's so many factors, and unfortunately, you know, it all led to you know the figure line being canceled, you know. It's just unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

It is 100% unfortunate. And I I guess that takes us into our Mount Rushmore for today because we are getting into our Mount Rushmore for this episode. And if you guys don't know what Mount Rushmore is, it is where me and Nate are going to pick four of a specific category. So, you know, it could be the best John Cena figures or our favorite. We've we've done CM Punk in the past, our our personal four best CM Punk Mattel figures they've ever done. We did that on an episode. We also did the four best figures we've received in the past six months to a year, calendar year. We did that, I think, on episode one, if I'm not mistaken. So this has kind of been the trend for the Mount Rushmore. So Mount Rushmore for today is going to be our personal four favorite or best AEW action figures of all time from Jazzware. So we're gonna run through not, I guess it's not necessarily the best, it's just our personal favorites, ones that we really loved, ones that we hold dear, ones that we thought were really fun, or whatever the case was. You would you want to go first?

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Yeah, there might be some crossover, who knows? But I would say the first one, coffin drop, ringside exclusive, Darby Allen. I think that was an incredible. All the Darby Allen figures are incredible. I think they might be the best figures that AEW ever produced, perfect likeness, perfect like mold of the body, and it feels great in hand, like you like to say. It's it's an incredible figure. And I picked that one specifically because it's got the body bag as well, the cool packaging, and you love to have a skateboard in there too. So I had to pick the one with the skateboard. What do you think of it?

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Yeah, I uh I would 100% agree that Darby do Darby Allen figures. I I could write a whole essay. They're so good, man. They're just so damn good. If you don't have a Darby Allen and you you just like action figures that feel good in hand and like to mess around with, he's the perfect like desktop figure. You know, you're just sitting there messing around, you just pick him up. He's so compact too, which makes him really fun. That's a fantastic pick. That's a fantastic pick. Before we get into my four, I do want to lob a couple honorable mentions for me personally. Maybe these are in your four, maybe they're not. I just want to throw them out there. My honorable mentions that I have written down, I'm gonna mention the unrivaled Series 3 Orange Cassidy. This is the one that has the hand in pocket feature. Groundbreaking stuff. I've never seen anything like it. If that has existed, I didn't think it existed before that. That was such a cool feature, not to mention how damn sick is Orange Cassidy. Like we all love Orange Cassidy. It also had the jean jacket with the shirt underneath that Velcroed in. So you didn't have shirt on top of shirt. You had it was just one layer, so it didn't look so super bulky. Unbelievable figure, man. Unbelievable. Now it couldn't pose the legs, no, that's why he didn't make the cut, but that's a groundbreaking all-timer. And then, you know, we have the Chase Orange Cassidy or that target exclusive or whatever they made that came with the event chair. That was also damn good. But another honorable mention is the ringside exclusive Jay White in the red with the jacket. Fantastic figure, too. Love that figure as well. But my first pick fit, my first pick for my Mount Rushmore is going to be any of the Supreme Kenny's. I mean, I guess if I had to pick one, it would probably be the series two, just like the first one. But I love the Walmart exclusive, how you get the wall, the promo gear with the jacket. I love the Comic-Con exclusive with the damn trash can, you know, Captain Canada attire. Love that attire. Love that figure. And yeah, any Supreme Kenny. I mean, it's just all time, man. That's that's something that was on my bucket list for so long and checklist, figure wants list. And I think they nailed all the Supreme Kenny's.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

Yeah, Kenny was on my list too. So Supreme Kenny Omega, the white one specifically. I think that's an incredible, probably incredible figure, probably the best Kenny Omega figure. That's why it's on the list. The best Kenny Omega figure that we've ever had, and maybe that we're ever going to get unless he goes to WWE.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

But is this the one?

