Episode 138 - NSC Wrestling And Gaming Podcast

Interview with the owner of Mat Maniacs Rocky Turner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is sponsored by KWK KFA brand. Go to
shop KWK dot com and use the code n s
c w n G for ten percent off your total order. Again,
go to shop KWK dot com and use the code

(00:21):
n sc w NG for ten percent off your final order.
Thank you for the KWK Brandy.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Scopa were the reason why, were the reason why.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Nsc us We own this sound.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Until the final bell will hold up brand.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Welcome to the NFC Wrestling and Gaming Podcast. I am
your host, the director of KAHS, with the co host
Big ste and our special guest.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Me with the Matt MANIAX.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Alright, Rockyes, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure you haven't on.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Thanks me on.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
How did you get started in this business?

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I knew you're gonna ask me that first.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
I gotta go with the details first.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, I mean I've been locked into toys for as
long as I can remember, since I was five, just
collecting as a kid, going right into you know, as
an adult, still collecting. As you can see, you know,
some of the stuff I got behind me. But yeah,

(01:59):
never dream aimed that it was a possibility for myself
to get into making toys. I think what really fueled
the idea was the fact that like the three D
printers were coming out and they started getting kind of reasonable,
and next thing, you know, I have one. Started toying

(02:22):
around with the idea fun intended with the idea of
making toys. Like said, I just turned fifty this past Monday.
Never dreamed at fifty I would be making toys at
this part of my life. But I don't know. It's
a labor of love. I enjoy it. I enjoy creating

(02:47):
something new, something different. Also, you know, with the help
of Fraser Davidson, very talented individual. I just lucked out
stumbling upon him and his work a few years ago.
And I know at the time that I seen his
work for the first time, he wasn't really ready to

(03:11):
put these creations into mass production. But I think it
was because his schedule was so busy and there's a
lot that goes into making toys. I just think that
he felt overwhelmed, which I did at the beginning, because
I was like, how do we do this? Where do
we get them done? I mean, obviously most toys come

(03:31):
from China or you know, Taiwan, those places over across
the pond, and just kind of got lucky kind of
stumbled across the factory. Of course, Ali Bab is full
of all kinds of places over there that will manufacture
just about anything. So we kind of tiptoed into the

(03:53):
door of that. And then the next thing, you know,
you're just kind of like, well, can we do this?
Do we have the funds to do it? Do we
have the talent like all the wrestlers to back us
to do it? And you know, one thing led to another,
next thing. You know, We've we've got things in place
for series one, and it does come with some challenges,

(04:19):
I'll say that. I mean, there is a language barrier
between a small time businesses over here in China, and
sometimes things get complicated. But yeah, I just always had
the love for toys. I mean everybody had. I mean
in the wrestling community, everybody had some form of Hasbros

(04:43):
Or Classic Jacks or LJN's. All that stuff started whenever
I was a kid and just progress. So you know,
the LJNS came out, I was just like, oh, look
at these rubber guys. There's Haul Cogan, There's George Anail Steele.
So I was always a fan of the wrestling figures.

(05:03):
Had some growing up, had some as an adult, but
just like I said, never really, it just kind of happened.
I never really dreamed that I'd be making toys per se.

Speaker 6 (05:17):
Yeah, you know you were talking, you were talking about
like the wrestlers, and you know you've got some major
heavy hitters in your lineup. I mean your series one
with the Road Warriors and the Steiners. I mean, probably
the greatest tag team of all time, the Road Warriors,

(05:38):
and then you know in the eighties, late eighties and nineties,
we're talking about the Steiners legends themselves, and then you
turn around and you come back with even bigger hitters.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
You know, That's what we're trying to do. We're trying
to I don't know, I guess give the wrestling fans
and collectors what they want. I mean, why not lead
with you know, some of the greatest tag teams of
all time. And I'm not saying that we're not going
to do singles as well, because that's always been discussed.

(06:11):
But we wanted to lead with something great. I mean,
we wanted to lead with Hawk and Animal. Rick and
Scott and I had been doing business with Animal before
he passed. You know, God rest his soul and kind
of developed a relationship with him that, you know, we

(06:33):
started doing things behind the scenes, you know, for shows
and what different merch can we put on his table,
and we just kind of become business buddies there briefly
for a year or so, and then you know, of course,
the tragedy struck in September, and it was rough, it

(06:55):
was a rough day, but you know, he kind of
motivated me. He kind of motivated me because we had
talked about toys and we talked about doing wrestling buddies.
Of course, we did a couple sets of those before
he passed. And then I remember him reaching out to
me one time about Frasier's work. He's like, I don't

(07:15):
know who this guy is, but I think he's making
toys and he needs to have permission. And I'm like, well,
I'll reach out to him, see what's up. And come
to find out, at the time, they weren't even toys,
they were just renders. They were three D renders of
you know, obviously what we're making now. So I was
kind of relieved. I was It's like, well, good, I said,

(07:36):
if you change your mind, you want to, you know,
actually make these, you know, let me know. And that
was just a short conversation, and you know, years later
after watching him, you know, progress in his his style
and his designs. I finally just one of the friends,
one of my friends, he says, hey, I don't know

(07:56):
who this guy is, but you might want to get
hold of him because he's making some really great stuff.
So I was like, yeah, you're probably right. I think
it wouldn't be a bad idea. So I reached out.
You know, the rest is history. We're moving forward with
with Wave two. Of course, the pre orders open till
tomorrow at midnight, you know, barring anything else that comes up.

(08:19):
I mean, we've had several people reach out and say, well,
can you extend it? Can you extend it? We'll try.
That's all I can say is you know, if we can,
we will. If we can't, we got to move on
and make.

Speaker 5 (08:31):
What we got.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
So but yeah, it's it's been a journey. It's been
it's been a journey.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Now, what what has been the inspirations for these figures?

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, I mean, obviously when we start doing them, everybody
wanted to lump us into the has Bro retro. But
I mean, I'm gonna be honest, with you if and
this is not a you know, gut punched anybody out there,
any indie toy company that's making Hasbro type figures. I

(09:10):
did not want to start another company doing the same thing.
And like I said, hats off to Zombie, hats off
to Hastele. And you know you got Tower run toys.
Now you've got WSW you.

Speaker 6 (09:24):
Gotta Yeah, there's about nine or ten of them there.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Yeah, there's there's a bunch of Honestly, whenever I thought
about it, I was like, I don't want to start
something that has really been saturated as of late. And
like I said, more powers to them. They make great stuff,
that make great toys, a lot of additions to people's
collections that maybe the bigger companies may never do.

