After buying TheBigBangMay6.com, I began looking through my old boxed wrestling stuff, seeing if I could find old miscellaneous stuff related to WCW that I could discuss on the site.
To my surprise, I found a small Ziploc bag, and inside was an action figure I completely forgot I owned. However, once I saw it, memories came flooding back inside my brain.
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Shortly after WCW’s assets were sold to the WWF in March 2001, my parents took my two brothers and I on a road trip to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.
After a trip to the Poconos Peddler's Village, followed up with Gabel’s Ice Cream in Tannersville, we’d travel down Route 611 and end up at Stroud Mall in Stroudsburg ten miles away. Out of all the stores we’d see, I’d purposely end up at the Kay-Bee Toys near the end of the mall.
While searching for the latest WWF action figures, I came across one that really piqued my interest:
A Mike Awesome “WCW Unleashed” made by Toy Biz.
What got me at the time was the size of the box the figure was in.
Almost instantly, I went to my old man, a fellow die-hard wrestling fan, and asked him if he could buy it for me. Without hesitation, he agreed.
I also think it was an added bonus that the figure was $2.99, so it wouldn’t hurt the wallet, but I will not confirm or deny that claim.
To me, the Mike Awesome WCW figure might trump his ECW variation. Although it came with a ECW World Heavyweight Championship, you could do much more with the Toy Biz figure. For me, it was more about doing the perfect Awesome Splash and Awesome Bomb, and that WCW figure was tremendous for it.
For a long time, I always wondered if this was a one-off figure, released after the company went under or if this was a part of a set. However, it slipped my mind, never to return…
Until a few days ago.
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Although I love collecting figures, the market has changed so much as it comes to pricing, value, and variants. It truly is a foreign world to me.
I wound up searching for information regarding this figure and came across WrestlingFigureDatabase.com via the Google Machine. 2000 WCW Toy Biz Unleashed Mike Awesome [Small Card] – Wrestling Figure Database
I did find one thing interesting regarding this: although the figure, as per the database, was released in 2000, the back of the box read something a tiny bit different. The box mentioned the WCW trademark, with 2001 as its release point. A tiny thing that threw me off.
Also, although “the Career Killer” was released in a normal-sized package as a part of the “Unleashed” series alongside Shane Douglas, Kidman, and Vampiro, the “small card” box with Awesome I had gotten was the only one in the set.
In its own way, the Mike Awesome “small card” figure is a variant.
Furthermore, this site actually showed me that, had the company continued on into 2001, there were plans for future lines of WCW figures, including Kronik, Booker T, the Nitro Girls, and a “New Blood” Billy Kidman.
What could have been.
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Regardless, I now have my 2001 Mike Awesome on my desk in front of me.
It brings me two different feelings:
- JOY, as it truly is a relic from my childhood, as well as a lasting link towards WCW’s final days
- MOTIVATION, as I want to continue to grow this website and talk about the importance of WCW was, in spite of many who doubt its true impact
Those are Awesome emotions, and that one action figure that I got from Stroud Mall in Stroudsburg, PA brings me that.
Jon Harder
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Yeah, I remember going to the Stroudsburg Mall and going to that Kay Bee store. You know me, if dad said no, I would have bought it for you. Those were the days when my sons got excited with their toys. Glad you found it.