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Yeah, that's that's the one.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Yeah, I did put the unmatched head sculpt on there, but it's just so he's just kind of determined, pissed. But my god, man, this is what a beast. Yeah, dude, it's just so good. Unbelievable. Not to mention it's got pinless joints, the accessories as well. It's not it's not too tight, you know. Like you may say it's too loose, whatever, but God, it just it's it's like a perfect Kenny Omega figure, you know? Yeah, perfect Kenny Omega. But yeah, I guess I can go into my number two. My number two is unmatched 11 Darby or all Darby's, so we kind of match right there. The unmatched 11 that I'm talking about, it's the one with the pink jacket. I think it's the most recent one. You know, we don't have that flamethrower one. Hopefully, we still get that. The flamethrower Darby, hopefully we still get that one. I pray to God we get that one. You know, the Darby Allen's are just fantastic. They're they're featured right on top of my top shelf right here. They look so damn good, man. They're beautiful. They all the different face paints, the skateboards, the attires, and then you have other everything underneath. I don't think they made a bad Darby Allen, man. They just they bat, you know. We talk about nobody bats a thousand, Darby Allen bats a thousand. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

You want to full. Yeah, for my next one, I would say it is the ringside collectibles exclusive Danhausen.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Funny enough. I also I have that on my list. Oh, really? It's on my list.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Yeah, we're not cursed, great. You put them on the list, but yeah, I don't actually have that in hand. I did buy that one, but I have the other Danhausens, and the Danhausen figure that I have, it's like the one of 5,000 or whatever it is. It's fantastic. The likeness is fantastic, got the tattoos, it's a good body mold, perfectly encapsulates the character. And with that ringside exclusive, you get the the teeth, you get a cloth uh cape as well. And yeah, I think it's a perfect representation of Danhausen, and it's gonna be interesting to see if Mattel can top that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Yeah, I'm interested to see that too. I'm interested to know if they're gonna go with the are they gonna go with like the punk elite torso? Are they gonna go with the Daniel Bryan torso? If they made this figure in 2015, he'd a hundred percent have the Daniel Bryan.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

Yeah, I think they might go that route, but it would be nice if he had like a whole new mold, new legs, new torso, but who knows? We'll see. They might they might even try to rush it out because they know that kids are gonna eat it up, so they want to get it out as quickly as possible. So they might not tool some new stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yeah, I'd be shocked if they tooled new stuff besides a head sculpt, excuse me. Yeah, but the I think they could also go Bo Dallas torso as well. Like Bo Dallas torso might have to work, something like that. But yeah, I also had ringside exclusive Danhausen on my list. So far, our lists are identical so far. Okay, so I'm gonna get into my fourth and final. Okay, and I am going with the Comic-Con exclusive swerve. Okay, the figure is unreal. It was the number one figure for me last year from AEW and Jazzwares. You need this. If you don't have this figure, Nate, you have to get this figure. You have to get this figure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

I don't have that specific one, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

You have to get it. It's unit's unbelievable. It comes with the the Nana jacket, it comes with the damn the we're not gonna get Nana.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

No, this nana figure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Fingers crossed, fingers crossed that we end up getting him. I I pray that we get him. There's some different all those different swerves they showed at Comic-Con. I gotta have them all, man. I mean, they just look so good. But it comes with that. It has the Killmonger mask, it has the Killmonger claws for Christ's sake. It's got the the Killmonger like entrance shirt, the attire and the deco on the gear. It even has kind of the glowing shoe outline on the on the like outsoles of the shoes. Really highly detailed, pose is fantastic. Head sculpt also is unbelievable. It's the best swerve head sculpt. So it truly it would be hard not to rank him probably in the top three AEW figures that they've ever met. It's it's really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

Yeah, I wish I had that one. I probably won't be able to get it because I bet it's super high price. But yeah, no, no, no, that sucks. If we don't get that one, but for my fourth and final, it's going to be the Supreme Will Osprey. That's a good now. With that, you get two fantastic colorful ossprey attires. You get the the butterfly joints on the osprey, you get some tattoos, you know, it's not fully up to date right now with what he has, but at the time, you know, it was pretty good to get those tattoos on the figure. And he comes with three pretty great head scans. I would say the straight face is probably the weakest one, but I think all three of them are pretty damn good likeness. So, and not to mention the robe is fantastic. So I think it's a really, really cool Will Ospreay figure.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

That's a great pick. He would have also been in my honorable mentions. I'm glad that you mentioned that one. I forgot to put that one in my honorable mentions. That one is really damn good. If you ranked every Supreme, it'd probably be hard not to put him in the top top couple Supremes, you know. Other honorable mentions, you probably got like Malachi Black. I thought a lot of the Cody Supremes were pretty good. I I was never a big fan of the head sculpts for Cody. I thought that maybe the that TNT champion one was pretty good. Like the I like the laughing one.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