Speaker 6 (09:51):
I mean, yeah, So that.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Saying that, I mean I would didn't have started this
or walked into it trying to be another Hasbro. I
walked into it wanting to be the first a maniacs Now. Granted,
they are four inch figures. They are they are Golden

(10:16):
era wrestlers, some new, some old, so I get while
they're lumping us into that category, but I mean, let's
be honest, I just wanted to do something unique. Yes,
the scale is the same, but our style and our
design and what Fraser has done with the characters and

(10:37):
trying to basically what the Golden Era was all about
was being larger than life, and that's what he's done
with his figures, and he's made them feel larger than
life and just I don't know, there's a style about
him that that just sets us apart from a lot
of the figures that are going on.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Definitely, they're definitely a unique figure, you know, like this,
like you said, like they're they're range as far as scales,
they are a little bit smaller, but the look of
them is totally different, which what gives it that special
niche that your company has versus other companies and right,
and and.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
That's another thing with the even with the packaging, we
wanted to be different. We didn't want to be Okay,
here's the Hasbro card with the diagonal you know line
background with the stars and all that stuff. Don't get
me wrong, that was that was a great design, but
it's not what we wanted to do. Yeah, we wanted

(11:41):
to do something better, something that hadn't been seen, something
that was going to give us a little bit of
a different look than than what your has bird type
figures and cards are today. So I think we we
knocked it out of the park. I think we really
took things to a different level and in a different

(12:03):
area of collecting with you know, the boxes that we've
done and the tag team sets that we're doing. I
just think that we've succeeded in the goal that I
had set for for us to be different, just to
be something other than the same thing that we we

(12:26):
know and love from the nineties.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
I was gonna ask if there was any like inspiration
from like uh w w E Legends or the wrestling
game or Elgence, just because you know, there they are
four inch but the actual body of them is so
much more, you know, video game wise, it's like you know,

(12:50):
uh WWF you know, or w W here comes to
pay like, you know, the games are bigger, they're they're buffer.
Was there any inspiration from that? Mm And I can't answer.
I can't answer for for Fraser, but to me it
was like it was like Pixar, like a Pixar version

(13:18):
of what the wrestlers would would look like and with
their kind of over the top, you.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Know features, we weren't going for realism, Let's be honest.
I mean a lot of the a lot of the
companies out there that are making these retros are going
full on detail, which which is great. I'm glad that
we just sprinkled a little bit of the detail in
there and and be a little bit more generalized than

(13:46):
completely accurate. Now, there are certain things that you can't
sway away from or you lose sight of the gimmick.
So you know, just like you want to make sure
the face paint is authentic. And I'm sure you guys
seen that. We had a little trouble with series one

(14:08):
where the factory decided to use an old render picture
of Hawk's face paint. Yeah, and it kind of upset me.
And let's be honest, I was pretty upset about it.
I wanted it fixed. I was like, these are supposed
to be my favorite tag team of all time. How

(14:29):
can I live with that air on Hawk's face? I can't.
That's why we took it upon ourselves to say, hey,
this is going to get fixed. I want it right.
It'd be no different than if you know, we did
Animal's face paint and he had like a beatle or
something and his forehead instead of a spider. I mean,

(14:52):
that's just how ridiculous it was. So, you know, it
wasn't what I wanted for our first I wanted them
to be perfect. I wanted them to be clean. Yeah,
you know, definitely you're gonna have You're gonna have those issues.

Speaker 6 (15:08):
So well, I mean as far as that one, you
definitely made good by anybody who did purchase those. I mean,
you sent them out, and that was something that you know,
maybe a lot of people wouldn't have done, let alone,
you know, take it upon themselves to make sure that
that was corrected. And you might have said, you know, hey,
you know, just let it slide, or maybe if people
won't know, well for you to come.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
Funny, that's the funny thing. Nobody noticed. But meat had
a couple of die hard leasion of doune fans because
it was brought to my attention early in the process,
and I had corrected the problem before I sent files
over to the factory. Well, the factory just didn't even
look at the files. They just went with the old

(15:52):
picture of what we had started off with and didn't
even look at the files. I say, well, what's the
point of me send you files for the face bait
if you guys aren't even gonna look at them.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
Yeah, if you're just gonna do what you want to
do with it, you know, why waste anybody's time.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
It was one of those things where, you know, we
were renewed to the game. This was our first series.
I did not want that blemish on wave one. So,
I mean, me and my partners had decided that, hey,
this is just you know, it's not good, but it's

(16:28):
you know, let's try to roll with it and get
it fixed. So we did, and you know, all the
people that ordered from that first wave of series one
all got a replacement. And to those watching this if
if you didn't get a replacement, just reach out. We'll
take care of you. Not a big deal, exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Well, what has the what has it been like to
have to be new and to have the big names
on here such as Power of Pain? Uh, the major players,
the Steiners and the Hartish, Like, what has that been like?

Speaker 4 (17:07):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (17:08):
You know, communicate back and forth with that, like, hey,
you know, do you like this? Do you like that?

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Or right?

Speaker 5 (17:13):
What has that been like to have those big names?

Speaker 4 (17:19):
To be honest, I mean, I guess I put myself
as a businessman first before being a fan. Don't get
me wrong. I grew up just like everybody else did,
watching these guys do their thing and was in shock
and all, you know too, finally get to work with

(17:42):
these guys. But there comes a point when you're when
you're doing business, you can't let that fandom blind you.

Speaker 6 (17:52):
Yeah, you have to.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
You have to treat these people with respect and honesty
from day one, because in the wrestling community, especially when
you're making toys and merch and you're and you're doing
signings with these guys, your word is your bond, your
reputation is everything. So you can't come off as a

(18:18):
fan boy. They want to do business. They don't want
somebody that's just gonna kiss their ass pardon my French.

Speaker 6 (18:27):
Yeah, oh exactly, like I like obviously, you know with
the major players, you know, Matt Cardona and Brian Myers,
them also having their own toy line and they, you know,
obviously having the major wrestling figures. Podcast of people actually started,
you know, this whole new genre and niche. They're very detailed.
I remember listening to the first couple of episodes there

(18:49):
when they were dealing with a toy brand Super seven
and they said, you know, it just kept on going back.
Pink that goes wrong, kept that going back. You know,
the beard coloring wasn't right. They kept on going back,
you know, they and whatnot. So they definitely critique their figures.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
They've been doing They've been doing a great job, you know,
filling me in on subtle changes here and there, colors, logos,
because there's a lot going on, I mean with a
figure like that, and you can see the I got the.

