AEW recently spent some time on its show and introduced their new line up for action figures from the Toy Fair show in New York. AEW showed the footage of the toys being shown off to the high ups like Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, Brandi Rhodes, Kenny Omega, even Chris Jericho. The wrestlers themselves were, of course, were very pleased with the action figures and we were told these will be able to purchase very soon.
The footage AEW put together only showed Cody and his friends and the toys of made of them. It turns out that there are more action figures that were shown that the AEW footage didn’t. There was a second series of figures shown at Toy Fair that are figures of Jon Moxley, Rey Fenix, Pentagon Jr., Dustin Rhodes, MJF, and Adam Page. Those figures were shown off and displayed during Toy Fair but not a mention of them on the AEW show. Yes, a Brandi Rhodes figure was shown off before half the roster. I’m sure there are a lot of action figure collectors looking to have a figure of Brandi Rhodes.
It was as if the people who put together AEW wanted people to buy THEIR figures and don’t care about anyone else. That certainly seems to be the vibe I am getting. Hell, I didn’t even know there was a second series of these figures until I found the pictures taken by Ringside Collectables.
Another subject of these figures was the ring itself. The figures were shown off in this toy wrestling ring and I openly asked in a few places if the ring was something you could actually buy or just for the display. Turns out you CAN get the ring too but you would never know unless you looked elsewhere for information on this figure line. The ring itself looks like it is way too big to be an “Authentic Scale” or whatever is being said about it.
Along with the figures and the ring to have them thrash around in, AEW also showed off an AEW World title belt to wear so your kids could pretend to be wrestlers. It is a decent looking belt they made and I’m sure they will be in the toy aisles of stores all over the place. I wouldn’t take that with you if you venture out to eat somewhere. Especially to a Rib place. Word is championship belts end up disappearing for periods of time in places like that. Ask Chris Jericho about that kind of ordeal.
But back to the figures. They look nice and some of them are guys that haven’t had figures before anywhere. I have pointed out Kenny Omega and Pentagon Jr. as figures I might get myself someday. But I don’t see the entire line being successful. After working in retail for years and being in the toy aisle, I have feeling these figures are just going to be peg warmers and people (mostly Kids) will only go for the WWE stuff and not bother with the figures from the “other” guys. Kind of reminds me of the Lucha Libre USA figures that came out years ago. I think I was the only one to buy those in the store I worked in at the time and most of the figure packages fell apart on the pegs.
I would say I wasn’t the intended audience for those figures, but the way they introduced them on TV, It looks more like Cody and his buddies were looking to get paid, no matter where the money comes from.
