Three Decades Of Raw

I still remember sitting down to watch the first episode of WWF Monday Night Raw. How in the world was that thirty years ago? It does feel like a long time ago, but three full decades? I would imagine that some reading this blog weren’t even alive then. Those of us who were around and collecting never could have imagined the figures that we would have today. I miss those days. As we all know by simply looking at the news, the real world is three times worse now. At least we have fun toys to get us through the doldrums. One of those items is our topic in this entry and what a way to mark the 30^thanniversary of Raw!

A Target exclusive, Mattel’s Elite RAW 3-pack contains three characters fairly ubiquitous with the early days of Raw as well as a set piece that many of us have wanted for years. Handsomely packaged in a large window box, you get to see everything included. For whatever reason the extra floating hands and other accessories don’t bother me as much here as they do in single release figures. I’m actually not sure why that is. Maybe because there’s more in the window that your eyes are drawn to? Nonetheless it’s a great box and I’d love to see similar ones done with older stars, perhaps in the classic baby blue motif?

Included in the set are The Undertaker, Razor Ramon and, per the box, The 1-2-3 Kid. We’ll get to my phrasing in a moment. For some the really big sell for the set is the inclusion of the large “R,” “A,” and “W” letters that made up the Raw entrance for several years. Honestly, I’m not sure that I would’ve jumped on this initially if it weren’t for their inclusion. I’m a huge fan of set and diorama pieces. That, coupled with some great discounts through the Target app and I couldn’t go wrong. Full entrance gear for Taker and Ramon are included as is the $10,000 money bag as well as handfuls of money. Why the money bag? Because Razor had to lure the Kid with money in order to get a rematch back in ’93, that’s why!

The Undertaker will be the draw for many. Personally I greatly limit my purchases of him. In fact, I usually only get new figures of him in manners such as this, where he’s part of something else. I have nothing against him, I just wasn’t ever a huge fan and there are countless figures of him. This is a good one and one that I’m glad was included with something that I was purchasing anyway. The duster, tie and hat are all removable and done very nicely. The former two are soft goods which is always a plus. He has two sets of hands, one set being for his “raising the lights” entrance pose. The hair in front of the face is great and the legendary gaze from behind is spot on. Fans of The Undertaker will honestly want this set for this figure alone.

Next up we have “The Bad Guy” clad in green! It’s a nice figure and comes with the oft-requested “thumbs up” hands. Mattel, if you still have the rights to Hacksaw Jim Duggan we need an update, pronto. How about inclusion in the Legends line with a chase? One version can be black trunks with white kneepads, the other with the classic WWF blue and blue? I’m giving you ideas and you’re throwing money away. We need “thumbs up” Hacksaw! Anyway, back to Razor. The head/facial likeness is fine but I do think it could be better. Scott Hall figures never look 100% spot on. I’m a huge fan of the green here, though, and it definitely fills my need for brightly colored figures.

Onto the 1-2-3 Kid. Let’s get something straight. This is an entirely new character. I know they can’t/won’t market it as such, but this is a never before done wrestling figure. This is not the 1-2-3 Kid. This is The Lightning Kid. We’re talking GWF vintage, here. I love this. While I initially thought that the Raw entrance set was my selling point here, for whatever reason I didn’t realize until I opened the set that Mattel actually gave us L. Kid. As I’ve documented in the past, I’m a huge fan of what Mattel would call a “deep dive” into a wrestlers past. While The Lightning Kid was pretty high profile for a few weeks until he became “The 1-2-3 Kid,” I’m still considering it a good inclusion into this small subset.

Last but not least is the Monday Night Raw entrance. We all knew going in that the letters would be a tad smaller than real life, but that doesn’t bother me a bit. They could’ve cheapened out and given us some kind of heavy stock cardboard, but they didn’t. These are full molded plastic. Six rubber-ish “stands” (two for each letter) are included and pop on to prop up the entrance. I think that the stands should be just a little bit longer as I’ve had some tipping, but I still love this. The letters are separate so you can spell out “RAW” or “WAR” or “ARW” or whatever you please within the confines of the three letters.

I like this one. It has a little bit of everything and was released at a perfect time, just as the early days of Monday Night Raw are on the nostalgic minds of many. For as big as he was, Razor is still a tad underdone in the figure world. He has a lot, but not as many as you’d think. I do feel that he’s one that falls under, “if you weren’t around then you wouldn’t understand how popular he was.” Beloved for sure, but you had to be there. The Lightning Kid is my sleeper here and nearest and dearest to my heart. I love first time legends, even if Mattel isn’t marketing as such. Will it be hard to find? With the current climate of many items being produced in large quantities it could be plentiful a bit, but there’s just no way of knowing. If you like any of the characters or want the fun entrance pieces it’s worth it for sure.