Speaker 6 (19:21):
Yeah, I seen them, I trust me. I see them
in the back.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
The prototypes back there, yea. And I had to tell
Matt we talked the other day. I was like, yeah,
those are those are painted prototypes. We try to get
the colors and the logos as close as we can,
but it's different whenever that you want to get those
little bugs and those little tweaks out before everything goes
to production. Yeah, it becomes you know, concrete, and it's

(19:50):
tough sometimes because you want to you get into some
of it to where the factory is overwhelmed with maybe
a design or a low go kind of like why
you've never seen Jeff Hardy in that mess shirt. It's
because the paint masking is an absolute nightmare for something
like that, and the cost goes straight out here. Yeah,

(20:14):
So with the heart Is especially, we tried to keep things,
Like I said, we're trying to keep things more generalized
instead of, uh, be more realistic.

Speaker 6 (20:26):
Well that's like when you're looking at the Hardy's there,
especially the ones that you're producing there, that timeline of
Hardy's is like debut Hardy.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Oh yeah, and that's straight.

Speaker 6 (20:37):
Up that we really didn't get growing up right in
that figure form. So that's that's really nice.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
And we've seen, you know, we've seen Mattel take their
shot at the Hardys. I didn't think they were that great.
They were for the time period that they were making them.
I understand that, but they I think they could have
been a lot better. And like I said, I'm I'm
a fan of Mattel. I've always been a fan of
Mattel even since I was a kid, with the Masters

(21:06):
and Universe stuff and to see them, you know, mash
up wrestling with that with the Superstars line and then
of course they had they had the he Man WWE
mash up thing was really cool.

Speaker 6 (21:19):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Sometimes you swing for the fences and you come fall short.
But I like to think that our attention to detail
and keeping in contact with a lot of the guys
that we're making figures of and getting their input is
ultimately the final say, because you know, I don't want
to make something that they're not going to be proud

(21:43):
of and have on their table or there or give
to their grandkids or their kids or whoever. I want
them to be excited for what we've done for them.
And that way, you know, we're building a relationship for
the future in case we want to do something else.
And also that spills over into, you know, relationships with

(22:05):
maybe wrestlers that we don't know, because you know, if
if you treat somebody right, they're going to tell everybody
else that they've been treated like gold. So and like
I said, my hat's off to Bill and Bill Edie
and Barry Darzo. If it wasn't for them, I mean,
there may not be a Hardy Boys Matt Maniacs, but

(22:27):
they believed in us to the point where they wanted
the Hardies to be part of it as well, so
that you know, they they put us over at a
show that they were at when they were together. And
the rest is history. You know, I can't say or
or tell them, guys how much I appreciate them for

(22:49):
believing in us and taking it to the point where they're,
you know, recommending our work to other people and other wrestlers.
So yeah, so let's.

Speaker 6 (22:58):
Talk about demolition there. I know you have an exclusive
coming out for them.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
We do, I'll tell you what. Hold on, sorry about that.

Speaker 6 (23:22):
No, it's not a problem at all.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Don't reach out far.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
But that's why I'm in my studio.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Yeah, these are painted prototypes that I actually painted myself.
So there's hacks acts.

Speaker 6 (23:39):
Look at that. Look at that.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Turned out for you. And of course smash tell you what,
that face paint is not not very.

Speaker 6 (23:50):
Much fun, I can imagine. Yeah, I'm getting old, man, I.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
Don't have I don't have the steady hand that I
used to. But of course you know, we got the uh,
the mask that go with them.

Speaker 6 (24:01):
Oh that's nice. That's a nice little and then the best.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
So what we did with the best is to be
able to take these on and off without tearing up
your accessories. We had to do a little.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
Uh there we go, Oh, I see it there.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
We had to do a little class so right here,
it separates. Yeah, so it goes down over top of
the one arm through the other and then it has
a local you know, it'll be a soft rubber class
right there that will bring it together. And we hit
it pretty well. So if you're looking from the front,
you're not going to be able.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
To see you know, yeah, yeah, exactly that.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
It's not going to be really a blemish in the design.
So but we definitely wanted to include those accessories, and
you know, accessories can get expensive, they can get difficult,
but I think Frasier did a really nice job on those.
And to be honest, I bet you anything. And I
haven't tried it yet because I don't have the the

(25:04):
Hasbro demolition.

Speaker 6 (25:08):
It almost looks like it will fit it.

Speaker 4 (25:10):
It probably would, yeah, to be honest, it would probably
fit flexible. So if the heads are a little bit bigger,
I mean, they'll probably fit on there pretty well.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
So you were talking about possibly you know, going from
or adding in shingles. Yeah, who would you you have,
like anybody in mind that you would have, you know
for that first line.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
Well, we just signed Paul Ellering, so that's an obvious
choice to go with.

Speaker 6 (25:43):
Your l O D.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Do we do a three pack with him and the
l O D.

Speaker 6 (25:51):
I mean that's a different, different paint scheme.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Maybe maybe because you know, if you look, well, I
can't really see it. You can't now, I guess you can't.
I'll just do this on top of my series one.
I have the black yes with the green face paint
on animal and black face paint with the blue stripe

(26:16):
with Hawk. That's been discussed several times about doing them
with you know, the black Gauntlet's. We've also discussed a
little bit about doing the l O D Early l
O D when they're in their vests with the spikes. Yeah,
and of course, uh, throwing Paul in there with them
as well. We did release a picture or render of

(26:39):
Paul in his black suit red tie from I guess
that would have been let's see, he read for the
red one at SummerSlam, so the black I think the
black suit red tie was probably when they debuted, like
at Wrestlemingia eight and did the interview.

Speaker 6 (27:00):
Well, yeah, I think it was a ninety two right
in eighteen ninety three.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah, I was actually there. That was my first WrestleMania.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah, he's a good one to go to, kind of
spoiled me. But then I went up to later U
when I went to WrestleMania seventeen.

Speaker 6 (27:17):
So I was I was actually at WrestleMania seventeen.

Speaker 4 (27:21):
We were four rows from the ring at WrestleMania seventeen
when The Rock took on Stone Cold. Yep, that was
that was a heck of a heck of a show.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Tasts so h So myself in the co hosts, they
were at what we considered the last original WrestleMania thirty
five when it was up in New York City and
it was still the one night right that was. That
was a good show there. So like going ahead there,
like you're talking about that three pack, I think that
there would be, you know, something to be very unique.