Laughing one was pretty good. Yep. But for some reason on the Supremes, the head sculpts didn't look that good. But on his like regular unrivaled and matched figures, they were really good. So yeah, that was kind of interesting. But yeah, man, there were absolutely some bangers from AEW and Jazzwares, and all those figures are all timers. They're so good. So, so good that they deserve praise. They absolutely deserve praise. And so I'm just glad that we we at least have a portfolio of figures to look at. And you know, they look it's not like it's not like AEW and Jazzwares, you know, gave us a hundred figures and just all of them were complete shish and none of them were good, and you know, they couldn't compete at all. All those figures that we just named, I'd put them up with some of the better elites and stuff too, right up next to them, and I'd say, yeah, let's let's go to war. They'd probably hold their own.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Yeah, for real. Yeah, it's it's sad, but you know, what we got, I'm grateful for what we got. And I think they did some incredible work.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

100%. Yep. I'm I'm right there with you. But that takes us into our end of the show questions here. And we got a few different questions we're gonna answer. I guess you can you you want me to say the question, and then you can answer, and then I can follow you up, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Okay. So here is Our questions, these were sent in by Instagram on Nate's Instagram. I think next week I will also put up a question poll so then we can kind of pull from both and see, you know. But we're gonna both answer these and we'll get into it. But the first question for both of us is going to be your favorite match that you've ever filmed or made.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

So yeah, filming for me, my favorite match that I've ever made is John Moxley versus Roman Reigns No Mercy match for the hardcore championship. I think that's a lot of people's favorite of mine. And I just went all out on that. A no mercy match means like nobody's like held responsible for what happens, so they can go to the absolute extreme lengths of what they can do to each other. And there's just some insane stuff in this match. Awesome weapons that I was able to use. And we had this subway setup and this building setup outside where they would fight and they would fight into the subway and fight in the train. I think a lot of people look fondly on that, and that's a memorable moment of the match. And I was filming outside as well for the ending scene as well. So yeah, I think I went all out on that match. I think that's my favorite, and I think that's a lot of my fans' favorite. What about you? What do you think is your favorite match that you've filmed?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Uh, I think as far as memorable memorability, any of the the death matches I really enjoyed, like the one from the Royal Rumble, I think there's a fatal four-way was really fun, but I probably chop it up to one of the chambers. I really enjoyed, you know, filming the chambers, getting in there. You know, we modded the elimination chamber. So, you know, anytime you're I think you'll agree with this. Anytime you're you're kind of modding something or doing some fun spot or doing like these things that aren't traditional, right? It's like, oh, a suplex off the ladder. It's like, yeah, it's cool, but it's not, you know, you're kind of pushing the envelope, you're kind of doing things a little different in that match. You know, you had, you know, Kenny Omega getting thrown through the chamber pod, so he gets hit into the pod and the whole pod collapses on him, or you know, different things like that. I really enjoyed. So I'd probably go with one of the chambers, not necessarily one or the other. I think Ziggler also got speared through a pod, which you know is is a common thing. So that was just a lot of fun, especially for I guess that time period. But I'd probably go maybe I guess the elite elimination chamber. I also like kind of the the story and the stakes and whatnot that kind of progressed through the match. But is there anything you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Uh well they what the question was favorite match you've filmed, or is it favorite match you've made?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Yeah, I guess those typically, I guess that technically those are those could be two different things, you know. Like sometimes you have a lot of fun filming something, and then sometimes the final product is better than filming it. What is the most fun you've had filming something? Shoot, maybe maybe this most recent episode, maybe this most recent episode, potentially. Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Love to hear that. For me, I I don't know why. I just have like fond memories. I had a lot of fun filming this shower match, one of the first multiverse matches with the Shrek where he won the title. Yeah, and I don't know, it was just really fun. I remember like texting you guys. We were doing talking feds at the time. I was like, I'm having so much fun filming this.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

I mean, it's it isn't it a blessing when you can just enjoy the work that you're making, man. Like, what a blessing that is. That's a true, that's a true blessing to be like, man, I'm really in the thick of this, and like I get to do this and I make money from it, and it's like a really joy, like it brings joy to you that you're not, you know, doing something that you're just miserable doing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

