Has there been a hotter topic of discussion in the wrestling figure community over these past two weeks than that of talk about AEW Unrivaled variant Chris Jericho and chase Cody? If you’ve just returned from Parts Unknown where there’s notoriously bad internet, let me catch you up.

On October 7th, Ringside Collectibles hit the collectable community with an RKO outta nowhere in the form of a surprise drop of the AEW Unrivaled 1 of 1,000 variant Chris Jericho, a week later on October 14th they did another surprise drop of the 1 of 500 chase Cody. Ringside charged a premium for the rare figures, both which sold out swift like. Naturally, not all of these went to homes of passionate collectors, some made their way to eBay selling for up to five times higher than bought for. This result was like a 2007 John Cena win, inevitable. Yet, some people were blindsided.

A common part of microeconomics is supply and demand. We all know what this is. If something has a low supply and high demand, that thing fetches a higher price. Collectors have known since February that there will only be 500 units of the Cody figure and 1,000 units of the Jericho. Unless you’re living life like a Jake Roberts/Rick Martel Wrestlemania 7 match, most of us could have guessed that there are far more than 500 – 1,000 people interested in these figures. The demand was far higher than the supply. Anyone thinking about being a completist should have known that this was going to be harder than getting Roman Reigns over as a babyface. Which is to say, very hard.

Completists are the minority anyhow. How many people buy every single Elite? How many people own every single Bone Cruncher? Every single Classic Superstar? Do they exist? Absolutely. But any completist of a line will be more than happy to tell you it wasn’t easy or cheap. Why would Unrivaled be any different, especially knowing who runs the line.

The Classic Superstar line is the most adequate line to compare the Unrivaled series to. The “Vince McMahon” of both of these lines is Jeremey Padawer. If you’re unfamiliar with that Classic Superstars, just know there are even rarer figs to come in the Unrivaled line. Classic Superstars had 1/100 figures, 1/25 figures, employee exclusives, etc. You can best believe that Padawer will employ these same tactics with the Unrivaled line. The amount of people that will be able to be true completists will be slim if this line lives for a long time.

There is a lot of frustration with the secondary market as well. It’s easy to be bummed that there are really cool figures that are out of price range. Trust me, I have a wish list full of things that will forever elude me like a WWF tItle reign for Roddy Piper. For fans of the Unrivaled series that want the line to live a long time, this is good. You’re seeing passion from fans, you’re seeing collectors help these sell out in quick time, and you’re seeing passionate collectors with a large stream of income willing to pay a premium. This is showing a lot of excitement in the line.

It’s the excitement that gets people talking too. This is a topic of conversation. The collecting world is all talking about the same thing. More eyes are on these figures because people are seeing the collectability of the line. Will it deter some people that wanted to collect every single figure? Sure, but there’s countless other lines begging for peoples money so that’s bound to happen for one reason or another. Excitement and value will drive people to the line as well.

Scalping is Thanos, it’s inevitable. We’re only a few months removed from a time where you could search eBay for toilet paper and Clorox wipes only to see them at an incredible markup. If butt wipe isn’t immune to scalpers, collectables won’t be either. It sucks. As someone that was hoping to be a completist, it’s a bummer. Yet, there are so many other places that I can put my money towards that it’s not the end of the world. It’s definitely not the end of my collection like some people are declaring.

We’re collectors. That’s what we do. Our collections are never finished. These rare figures just give us new grails to hope for, new figs to hunt for, new treasures to see. Don’t focus on what you don’t have. Try not to get hung up on what you don’t have. If your collection will never be complete then there’s no reason to get worked up about what you don’t have right now.

Toying With Words is written by Corey Yuman

Corey has been a lifelong figure lover, short time “serious” collector. After attending Minnesota State University, Minnesota to pursue a creative writing degree, he’s since spent his time writing short stories, poetry, articles, and reviews. You can find more of his work on Instagram @thecoreyyumanlibrary where he nerds out about the books, movies, toys, games that he’s loving while using it as a platform to post poetry or on Twitter @coreyyuman.

I’m a collector of collections. I have my own personal library of books, enough DVDs and blu-rays to start a home theater, Stephen King books, a coffee cup from every place I’ve visited over the last five years, ticket stubs from events I’ve gone to, and the thing that we can likely all agree on, action figures. While the things mentioned are collections that have been growing for a double digit amount of years, my journey into becoming a ‘serious’ figure collector was a long road.