(27:53):
There's not a lot of companies out there that do
three packs.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
But sometimes that makes sense. I mean, there's a lot
of lot of options there. And we had talked about
doing grudge matches as well, because everybody's been asking, oh,
you've got to do something where you know, it's this
guy versus this guy, or you know, something like that,
something that kind of staples something from wrestling history in

(28:18):
a two pack or a three pack, which all has
been discussed I'll be honest, we have enough interest from
the wrestling talent to probably make figures for the next
ten years.

Speaker 6 (28:33):
Well that's just your business then it is. But I mean,
I'll get to be honest.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
You know, when you start from scratch, you're starting a
new label, you're starting a new company, and you're trying
to get that support underneath you. It could be tough.
It can be challenging because you're the new kid on
the block and everybody's trying to buy all these retros
that you know, the market has become saturated a little bit.
But I like I said that all more reason why

(29:02):
we wanted to be unique and not and not be
a cookie mutter Hasbro company.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
Yeah, exactly. Like obviously you know we've been plugging your
brand now, uh or at least the last three months.
I could think of NonStop.

Speaker 7 (29:17):
We really I really appreciate that that way there people understand,
you know, what's going on, these awesome figures, but you know,
let's talk about this, uh, this season or the series
two you have going on there.

Speaker 6 (29:34):
Obviously that is the major players. And from what I
see that you are going to come with the capes
or the cloak, the vest or the the jackets. Ye, m.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
We'll just bring them all to the conversation.

Speaker 6 (30:06):
There we go. Yeah, let's let's let's show the fans,
uh what it could be expecting.

Speaker 4 (30:11):
Now. Granted these are product types.

Speaker 6 (30:14):
Yes, so these are not the finished product that we're
seeing here. But what we're seeing is the renderings of
these products right now. And obviously right there's Brian Myers.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
Now. The one thing I do want to say that
we changed on the coats, and Matt brought it up
to me and said, where's the lapel? Well, in the
pictures that I had with like Brian, his hair is
covering up the lapel. You can't see it. And then
just the way the photograph was, it was hard to
see that it actually has a small lapel that you

(30:48):
know goes right here. So my soft Goods guy is
actually putting that into effect right now. So we can
get that over to the factory and give that, you know,
that extra little detail to the coat to make it
really set off with it. Man, I tell you what,
I think they they fit really well. We had talked

(31:09):
about doing rendered coats like like printed you know, like
kind of like the demolition vests, and I was like,
I don't know. I think it just wouldn't flow right. No,
but he knocked it out of the part with that,
I think. I think that's Mattel level type of soft.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
That's a beautiful figure.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Turned out really well, and so did Matt's And like
I said, there's a few things we want to tweak
before things get final. Of course, he will have chest
hair like Rick Steiner did.

Speaker 6 (31:45):
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure he was pointing that out.
He needs he needs his chest hair.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah. So you know, we try our best to match
everything up based on the renders. But you know, sometimes
the prototypes are not going to be identical to to
the renders. But you know, my friend Brett David did
the meat job on these. He did the major players.

(32:10):
I thought he did a fantastic job.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
Matt Cardona is infamous, so.

Speaker 7 (32:15):
Oh yeah, hot dog, yeah, hot dog Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
And then uh, my buddy Bobby Anders, like I said,
I try to use as many of my local artists
as I can because I want them to be able
to showcase. We want to be able to showcase their
work as well. So Bobby Anders did a really nice
paint job. Of course, my hand's covering a lot of it.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
Yeah, there you go, Nick, What do you think about
that one? There? You're the hardy Boys fanatic.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
I had to keep it simple because you know as
well as I do, their their outfits can get pretty crazy.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
Exactly, Jeff, especially Jeff Jeff.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
We had to do a little bit of a change
with him. Kind of hard to see, but he's got
the lighter hair on, you know, facial hair and stuff.
It's kind of hard to see with.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
The white on the belt. That's that's good. I like that.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
I think the trickiest part of this figure will probably
be the holes in his sleeves.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
But well, yeah, because he had he had different colorways
in those holes with the elbow patters, right, Yeah, the
whites could have been green, a lime green, or a
neon green, to a purple to a pink. He had
different color waves with that.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
And also these necklaces are accessories.

Speaker 8 (33:37):
Oh the removal, that's why I put the space in
the back, you know. Yeah, so they'll just clip.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
Around the neck and rest on the shoulders.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Now, what those necklaces, there's only two colored necklaces or
three colors of those. You have the green, the purple,
and the silver. That was that's all they had.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Yep, and we did the silver on yeah, Matt ks
So yeah, little details.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
I good details on the Hardies. I'm a big Hardy fan.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
We Like I said, I was excited when Frasier sent
me the renders first renders for those, I was just like, man,
those looks so great, and like I said, we're not
trying to get that full on, detailed, realistic. Look, I
just wanted them to have that. When you looked at
their faces, yes, they are cartoony, but does it look

(34:31):
like the guys.

Speaker 6 (34:32):
Oh, you can definitely tell. It looks just like it's
the guys. Yeah, it's And like I was saying, that's
the perfect niche for you guys, because no one else
is doing.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
That right well, and also too for like wrestling fans
who are picking into the gamings. Right, so the w
w E Legends of Wrestling and then ww All Stars
the way Raymisteria was four hundred pounds of pure muscle, right, Like,
So wrestling can be a mixture of realism and you

(35:05):
know that cartooning because that's what makes it fun.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
I mean, look at the ae W game to the.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
W W E two case series, right, you know you
have a you have a mixture of both, and there's
always a little bit people are gonna like, and then
there's always gonna be a little bit people don't like.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Right so far, the the community has been really really great.
I mean, we've had we've had people critique this, critique that,
and they're always asking are those you know best on demolition?
Are they separat And I'm like, yes, they are. But

(35:46):
you know, there there's there's a lot of negativity activity
out there as far as like, I think our biggest
bugaboo about being the new kid on the block is
our price point. A lot of people have said that
it's too high, and I go back and compare what

(36:07):
we're doing to you know, some of the other companies pricing,
and I feel that it's, you know, pretty spot on
for an indie company. Let's get up. Let's be honest.
When you're a Mattel or Hasbro and you're making hundreds
and thousands of that is.

Speaker 6 (36:22):
Going to say you're cost go do. But but you know,
I don't think people realize too is that you're getting
a two pack. If you price out let's say like
a zombie single figures, they're a little bit higher than
where you're at with a two pack, trust me, I know. Yeah,
well and not just that.