So yeah, it's a struggle sometimes, and there's a lot of frustrating things, but overall, yeah, there are moments where you're like, man, this is this is awesome. I love what I do, I love making this stuff for people. So yeah, yeah, I think this is a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

100%, yeah. Um, the next question isn't really a question, but it's like, what are the possibilities, or have you ever thought of doing MDT versus WSC possibility, or what is the dynamic there? Is that something that we've we've thought about or pitched or yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

Well, I think it would help if you, you know, got the Fed back up and running, which you are starting to do now, which is great. But yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility in the future. I think we could cook up something really fun and cool. But yeah, it's not something that we've ever really discussed in the past. But yeah, it's definitely a possibility.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:37

Yeah, 100%. Nothing never say never, you know, things we've kind of talked a little bit, but it was like roughshop for what, like five minutes. We kind of we like fantasy booked something for five seconds, and it was like, oh, this could be something, but we didn't we didn't put a whole lot of thought into it or you know, kind of map it out, which we we did agree that if we were to do it, it would have to be mapped out and nice and it'd be planned accordingly, but yeah, yeah, definitely possibility, yes. Never say never. Is it actively happening or something? No, but it's you know, it's absolutely possible. Yeah. Okay. Number three is going to be when is WSC WrestleMania 2 coming? Do you have an upload date? Are you do you have a shot date? You know, the number one rule of fetting, I always say is never give yourself a definitive date because it could it could kill you. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

Yeah, so update on WSC WrestleMania. I, you know, came back from Vegas and I was trying to organize the arena and stuff. I'm working with WrestleMistic, who does a lot of great work designing stuff for my arena, and we're getting a new crowd backdrop. So I'm waiting on him to get that to me. In the meantime, I've made a new multiversal championship match, which could very well change up the landscape of WrestleMania. So you have to wait and see it with that, the quicksand, battle royal, very unique, fun match type. But yeah, we're getting that in the meantime. But hopefully this week I can get started on, you know, getting the crowd up and everything. I've got the stage pretty much set up. I think it's gonna look great once it's done. But yeah, it takes a while. There's a lot of things you guys don't see behind the scenes that you know take up a lot of time and things out of my control that happen so that delay the show. So hopefully soon, and hopefully we can get the first WrestleMania match out this month.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

Let's go. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

Yeah, but what about you?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

Yeah, so give us a Fed update. Yeah, I was gonna say, so I'm I'm I say this all the time, but um, you know, you know as well as I do, it's you know, you don't I mean you do feel you some days you film more than others, some days you you just you it's like a uh you have this giant boulder and you're trying to turn it into a sculpture, and every day you're just kind of chipping away at it, chipping away at it, chipping away, and then it's like, oh, well, I didn't make that much of a dent today, but you you stack a week on it and you're like, okay, now I can I can kind of see an arm, I can kind of see a leg. You know, that's kind of how it works. And like you, you know as well as I do, there's it's so multi-layered, it's not just a traditional pick fed as it used to be. So it's not just taking a bunch of photos, plugging them in, and plugging in a couple sound effects. It's multi-layered with you know different angles, and you know, we used to do that with the photos, but you know, we've had to work on voices, we've got to get these things up to par. And so, you know, there's also been a learning curve that I'm trying to figure out as well. So, but I'm I'm shooting, I'm not saying it's definitive, but I am trying to get this episode out before June. Not saying that will happen, but that is that's the I'm I'm shooting for that. That's what I'm trying to do. But you know, we'll see how that unfolds.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

Yeah, yeah. So with all of that said, is it has it been difficult? You said it was been very fun. So has it been difficult adding all these new elements and experimenting with a new style?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