Time to get RAW!

From The Musty Yellowed Pages--WWF SummerSlam 1995 Program

The day and hour of the publication of this blog entry marks exactly twenty-five years to the minute that SummerSlam 1995 began. It's a show that fans have been divided on since it happened. It's really an event that you either love or hate without much middle ground. I've documented my love for it previously, including on the twentieth anniversary of the event. While it's generally a bit out of my favored era of wrestling, other factors will keep it in a warm place in my heart forever.

Pittsburgh had long deserved a major wrestling event. There had been no major wrestling broadcasts to speak of from The Burgh since our Studio Wrestling show ceased taping in the early 1970's. There was even a short period in the late '80s when the WWF stopped coming here altogether. For the rich history and fan support that remained in the city, we easily deserved an early pay-per-view event in the Hogan era, but it did not happen. When word got around that we were finally getting a major event of our own, fans were more than ready.

While the Internet was in its infancy for most fans, I was already part of a small group on a local BBS (Bulletin Board System) and can still remember the bunch of us fervently looking forward to the big event. The on-sale date passed and I even attended an autograph signing with Diesel and Alundra Blayze the night before the event. Though wrestling was not at the height of its popularity by any stretch of the imagination, the city seemed to truly appreciate that SummerSlam was happening here. Taking nothing away from traditional wrestling hot beds like New York or Chicago, I think our fans truly appreciated it more after being starved for such an event for so long.

As the company did with several pay-per-view events that year, a special program was produced and sold only at the event. It's larger than an average WWF publication and has thicker, glossy pages. The company was still using the original SummerSlam logo that debuted in 1988 and its placement in front of their top guy, Kevin "Diesel" Nash, made for a compelling cover. I've since loaded mine up with autographs from talent who worked on the show, but I did indeed purchase it there. Each match on the card is given a brief write-up and accompanying photos.

The main event is a big part of the controversy around the show, with some feeling that it wasn't up to par with past events. It was a classic World Wrestling Federation affair: larger-than-life hero versus monster villain. "The irresistible force meeting the immovable object," as then-WWF President Gorilla Monsoon would have said. Perhaps the formula would have worked better a decade earlier, but the company was sticking to what it knew and I totally bought into it. I always enjoyed the work of Nelson Frazier no matter which gimmick he was portraying and he was sadly taken from us far too soon.

Some fans see the true main event of the show as being what was actually the penultimate match in the lineup. In a rematch from 1994's WrestleMania X, Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon once again battled for the Intercontinental Championship in a Ladder Match. My dad forever after dubbed this one the "Ladders Match," as a second ladder ended up being brought in during the bout. It was an exciting match and Razor's popularity here really makes the viewer lament that we were never treated to a WWF Championship run for "The Bad Guy." 

Fans from outside of Pittsburgh are still surprised when I inform them that Bertha Faye's defeat of Alundra Blayze for the WWF Women's Championship was the first title change in our city, but it was. The former Madusa has always been underrated in my view and I won't even get started on my appreciation for Rhonda Singh. For Christmas 1995 I wanted nothing more than for figures of these two to suddenly be made. It only took us over two decades to finally get that Blayze figure. I'm not holding my breath for one of the late Miss Singh in any form, but it sure would be welcomed by more fans than just this one.

Pittsburgh was also treated to a casket match pitting The Undertaker in his signature encounter against Kama, The Supreme Fighting Machine. The feud would've been more interesting had Charles Wright's previous character of Papa Shango been resurrected, but at least we were treated to the beloved "Million Dollar Man" theme music seeing as Kama was a member of the Million Dollar Corporation.

While some fans were probably looking for a textbook Bret Hart classic, instead we saw an equally iconic match from the era where "The Hitman" was battling crazy baddie after crazy baddie. This is the event that saw the debut of Jerry "The King" Lawler's demented dentist, Isaac Yankem DDS. Of course the man behind the character would have a much bigger moment in The Burgh on pay-per-view just a few year later while capturing his first WWF Championship, but that's another story for another program review. Here we had a continuation of the long battle between "The Hitman" and "The King," this time without any unwashed feet.

The show was rounded out with matches between Hunter Hearst-Helmsley and Bob "Spark Plugg" Holly, a tag match featuring The Smoking Gunns and Jacob & Eli Blu, a hot opener with The 1-2-3 Kid and Hakushi, and Bodydonna Skip (Chris Candido) saw action against rival Barry Horowitz. Horowitz was a great talent who deserved to finally have a moment in the spotlight, and some theme music, no matter how brief it may have been. 