Speaker 5 (36:41):
Yeah, look at right.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
So with Mattel, people like the basic prices, right, you know,
the the fifteen to eighteen dollars range for the basics
with no accessuries. You can't even move the abdominal with these,
you get it, you get accessories. The packaging looks for penomenal.
The attention to detail, you know, for for what it is,

(37:04):
is really good. You know, obviously you're not going for
the realistic one. The attention to detail on what you're
doing is phenomenal. And then it's the fact that you
do have a two pack. Look at them and tell
you know, ultimately leaps they're they can.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
Get up there.

Speaker 4 (37:21):
Yeah, they're what thirty forty bucks.

Speaker 6 (37:24):
Higher than that. That's that's a single one. If you
get like a two pack, you're up around the eighty
ninety range, right. And what I said that you do
is that you also when you get your figures, they
come in a nice protective case.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
They do, and that was our idea to give a
little bit more bang for the buck. Yes, they are,
I mean, let's be honest, there's thirty two fifty for
a single figure. Ourser two pack at sixty five dollars.
I want my stuff to be protect and let's all,

(38:01):
we all know how shipping rolls around this place. We
know how, you know how you know the post office is,
you get stuff from Amazon and all this stuff is
it's just absolutely obliterated. At least those clear protective cases.
Give us, give us a chance, because that is that
is a long journey from China.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
To hear it's very you're what I think you're the
only figure company that actually delivers it.

Speaker 5 (38:28):
What a what a protector case?

Speaker 6 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
To go on ringside. You gotta a lot of money
on that. You know, you got to add the extra right, And.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
To be honest, it was worth it to us to
add that little extra peace of mind to the figure
coming from China. And granted, I still get beat up figures.
I've got boxes up over there where they've taken a
beating coming from China. Even in a protective case. I

(39:00):
couldn't even imagine what it would look like outside that case.
I mean, it would just be completely useless.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
And destroy devastating.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
So it's worth that a little bit more investment. I'd
rather take that little bit more of our customers purchase
mon you know, funds to protect their figure coming from
China to me and from me to them, and I
think it's worked out pretty well so far. I mean,

(39:29):
I think it's really now granted, those things scratch kind
of easy, but you know, that's clear plastic for you.
But at least it's not getting the box inside, getting
the crap beat out of it and transit. Exactly, yeah, exactly.
I would rather have a clear case, just get the
crap beat out of it than more beautiful figure inside
of it.

Speaker 8 (39:49):
You're one correct on that one there, because I mean, honestly,
the reason why I put those on there, I just
figure people would take them out of the take their
you know, their box out of the thing, and just
aauset because it was just an extra layer of protection
for the figures.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
So to leave them on a lot of people do
they say it heightens the quality of the packaging, Which
that's great. That's what we were going for. We were
wanting them to be protected, and we were wanting them
to be pristine when they got here and not have
the crap beat out of them because you know how,
I guess I'm a perfectionist when it comes to when

(40:27):
I'm shipping stuff out. If I'm not happy to put
that package on my shelf to display, then it's not
going out if it's got scuffs and scratches and bents,
and you know, that's a last ditch effort for quality
control on my part to our customers. So I'm takes

(40:52):
me a little bit longer to ship stuff, but I
would rather ship stuff in pristine condition with bubble wrapped
around it, and then me just blindly send stuff out
and then I start getting sixty emails from people saying, oh,
you know, my stuff is tore up, or you know,
their arms broke off or the head's broke up. Whatever.

(41:12):
I would rather just put that little bit of extra
effort QC in my shipping to reassure people that their
stuff's going to get there safely. And that's all it's
all about collecting. I mean, that's the biggest horror of
the collecting businesses. You know, you spend a bunch of money,
sixty five dollars on a set and it comes, like,

(41:35):
you know, to your front door looking like it got
dropped kicked across the football field. So yeah, these are
challenges that we've tried to address early in our processes.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
You're thinking, just like a collector is exactly what it is.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
I am a collector, I could and here's the thing.
I don't necessarily collect a lot of wrestling stuff. I
mean I have some stuff that really means a lot
to me, especially you know, my signed Road Warrior stuff
from Animal But I got a little bit of everything.
I mean, if you look through the Nerd closet, maybe

(42:11):
sometime we'll do a little we'll do a little tour.
I mean I have anything from Back to the Future,
Indiana Jones, I got Marvel stuff. I've got a lot
of horror stuff sprinkled in with wrestling, Ghostbusters, Fuco, Pops,

(42:32):
you name it, dude, I've got I'm into arcades, so
I build Bartalk arcades. If you want to see the
one that I actually got to build for Sergeant Slaughter
watched the very end of his biography show on A
and E. His episode.

Speaker 6 (42:49):
Yeah, at the.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
Very end, him and his grandson are playing it.

Speaker 6 (42:53):
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
And right now I'm in the middle. I got a
build him a pedestal. He's wanting a pedestal for it
to sit on top of instead of sitting on the table.

Speaker 6 (43:01):
So he's a large man.

Speaker 4 (43:04):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, and he's a good he's a
good friend. I'm really blessed with a lot of these
friendships that I've made with a lot of these Golden
Error guys especially, and even some of the newer guys,
but you know, like Sarge, Earl Hebner, Paul Ellering, the Steiners,

(43:31):
Terry and Barr from you know, Powers of Pain. Just
you know, you know, over the few years that we
were I was doing signings and shows and stuff, I
got to know a lot of these guys and friendships
have kind of blossomed from there. Now. Now, granted, some
of them you work with your they're just your business acquaintances,

(43:53):
you know them through business. And then there's others that
you've really connected on a on a different level and
uh tend to care about and and talk to them
on a regular basis. So yeah, it's it's been quite
the journey because you know, when I was a kid
and I was watching you know, these guys performed growing up,

(44:17):
never dreamed in my well, I guess it would have
been in my forties, in my forties that I'd be
talking to these guys on a regular basis and and
uh dealing business with them, and it's just it's surreal. Yeah,
it's very surreal. I just never dreamed that this is
where i'd be. And I'm very I'm very grateful for

(44:40):
the opportunities that they've they've they've given me too.

Speaker 6 (44:43):
So so you so you're talking about some of your collection.
There could there be an expansion of your line going
into other things rather than wrestling.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
That has been discussed as well, And we really haven't
signed anything definite, but we have talked about a few
different movie television shows, Yeah, that we could possibly use

(45:16):
the same type of design.

Speaker 6 (45:18):
M with and never say never, Oh exactly, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
I mean to be honest, I could see these style
and this you know, size of figure. You could do
just about anything.