Yeah, I would say that it's kind of challenged me in different ways. Like, um, you know, back in the day, if you were just doing a backstage segment, you know, you you fit you take a photo of him like this, you take a photo of him like this, you take a photo of him like this, or blank or whatever, and then you just kind of repeat those kind of photos two or three times, and you get through a promo. Well, now, you know, you're trying to sync them up with audio. You're trying to, you know, you got to get a voice for that character if that's what you want to do. And, you know, you're trying to, you know, create. I mean, back in the day, I also also used to create the backstage looking and stuff, but now that it's new, I'm trying to, you know, kind of change that up a little bit. And, you know, you're trying to just learn an avenue that, but it's it's been fun. It's been fun, it's been challenging, it's been like refreshing, but it it is difficult when you stack, you know, you got the podcast, you got, you know, mo like daily uploads on different socials and your family life and everything. So yeah, I mean, it's just been uh kind of like a balancing act.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Yeah, how are you finding that balance? Like, are you scheduling it out? Are you doing it whenever you feel you have the free time?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:57

Or I'm trying to just make sure that if at all possible, even if it's just a little bit of a chip, I'm trying to chip away at it at least a little bit every single day. And sometimes that's a lot, sometimes that's a little, sometimes it may be only a couple second sequence, maybe it's only a few shots, whatever it is. I'm just trying to make sure that I knock out a little bit every single day. So at least every day that passes, I'm getting closer to that finish line, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Are you thinking about like keeping up the momentum and like how you're gonna jump into the next episode? Or are you just really focused on getting this one out? Because yeah, people people would love to see this, but they don't want to see like a huge gap again, like the last time, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:44

Yeah, 100%. I'm so obviously I'm gonna switch out the arena and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

But I mean you're gonna do a new stage.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

I don't know if I'll do a new stage for vindication, but I'll I've thought about it, like maybe change up a little bit, you know, it's just so it kind of changes the identity. I know you have blue ropes and you know, ring and whatever, but yeah, it would be cool to kind of make a definitive stage, but if it's too much, then that's not yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

I I just thought that's what you meant with the arena, but yeah, you changed the ring ropes, you change all that around the ringside area.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:17

Yeah, and that's not that big of a yeah, it's not you know, that takes 20 minutes max, if that, yeah, to change that out. So yeah, I just yeah, I want to keep the momentum rolling. I think I think once once this is definitively done, I'm not working on that vindication episode at all. So it'll be once this is finally uploaded, it will be just fin finalizing a script, I guess, for that, and then immediately go into filming, you know. But I think also, you know, with this first episode back, you know, you have you know, you can't like I really wanted to update the different figures. I didn't want to just use the same figure, so that kind of took time a little bit too, is you know, but I'm trying to put that into like daily stuff too, you know, or trying to share that process with everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, love to see that. But yeah, it's great to know that you're working on the Fed and we're gonna see it soon. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

Yeah, I'm hype. What do you think of the little teasers or the little snippets you've seen or heard?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:13

Yeah, it's great. I've seen some, you know, little behind-the-scenes stuff that the people haven't seen. Yeah, I'm really liking what you're doing there. I think it's gonna be interesting to see. I think people are gonna really enjoy it. Appreciate it, appreciate it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:26

Yeah, I I look forward to hey, you got you gotta, guys, you gotta go watch the quicksand battle royal. You gotta see the quick sandwich.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:32

It's gonna be it's gonna be insane. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:37

Uh so we have this last matchup here, or this last matchup, this last question we have here. And I think that I can't remember, was it was it when's the next multiversal championship match, or was this uh what was that final question? Let me see if I can find it. Do you do you have it?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

Yeah, it is the question is how did I come up with the multiversal championship? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

Yeah, that's it. So how did you want to yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:04

So I came up with the multiversal championship back in 2021. I was going really hard filming matches. It was like my second year doing full-time action figure fetting, and I really went down the rabbit hole of pick feding. So I was doing a mix of vid fed, pick fed, but I was doing a lot more like pick fed posing and stuff. It was really burning me out and like taking longer to get the videos out. So I was thinking of like how could I get some videos out that would be quicker to make, that I could do some you know, wackier kind of concepts and go outside of the arena to, you know, give me a little mental break and to do some fun stuff. And I was a big Marvel fan, big MCU fan, and the multiverse was a big thing at the time. Big, yeah, the multiverse was a big thing at the time, and so I took some inspiration from that and thought of this concept where you could have, you know, wrestlers from the past, different variants of the wrestlers, different characters from all sorts of toy lines or whatever you want to do there. And they could all fight in these, you know, wacky scenarios, whether whether I had it be, you know, household areas or just like completely made up matches and things like that, and things having you know higher stakes, you know, be a little more dangerous, I guess. You know, we saw like a death with like Peacemaker in one of the matches as well. But yeah, I think it opened up a creative avenue to do a whole different bunch of things that you know you'd be limited to in you know the normal wrestling setting. So it's a bit of fun that you can, you know, watch outside of this in you know, completely kind of separate little worlds there. You know, they come together a little bit, but yeah, you can do a whole lot of fun, innovative ideas with the multiversal championship.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:01