A part of my soul becomes filled with an uncontrollable envy when I hear people recount a childhood that came with an abundance of toys. My childhood certainly wasn’t void of toys, I did come from a poor family so I wasn’t being bombarded with new things each week. Plus, I was a shitty kid that had wrestling matches that were only slightly less violent than an ECW match, soooooo that didn’t help a thing.
I adored action figures, especially wrestling, but my Figure Federation wasn’t limited to wrestling. Between the infrequency of new figures and my penchant for putting on wrestling matches that would leave figures injured (aka broken), it was up to me to include Swamp Thing, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, or whatever bootleg toy I found at a garage sale into play. I made it work though, and never cared about different scales or lines. Figures were about using my imagination, something I had a surplus of.

If there was one thing more rare than getting figures, it was getting a ring. As a child all I ever wanted was a wrestling ring. Unfortunately my little badass ways left the one ring I did get looking like the end of a Big Show and Brock Lesnar match up. Never one to give up though I’d make rings out of clothes baskets, Lincoln logs, or pure imagination on that Willy Wonka swag.

I don’t remember quite when I got to a point where I stopped playing with the toys, but I never stopped swinging by the toy aisle. As I got older my figures went from something I played with to something I displayed. That is until I became a teenager and my friends came over to my place only to insist that they pose figures to be performing sexual acts on each other. Lots of butt play and fellatio poses. Teenage boy humor at its finest.

For about 10 years after my teenage years, I bought sporadically. A wrestling figure here, a figure of a movie character there, nothing too insane. There weren’t any specific lines that I felt I needed all of though. Eclectic collecting if you will [/Dusty Rhodes Voice]. While I’ve always been faithful to my relationship with wrestling figures, I did have a brief affair with Funko Pop. I went from one or two all the way to 15-20 fairly quick, especially falling in love with anything from the comic book SAGA.

I would have likely let that fling turn into a lifelong romance, but wrestling figures popped back into my life like Topanga showing up at Cory’s door in the rain, except in the form of podcasts.

It wasn’t until I discovered the world of wrestling figure podcasts that I learned there’s not only an entire community of people that collect wrestling figures, but a whole culture around it. I was in awe learning that people not only knew what figures were currently out, but discussed figures coming out later, or reminisce about the figures I used to love. This thing that I always felt weird about loving because I didn’t know anyone else loved suddenly had a place to go where I could be a nerd, and not even the biggest nerd to boot.

Humble beginnings as a book and figure collector.

Everyone’s official collection has to have a start. Mine started with a collection I completed and a collection that’s since been abandoned. Being a Minnesota boy, I wanted to collect a figure of every wrestler born or lived in Minnesota. I quickly abandoned that large task as I started to realize how many wrestlers from Minnesota I don’t even like.

The collection that gave me that chase the dragon feeling was the retros. When series one hit I saw a set at Walmart, the feelings of nostalgia smacking me like a chop from Walter. I grabbed Kevin Owens, never thinking of buying another. Knowing that was sitting in my closet I decided I was going to collect retros of my favorite wrestlers released. Then out of boredom I bought a Goldberg, someone I have no real love for, and as I walked I out of the store I could only think one thing. God damn it, now I need every single one.

Since then I’ve completed the retro collection, amassed around 50 Elites, backtracked to grab some of my old favorites from other lines, big shout out the the Saturday Night Live Nat X, Simpsons Stephen King, and all the Saga figures to name a few, and now you could say I’m “all in” on anything All Elite Wrestling has released. I know it’s not the biggest collection, I know it’s not the fastest growing, but I can’t help but to feel wonderful when I lay on my bed looking at my library with my figures hovering above.

My current view when I wake up.

I worry about where it will grow. With only about two years of serious collecting I’ve already run out of space. By the end of wave three of Unrivaled I’ll really have run out of space. At some point something will have to give…or I’ll get a bigger space. One of the two. I’m sure collectors will know which one.

Toying With Words is written by Corey Yuman

Corey has been a lifelong figure lover, short time “serious” collector. After attending Minnesota State University, Minnesota to pursue a creative writing degree, he’s since spent his time writing short stories, poetry, articles, and reviews. You can find more of his work on Instagram @thecoreyyumanlibrary where he nerds out about the books, movies, toys, games that he’s loving while using it as a platform to post poetry or on Twitter @coreyyuman.