Speaker 6 (45:35):
Yeah, you can have your own little like you know,
toy line there with all different different characters.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
And that's all about licensing, and that's where's work.

Speaker 6 (45:45):
What people don't.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
Understand, you know, they see that sixty five dollars price
tag and and a lot of collectors don't understand how
many pockets get a piece of that sixty five dollars
Oh yeah, and it's from you know, the base design.

(46:06):
The guy that designed the stuff has to get paid
to the wrestlers, have to get paid to all the
shipping costs that it that it takes to get everything
over here to the collectors. It just chips away, chips away,
chips away, and then the next thing you know, you're
you're down to the bare minimum and you start questioning, well,

(46:27):
am I making enough for my time that I'm putting
in this. So to those who think those prices are
not just mine, you know some of the other guys
that are doing it as well, you know, they think
that they're too high or too expensive. It's because the
smaller companies taking on the chin compared to Hasbro and

(46:51):
compared to a Mattel where Hasbro's making or Mattel's making,
you know, one hundred thousand units, and that drives the cost.
Then they've also got some they've got some things in
place for their shipping to where it's not as much,
where they're bringing stuff over on a boat instead of
a plane, and they're saving on shipping costs and vault

(47:13):
deals and stuff like that. So when you get into
a bigger company like that and bigger deals, those pockets
get a little smaller. And they're making more in volume,
where we make more in quality and quantity. You know,
you're our price to make a figure might be twice

(47:36):
or three times higher than what Mattel can get a
figure made in So we're never probably going to be
at that level. So we have to price things accordingly
to you know, be in everybody's best interest to continue

(47:57):
to make figures because you just you can't afford to
to make figures if you're losing money. Well, nobody can
do that. Nobody wants to. Nobody wants to, even if
they're in a restaurant business. Nobody wants to at the
end of the night after busting their hump getting food
on people's tables, to lose money.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, first off, don't ever say never.
I mean you could possibly get into those levels there.
But Mattel, uh, if you've noticed in the last month
and a half or so, their prices in retail have
gone up, Yeah, across the boards on all their figures,
same thing with a E W and jazz wear like

(48:39):
that price point has jumped up also, So I mean,
you know where your price point is, You're it hasn't
It hasn't. Beer where theirs has has increased, and.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
You know, ultimately being a collector, I want it to
be affordable. I don't want people to sit look at
my stuff and say, yeah, I can't afford sixty five
dollars or one hundred dollars or one hundred and forty dollars.
I mean, I want it to be affordable for everybody.
I don't want it to be for the people that

(49:14):
you know, make a really good living. I want every
Joe down the road to be able to have Matt
MANNIAX in their collection. A yeah, I just wanted to
be a competitive price, but a fair price. And if
you know, we start doing really, really, really well, I
can see costs coming down. But to get started at

(49:38):
the bottom, new kid on the block, trying to work
our way up to being successful, it's it's a long road.
I mean just think about the you know, the replacement
Hawks we did. Those those did get fit for free.
As much as I wanted them to be free, they

(50:00):
did not. But whenever you it.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Was free to the consumers, who was the consumer? That's
what we were. We were very commendable by you doing that.
A lot of pass might have just said, let's just
push this aside here because it's done, we can't take
more of a hit.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
But you know, just gestures like that. Everything costs money.
That's the problem. Everything costs money. And and the licensing
and to get the permission from these guys to make
these figures. It all costs money. They all get their
their slice, and I think people just need to be
a little bit more aware of that, especially coming from

(50:38):
a smaller company. And that goes for you know, Hastle
and and Zombie and all these guys that are making
these great figures. It all comes at a price. It's
it's normally not cheap, so are higher than others. You
just you just try to make as you just try

(51:01):
to make as good of a deal as you can
with these guys to be able to continue to do business.
Because if you can continue to just take a punch
to the face, financially, you're not gonna be making figures
very long. So it's a risky business because you know,
you know, you have a great product. You know that

(51:22):
there's people out there that like it. But the more
people that buy, the more series is down the line
that you can continue to make. So I just hope
people realize that, you know, they're getting the best version
of these toys as we could possibly put out. And

(51:45):
to know that as a collector myself and you know,
my partners as well, having everybody's best interest at heart
with the quality of these figures and getting the figures
to them safely. I just want people to have that
peace of mind of Hey, these guys are they know
what we're going through with all these pre orders, and

(52:06):
they know what we're going through with, you know, just
trying to get our figures safe and sound on our shelves.
I just hope that they can see that and feel
better about spending that sixty five dollars than they would,
you know, bind it from a big company.

Speaker 5 (52:22):
Yes, now I have a question for you.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
You know, would you ever consider having accessories like you know,
a chair or a ladder or a table or trash
or something like that, And like, would you also consider
it maybe making a ring.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
We have also discussed those things. We have discussed. I
know the chair in the ladder has been brought up,
especially with the Hardy Boys, and I think it comes
down to interest. If we have enough interest and enough
people talking about it, then I'm all for it. But uh,

(53:13):
every accessory you may cost money.

Speaker 5 (53:16):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
And the more accessories you start stuffing in the box, and.

Speaker 6 (53:22):
And let's be honest, that's another piece taken away.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Yeah, it's just the production costs start going tick tick tick,
and they start going up. But you know, you want
all these cool things too to be included. But everything
costs money. We've already said that, I mean, but I'm
not saying it that that. It's not in the conversation.

Speaker 9 (53:45):
If you had just throwing out there we talk about
we talked about, you know, doing the belts and stuff
like that.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
But there again, yeah, have permissions, dude. Yeah, it's a
whole lot of these belts are Yeah, they have, you know,
copyrights just for one the designs themselves. Now the one
that doesn't is the big goal. It's free to use.
So but if you get into the WWE stuff, everybody's like, oh,

(54:20):
you need to make the world champion, you know, intercontinental.
And let's be honest, peeps, the WWE is not going
to give us little guys the rights to make those belts.
Tn A possibly, but the way things have been going
lately with the partnerships between t n A and w
w E and n w A and a w and

(54:42):
all these you know, ring of honor. Likely you're gonna
have to probably pull some strings and grease some some wallets.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yes, now if you had a pull it on top
of your head. What would a Matt Maniac ring look like?