Yeah, I mean it it it like opened up a freaking binder of ideas, like it that it's kind of limitless now, which was genius.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:10

So well, yeah, there was a point where I thought like it wasn't limitless, and you know, there is some truth to that, you know, in terms of you know the settings and places you can do it. There is some limit to that in terms of you know compared to you know your normal wrestling, but that's where we have the balance of you know doing the normal wrestling WSC and then doing the multiversal championship matches. But yeah, it it takes, you know, you could argue it takes a lot more creativity to even think of like how to do these certain matches or coming up with your own matches completely. And you know, it's awesome to bring in characters like Shrek and have people love Shrek and you know do some fun stuff with that to have characters like Tibbles and Mimsy, the shape-shifting dog and cat. You can do fun things like that. And yeah, I think it's it's a whole lot of fun, and I think it allows me to do some, you know, wacky ideas without you know sacrificing what we have going on in the the normal wrestling.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:13

Yeah, 100%, man. That's yeah, that's awesome too, that it kind of created its own like fan base of it, you know. So that's fantastic. But I think that's I think that's the last question that we had for this episode. Do you have anything you want to add before we get out of here and wrap up episode six?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

Uh sorry if my voice didn't sound too great today. I woke up sick today, but I powered through. And yeah, I'm trying to finish that quicksand battle royal. Hopefully, my voice holds up on commentary. But yeah, very sad that the AEW figure line, you know, went under here. But we will always have those great figures to to you know commemorate, you know, that time period, and I will probably still be using some of those figures, you know, throughout my fetting journey. But yeah, anything else to say, Trey?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:04

I think I would agree with you, man. You know, 100% across all the the you know, the different things you said there. I do hate that you're sick, though. I hate to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

I feel like that's the second time you've gotten sick since getting I know I got sick like coming back from Vegas, and I thought I was recovered, and now I'm sick again, and I got a whole lot of work to do. I gotta do this WrestleMania. It sucks, man. They're trying to nerf me.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:28

The multiverse. Yeah. This is the multiverse trying to nerf you. Yeah, that's uh yeah, 100%. But yeah, I think I'm trying to think on this episode. I am filming, I don't want to like spoil anything, which I guess is not necessarily spoil, but I I am using a couple AEW figures on this episode, and it's I haven't quite gotten to the thick of it with them yet, but I imagine it's not gonna be fun whatsoever. I'm actually not looking forward to it because it's not it's not you hear the stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:57

Yeah, I haven't had too big of a problem with it, but yeah, yeah, there's people who hate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:03

The figures I'm using are not on my list, let's say. Let's say they're not on my list. So we'll see what comes with that. But yeah, man, I think that's gonna wrap it up for my damn creators episode six. I had a lot of fun. I think that we went into a lot of great topics today. I felt like we were in the flow of it. I hope everybody enjoyed the episode again. Me and Nate are we work weekly on this, uh, I mean daily, really, because we're we're constantly trying to think of new things to do or you know, add to it. We're trying to get clips going on multiple socials and stuff too. So we're working really hard at it. Uh we hope you guys are enjoying the show. We're enjoying doing it, we're enjoying, you know, thinking of ideas for it, and we really want to, you know, make it its own thing. We want to make it and develop it and make it the best that it possibly can be. But that's all I got. You have anything else to say before we get out?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Just like to tell everybody smash the like button if you are enjoying the podcast so far. Comment down below. We want to hear your feedback. We want you in the conversation. So let us know down below what you think of all the topics that we talked about today. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Keep up with this podcast. And yeah, we'll see you guys all next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

100%, man. Thank you guys so very much for watching. We will see you guys for episode seven of My Name Creators, but peace out, have a blessed one, and enjoy your week.