WCW 6 INCH ORIGINAL SAN FRANSISCO TOY MAKER FIGURES
A TRIBUTE
Quick! I need you to tell me about your favorite line of WCW action figures.
Was it the iconic line of mini-statues created by Galoob in 1990? Perhaps the Toy Biz figures that ran amok during the Monday Night Wars? The LJN ripoff figures from the mid-90s? Or is it possible you're a sucker for the controversial ones that had vibrating action for no discernible reason?
No matter which line you've chosen... I'm pretty sure it's not the line of 6 inch figures detailed above, created by The Original San Francisco Toy Makers in the late-1990s. And it's not that there's anything inherently wrong with these figs - they're just not all that memorable. The line doesn't even have a formal name that I'm aware of.
Overall, the 6 inch figures were a bit of cartoonish and the body types kind of, well, chunky. But that's also part of their appeal!
In fact, most wrestling figures are either cartoonish or have body types that aren't entirely realistic, so it's hard to pick on the OSFTM for this end result, really.
And if we're looking for reasons to bitch and complain about 20 year old wrestling toys.... one could also point out that the paint/deco job is okay, but certainly not stellar, on most of the figures.
It's worth noting that I have three near-identical versions of this Randy Savage figure: a 4.5 inch version (also made by WCW) and a WWE Retro figure as well.
The 6 inch line of figures was fairly articulated, meaning you could move their head, waist and limbs with relative ease. Each figure also had a button or knob on their back that would allow to execute certain moves, e.g. Rey Mysterio's "Super Kick" or Ric Flair's "Forearm Smash."
One thing you could quibble with the Original San Francisco Toy Makers folks with, however, was the odd diversity in height and width between figures.
Case in point: there's no way Ric Flair should be larger or thicker than Scott Steiner (or Buff Bagwell, for that matter), so this kind of scale is a little off-putting if you're trying to recreate WCW action.
On the brighter side, this 6 inch line gave us wrestlers that were considered rarities in the figure community to this point. Raven didn't even have a figure before this, and Curt Hennig had only been captured in WWF Hasbro before now.
Add to this another dozen or so other WCW figures not in our collection, and this line had some decent depth to it.
The 6 inch line of WCW figures from Original San Francisco Toy Makers may not be the most memorable collection in wrestling history (nor does it even have a name), but what the hell? There's enough variety here to make you want to tune into Nitro to find out more.