Speaker 4 (55:03):
In my mind? Yeah, I mean I look at some
of the rings that they've put out there, Like the
Hasbro one was pretty basic. It was just a shell
with your basic ring posts and your elastic ropes. But
the only thing I didn't like about it was the

(55:26):
fact that it was customized to the stickers set that
came with it, So they had that WWF emblem lowered
in the middle of the ring where if it were me.
I know the custom community pretty well and they want
to make it look different. There's a lot of artsy

(55:50):
guys out there just dieing to customize a ring that
has never been made before. So in my mind, I
wanted something that had maybe like the main mat on
the ring you could pop out and replace with another one,
interchangeable center console type of deal, and maybe even interchangeable

(56:18):
panels on the sides from like where your skirt or
your apron is you you could put you know, anything
you wanted on, like you know, whether it was Raw
or WrestleMania or whatever like that. Sky's the limit. Now. Granted,
I'm not going to give people the option of having
a WWE product, It's just not in mine. But I

(56:39):
want that customizable attribute to the ring to where they
can if they wanted to take our base rim that
we give you say, it comes with you know, two
different colors of ring posts or a different plate that
might be different shape or something like that. Just that

(57:00):
freedom to make the ring yours. I always thought that
would be a cool idea.

Speaker 6 (57:06):
Yeah, I think like a sticker package, yeah, or a
role package from let's say like an example, uh, the
major players, they had the ring rolls. They could lap
that on there and have their own ring.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
And you know, you could go one step further and
put out accessory packs or sticker.

Speaker 6 (57:30):
Packs or yeah exactly.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
You know something that the wrestling fans can just go
crazy customizing their own ring to make it look like
maybe they even had their own wrestling promotion that they
wanted the ring to look like that has their logo
on it. I mean, maybe even put out a digital
template for the ring, or they can make their own stickers.

(57:52):
I mean, stuff like that, goes a long way with
with the customizers out there and the rest and community,
because you know, like I said, they they love doing
custom has bros and figures and and I've seen several
customized rings. I've done some myself in the past, So

(58:13):
I don't know. I just think the freedom to make
things look the way you want it to be, I
think would be a big hit with alumn of them.

Speaker 6 (58:21):
Oh yeah, customization and with wrestling has been going on
for as long as I can remember. Yeah, yeah, so
that that'd definitely be uh, that would be awesome.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
I just think it would just give you freedom to
to make it look out cool.

Speaker 5 (58:36):
It would definitely be something completely different on the market.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
And there again, I mean, costs becomes a factor and
you don't necessarily have to worry about trademarks. But you know,
trying to compete with the Mattel ring that cost twenty
five dollars, Yeah, it'll be tough, especially if this thing
has you know, pieces, Yeah, yeah, even the ring post.

(59:03):
I mean, nice thing about the ring post is it's
one mold. The turn buckles one mold, which is nice,
but you still have to run off all the parts
for it. The ring ultimately could be on T three, four, five,
six different pieces that could be interchangeable.

Speaker 6 (59:22):
Yeah, yeah, especially when you're talking about the skirting and
the mat itself. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
So I mean, yeah, you can go cheap and just
do a one piece with them with the turn buckles
on the posts and and keep the costs down, or
you could go full on customizable ring for you know
a little bit more. Maybe seventy five dollars would get
you that customized ring. I mean, I don't know, I've

(59:50):
talked about it, we've we've looked at possibly doing one,
but there again, being new, you've got to establish that
fan base, in that customer or base where you can
start really getting into the the rings and the accessories
and stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:00:08):
Well something like that. They're a few years back Mantel.
They dabbled in the backers program, if you remember correctly,
with that generation ring.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
What was that three hundred bucks it was the.

Speaker 6 (01:00:21):
Three new gen ring. Yeah, and you know, so if
they reached a certain amount of backers, they would keep
on adding more and more tears. Their goal was, like
I want to see it was like I was in
I think it was.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
I found it was pretty high, I remember.

Speaker 6 (01:00:39):
And it ended up hitting something like ninety seven hundred
backers which unlocked every single tier they had.

Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
Yeah, it came with what Diesel and doing it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
Came with it came with Diesel and doing. Okay, the
Early Bird Special came with Macho man right right, and
then so so so if you or you pre ordered
during a certain amount, you got Macho Diesel, Machel and
Diesel with the ring and then once you hit a
certain level again, then you got joined. Then when you

(01:01:11):
hit a certain level again, then you got the different
ring attire for thirding, and the they did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
The like the accessories, like the analysis and stuff like that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:24):
Yeah, yep, once you and I mean everything got back you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Not a good idea, I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
Yeah, like a backers program out there, you know, it's
just see what happens that way there. It's not so
much of a hit on you guys. If it doesn't
take off, then you just refunded or.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
You just don't collect until it closes.

Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
Yeah, I can always do it that way, and we
can definitely put that in a discussion as well. I mean,
you could even do that if you wanted to do
a maybe a Deluxe tag Team two pack exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:02:01):
Yeah, you know, ye you start off, you take your
price point. There, you hit that price point and this
is what you're gonna get at first. But you canna
lock these tiers right here and get these extra things.
Then you know, you're like, yeah, I tell you right now,
I'd be more than happy to back that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
I think. I think that's uh, that's gonna be a
new conversation down the room. Yeah, good ideas, that's the game.
We love the feedback. We love the feedback from the
wrestling community because they're you know, they're the ones ultimately
paying the ticket to ride or ride, so yeah, good bad.

(01:02:46):
We try to listen to it all. Of course, you
have you have your occasional trolls out there that like
to have no intention of buying anything or supporting you
whatsoever other than just to bash you as many it's
as possible.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
I will be the first person to tell you right here,
right now that the wrestling fans are the biggest cry being.
Oh right, I'm a wrestling fan myself, and all I
do collect is wrestling. I'm nothing else, Nothing in my
entire is just there's nothing but wrestling. And I sit

(01:03:22):
back there on all these message boards and I see
all this stuff happening. You know, why is this happening?
What I'm thinking to myself, If anybody really understood what
goes into these processes, you might have a better understanding
and kind of lean back a little bit and say, well,

(01:03:42):
you know, this is it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
I try to be as.

Speaker 6 (01:03:50):
Politically correct as possible.

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Well, yeah, I mean I'm not. I don't have time
to be fighting and arguing with people online. So I
take the good with the bad. If somebody wants to
give me some constructive criticism, I really appreciate it. But there,
you know, there are also people out there that are
just miserable and want to just be negative. Yeah, but
that comes with anything. I mean, that comes with absolutely anything.

(01:04:16):
So I take the good with the bad. And like
I said, I appreciate the people that reach out and say,
hey what about this? Hey what about that?

Speaker 6 (01:04:26):
Great?

Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
I'm all for trying to make our product better. So
you know, the criticism or the or the the positive
feedback is always appreciated.

