It's purely accidental that I have the two ECW Chris Candido figures autographed. The former Bodydonna just happened to be working several shows for my local independent promotion and both of his releases in the Toymakers figure line happened to still be hanging around on clearance at Toys "R" Us. It worked out great and they aren't two figures that you often see signed. Up until now they were the only figures of Candido. His run in the WWF was during a relatively dark time for toys as licenses were changing. He would've been a fun inclusion in the WWE Classic Superstars line, but I don't even recall chatter about it. Now, thanks to Figures Toy Company, we get to see what it may have looked like.
The latest release in the FTC Legends of Professional Wrestling is the late New Jersey native himself. For some reason the company has decided to release an "Early Bird Variant" limited to 100. Aside from a sticker on the front of the clamshell case proclaiming it as such, according to the company the later release will not include the three accessories present here. Seeing as that there was a new FTC release in the only other figure genre that I collect (1966 Batman TV series), I decided to put Candido into my cart as well.
You may remember the last figure in this series that I picked up, The Blue Meanie. As long awaited as he was, the quality of the figure proved to be a disappointment. While the company was using the same tooling as the Jakks "Ruthless Aggression" style figures, the materials used were just not the same. In fact, as shown right on this blog, Meanie was literally beside himself in the package as his head was detached upon arrival. I have since picked up a few figures in the sister lines put out by the company, those being Rising Stars of Wrestling and Ring of Honor, respectively. I reviewed one of those figures, Tama Tonga, last year. While there were improvements, the material quality by and large still wasn't there.
Before we go further, I will say that my feelings and findings as far as quality have not changed. There is great effort here but I'm still not seeing what we should be getting for the price point. The joints are tight, but I don't have the confidence that I could give this to a child and that it would remain in good condition for long. The trade-off is that we're getting characters we won't be seeing elsewhere. Mattel has little to no interest in ECW stars, so Figures Toy Company does seem to be filling that void. I would like to see more true old school legends, but they don't seem to be going that route at the moment.
Candido's head wasn't off in the package, but the towel was oddly nearly covering his face. I'm not sure why as the figure has a good likeness. It's probably exactly what we would've seen from Jakks. It isn't perfect, but it's much more him than the ECW figures were. There are some odd scars on his face, or what look to be scars anyway. This may just have been intended as shading on the face, but it's hard to tell. In any case, it doesn't show up in all lighting and I'm fairly sure it won't translate to the pictures here. The body is your standard "Ruthless Aggression" style which, again, is what we would've gotten had this been a "Classic Superstars" release. It's not exactly Candido but it certainly works.
The accessories included are a chair, a towel, and a pallet. I really like the pallet. It's plastic but it certainly has a wooden look. As much as pallets have been used in wrestling over the past two decades, I don't recall one being included with a figure before. The towel is the "Val Venis" towel from the Jakks days or similar to it. The chair has been the standard Figures Toy Company folding chair for many years. It reminds me very much of a folding chair at an indy show. Like maybe in a bingo hall. The one accessory that I'm sure will be included in the "regular" release is his elbow pad. It's cloth in a great nod to the Remco AWA line, even if it isn't intentional.
I don't know that we're quite looking at a $40 figure here, but it's Candido. He's probably not getting any more figures and who's to say that the regular release will ever happen? If it does, it will only be around $10 less. And since I opened one and I have seen at least one other opened example, you're down to 98 "early bird" versions left in the package. Speaking of the package, here's hoping that Francine, Scott Norton, and Alex Wright see the light of day sooner than later. They may all look like creepy composite sketches on that card back, but they're three more names I'd be willing to drop $30 each for.
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