First... if you read the above headline and had a flashback to Jim Halpert mockingly asking Dwight Schrute "What kind of bear is best?" - that was intentional. A great moment from a great TV show.
Second... we here at Wrestling Merchandise and Memories are HUGE fans of the late, great King Kong Bundy. We openly rooted for him to squash Hulk Hogan in the main event of WrestleMania II and paid good money in 1998 to pose for a Polaroid photo with him. Accordingly, we've tried to gobble up all the King Kong Bundy figures on the market.
Third... we fully realize these aren't all the Bundy figs ever created. We'll get into that later.
Fourth... we decided to rank (in reverse order) our favorite Bundy figures for the purposes of this article, at least among the ones in our current collection. Bald, massive and wearing a black tunic, we could probably build a KKB figure from memory and not be far off. The point being, this may be one of the easiest wrestling figures to create from scratch.
Fifth... well, we don't have a fifth thing to share, but we wanted to list five things for the Master Of The Fve Count. Here we go!
# 6 - Wrestling Superstars Bendies
As we've written about previously, Bendies were the red-headed stepchild of the LJN figure universe and don't ever get much love. Most of the figures are exact freaking replicas of the larger LJN figures and are hard to hate on.
Not so much with the Bundy one. For one thing, his arms aren't in the menacing position the larger LJN is, so instead he kind of looks like he's... shrugging his shoulders? Not a good look for the guy. Plus, he's taller than all but a couple of Bendies (Andre and Big John Studd) which, proportionately-speaking, doesn't seem all that accurate.
Fun fact: I had this Bendie as a child and went on to ruin it by giving a wig made out of permanent black market. Whoops!
# 5 - Figures Toy Co.
Sure, this isn't the world's most detailed wrestling figure... but it honestly doesn't need to be. As I mentioned earlier, you can be fairly simple with the design and still have it look a lot like The Great Bundy. Plus his arms are articulated, so you can position him for the Avalanche if you're so inclined.
# 4 - Figures Toy Co. (bloody variant)
As I mentioned in the article Bundy, Bloody Bundy - blood wasn't really a big part of King Kong Bundy's repertoire, so in and of itself, this isn't really an accurate depiction of the guy. Plus.... look at that blade job! KKB would have probably needed a transfusion to deal with this! But being bloody makes an ordinary figure better (just ask AEW's Blood & Guts set... assuming action figure sets could talk), so this one gets the win over its non-bloody counterpart.
# 3 - Micro Brawlers
As I mentioned in the article Micro Brawlers: A Tribute, I went out of my way to order this minifig of The Walking Condominium.
The figure doesn't disappoint! A perfect miniature representation of KKB, this one even has him requesting the five-count. Unfortunately, this figure isn't articulated at all (like all Micro Brawlers), and they gave him eyebrows for some unforgiveable reason.
# 2 - Jakks Pacific (Classic Superstars)
Generally speaking, we prefer WWE Mattel figures to their Jakks Pacific predecessors... but here's one fig that gets all the big things right.
For beginners, the figure is HUGE and stands out in a crowd. The face sculpt is pretty awesome and his bald dome even has traces of stubble on it. His hand is signaling for the five count. Plus it's hard to be mad at a removable cloth tunic that (if you are so inclined) would allow you to see Bundy in his undies.
A few small nits: This Bundy also has eyebrows (look at most of his pictures for his WWF glory days run and he actually doesn't have them) and he's also missing knee pads, which was a fairly common gripe for Jakks figures back in the day.
Of note: there may be a few different variants of this figure. In addition to coming packaged on his own, he was also in a three-pack with The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff.
#1 - Wrestling Superstars
Talk about the O.G. This was the first Bundy and in our humble opinion, by far the best.
When they made this figure in 1985, they quite literally broke the mold. There's no else like him - he's massive, intimidating and if you threw him at your buddy's head, there's a decent they would suffer permanent brain damage.
We love this version of Bundy so much that he was our first inductee in the (prestigious) Canadian Bulldog's World LJN Wrestling Figure Hall of Fame back in 2014.
AND they made him without eyebrows!
In terms of the King Kong Bundy figs that we at Wrestling Merchandise and Memories don't have? We believe there are only three (but could be wrong) - all of which are ridiculously expensive and/or hard to find on the secondary market:
Wrestling Superstars Thumb Wrestlers - Packaged with Paul Orndorff, this thumb wrestler is a decent likeness of KKB and is sized relatively to scale with the others in this series.
Wrestling Superstars Stretch Wrestlers - Filled with some of powdery gel that makes his limbs snap back into place after you stretch him to smithereens, this may be the best figure in the entire Stretch Wrestlers line. King Kong Bundy is even the official spokesperson for the line!
Mattel WWE Legends - A "Matty Collector" mail-away special, this one should have been number one on our list (and may have still been had we owned it). But at upwards of $300 on the secondary market, that's not going to happen. Plus, the figure is a little too lean to represent The Walking Condominium. Also? They weren't allowed to use his full name! So even on the merch shirt that the figure comes with (which he likely only wore in the WWF catalog and never actually wore to the ring), it simply refers to him as "Bundy."