Perhaps my only lament is that then-WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart and Yokozuna were not on the card. That fact robbed me of ever getting to see the mighty Yoko live and in-person. It should also be noted that, for reasons of which I've never seen explained, The Fabulous Moolah was present at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, at least earlier in the day. The legendary women's champion made a splashy exit out of the building through the thousands of fans waiting to get in. I've always wondered if she was originally scheduled to play some role in the women's title match or if perhaps she was attempting to do so. This would be a great question for Bruce Prichard. Hey hey!

Even if you don't own one, you've now had a "virtual" look through the 1995 SummerSlam program. For the reasons above, it will always remain a special show to me, as well as the fact that my father's birthday was August 31. Because of that, I'd always joked that I would take him to SummerSlam. My parents ended up taking me, and I still remember my dad returning from a bathroom break with the laminated event poster that was being sold at the merchandise stands that night. My dad would turn 75 this coming Monday. This entry is dedicated to him, the great man that he was, and, keeping in the spirit of the topic, his constant support of my fandom of the business that I loved so much.

Wrestling MarketWatch: Hasbro WWF

If you were following this blog back in January of this year, you remember that we did a month long celebration of the Hasbro WWF toy line. 2015 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the figures that many consider to be their favorites. The line definitely captures the early-1990s WWF feel with its over-the-top characters, bright colors, and slightly cartoonish look. There hasn't been a line of wrestling figures quite like it since and may never be again. That's probably a reason why, in the past few years, the line has become insanely popular among characters young and old.

In MarketWatch entries we look at recent sales of specific items. After all, if you're looking to sell your collection or just want to gauge its monetary worth, the only way to get a true market value is by checking the last known sold examples.

*The largest figure in the Hasbro line was the mighty Yokozuna. The two-time WWF Champion saw a unique sculpt from a company that was fond of reusing previous designs. Yoko had two figures in the line with a debut in the red carded series and a repaint in the final series packaged on a green card. The latter had a white paint scheme and was just as popular as the first, although all of the final series are sought after due to low distribution. A carded example of the second Yokozuna recently sold for $81.

*In the Hasbro line, foreign cardbacks can often make a difference. Late in the line some American stores such as Kay-Bee Toys received shipments of these European figures. Some collectors just collect the overseas variants, some don't collect them at all. At times it can cause a difference in price, sometimes it does not. In the case of the first figure of The Undertaker, it seems that he is wanted no matter the language. A recent foreign carded example sold for $30, with American versions selling for the same.

*Autographed items can be tricky. While any item can sit, unsold, for months and then suddenly have two interested parties who drive the price up, it is especially true for autographs. There is very little value in taking the time and effort of forging a wrestling autograph, so most are actually on the up-and-up. Those that aren't kosher are easily detected. The Hasbro figures are a lot of fun to collect autographed thanks to the large photo of the real wrestler right next to the figure. "El Matador" Tito Santana and Marty Jannetty autographed examples recently sold for $25 each. At that price, you're paying just a bit more than what the autograph itself would cost.

*In my early days of writing about wrestling memorabilia, two of the items that I was most asked about were the Hasbro King of the Ring wrestling ring and the Royal Rumble mini-ring. Both saw a very limited shelf life in stores. Before word spread on the Internet, some collectors doubted that either even existed. Complete examples can bring major money, especially when the boxes are present. That being said, it's no surprise when just odds and ends from both show up and sell. Just the red WWF flag from the King of the Ring set recently sold for $20, while one of the Royal Rumble mini-ring "action plungers" sold for $16. It goes to show that you should hold on to whatever you have. It could be the exact piece that another collector is looking for.

*Many collectors often op for loose figures. After all, toys are meant to played with. Many loose Hasbro WWF figures can be had for under $10 each, but as usual the final series commands a higher amount. The 1-2-3 Kid has always been the most popular figure from that series. Although the body was designed for Rick Rude and was poorly reused for Ric Flair, it works perfectly on The Kid. A great face sculpt works in his favor, too. A loose example recently sold for $93.

Even though we are nearing the end of 2015 and the twenty-fifth anniversary, the Hasbro line will live on. It's a set that many of us grew-up playing with, and it's now being collected by fans who weren't even around for the original run. From Andre the Giant and Dusty Rhodes to Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon, Hasbro covered a lot of ground and history in just around five years. Little did they know that the thought, care, and ambition put into the toys would live on, decades later.