Speaker 6 (01:04:37):
Well, I would definitely say, you know, from looking at
your especially your second rendering of your series two. There,
I'm so excited. I can't wait to get the product
in hand because it's it's amazing so as.

Speaker 4 (01:04:53):
Far as like our timeline, I try to keep our website.
We have a progress bar that I that I updated
as much as I can. But if people, you know,
want to know where we're at in the process, just
go to the page. If we've progressed into another step
in the process, I'll update it. If it's stuck on
the same one for a month or so, that's because

(01:05:14):
that's what we're dealing with. So right now things are
in production. We are looking at October of twenty twenty five.
I mean, we definitely have to have demolition by Thanksgiving
for the show for Risk Cape, so but we're trying
to get them done as quickly as possible. And that's
another thing. You know, people, some people have more patience

(01:05:39):
than others, And I get that. I've waited one figures
before for over two years, and it's just one of
those things where I've already spent the money. Yeah, they're
going to come out eventually, and I just don't worry
about it. They get here, they get here. It's a
pleasant surprise. But you know, I get it. Some people
want them yesterday. I get that. But you know, not

(01:06:03):
to speak for the other companies, but a normal timeline
for a action figure from start to finish is about
six to eight months, and that's if everything goes according
to plan, which it never does. I mean, let's be honest,
it never does. It's always something. It's always something, I mean.

(01:06:26):
And the communication between the factory and yourselves is there's
a gap. So yeah, just to give you an example,
they'll come up and you think everything's going great, right
next thing, you know, three weeks later, you think, oh,
they're getting ready to go into the next phase. They say, well,

(01:06:47):
this is wrong and this needs to be redone. You
could have told me that three weeks ago. So now
by the time you get that problem, that little problem fixed,
you just lost a month, yep, because either their plate
is too full, or they forgot to tell you, or
this just came up. And it's it's it's a constant battle.

(01:07:11):
You want to keep that engine moving forward and that
production moving forward and going in the right direction. But
it's like I said, that's the biggest headache about doing
toys is the communication barrier between myself and the factory
could be can be tough. And and then you know,

(01:07:32):
you come to first of the year, they have their
holidays where they do the Chinese do your thing, which
is that Yeah. So if you're making toys, the best
thing to do is to have those babies done by
the end of the year. Yeah, because you're gonna lose
a month. As soon as you get into January, they're
gonna be for a month.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
So it's one thing after another, Yes, sir. You try
to push forward and between the designs and you know,
they get into the mold making and well, this isn't
going to work, and that's not going to work. All
those things cost time and the next thing you know,
you blink and you're two months behind. So the patient's

(01:08:13):
factor from the community is key. And we understand that
people get tired of waiting on stuff. I mean, I
get it. I'm a collector myself. Sometimes you know you
want you really really are looking forward to these figures
and you want them as fast as possible. But also
I take in consideration that you know, it just takes

(01:08:34):
some time and not everything reals smoothly.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
I definitely want to after we're done recording here, I
definitely want to show you some things I got to
my collection.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
Okay, but why don't you tell the people where to
find you?

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
So we are at the nerd Closet online dot com.
We also have an Instagram page. We have a couple
of Facebook pages. One is the business page. The other
one is a private page that I've had for years
that people just go in there and talk toys, and
we try to promote stuff in there as well. It's
pretty quiet in the private one, but the public one
we try to update. As we update the site, we

(01:09:14):
update with Instagram, and then we update again on Facebook
to try to keep people informed of what we're doing
and when they should expect their toys. Wave two is
currently open right now. It is set to close tomorrow
at midnight. That's not set in stone. We had put

(01:09:38):
that date in effect because we thought, well, the factory
is going to be needing final numbers here soon. So
that's all it boils down to is once the factory says, okay,
we're ready to finish up. How many do you need?
And then that's when you tell, hey, I need five
hundred thousand whatever. So we try to leave that or

(01:10:00):
open as long as we can for people, you know,
waiting on that paycheck or they just had to shell
out one thousand dollars to fix their car and they
need more time. We try to make the window as
big as possible and not slam it shut on people
that really love our figures and really want them to

(01:10:22):
have them in their collection. So tentatively it's tomorrow at midnight,
but we'll see. I mean, we've been talking about it
this past week about you know, are we ready for
final numbers yet or can we leave it open just
a little bit longer for people to have that opportunity
to get them, because once I close it, and we
learned this from our first wave, we closed it after

(01:10:44):
sixty days, and then next thing, you know, it's you know,
we're getting email and message after message wanting to know
if there's going to be any extra, And I'm like, well,
these are made to order afford to have two thousand
LD or two thousand you know, Scott Steiner or the

(01:11:06):
Steiner brothers laying around here collecting dust waiting for somebody
to buy them. Yeah, I'm not that big, So we
have to make basically what is ordered or pre ordered.
We add about ten or fifteen percent four damages and
lost stuff, but other than that, you know, we just
don't We don't have the capital or the room to

(01:11:29):
be keeping a bunch of stuff in stock, and then
we want to move forward with new figures, not keep revisiting,
you know, the ones that we've already done. So and
there's a lot of foam ow in this business.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
Everybody knows all about that, Oh full to killer.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
But you know, I've seen some of the prices for
Wave one now that we've kind of closed things off.
Now we do have you know, a few extra sets
of the Steiners. I may have a few extra sets
of LED that we may put up on the site,
but we'll let everybody know ahead of time before we
do that. Very few, very very few. We had one
the reason why we had several Steiners, we had an

(01:12:12):
order to get canceled for a store that was going
out of business. So we ended up with you know,
several boxes of the Steiners. But the LED was a
big hit. We sold a bunch of LED, and like
I said, I have some that I've been going through.
But it's been a busy month for me with vacation

(01:12:33):
and everything. So now that the vacation's over and the
holiday is behind us, from July fourth, I'll be able
to focus.

Speaker 6 (01:12:41):
On back to the ground.

Speaker 4 (01:12:43):
Yeah, back to the grind, getting through some of this
extra stock and knowing exactly what we'll have it on inventory.
And just to give you guys a little exclusive tidbit
of information, we're going to do a custom L O
D E cost contest and we're going to have our

(01:13:06):
special guests. Judge is none other than Paul Ellering.

Speaker 6 (01:13:10):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (01:13:13):
So here's what's gonna happen. And like I said, we're
gonna announce this officially here this coming week. Just working
on the promo stuff. But for twenty five dollars, you
go on our site, you'll buy an entry spot into
the contest, the custom contest. We will send you a
loose set of LD to customize however you want them.

(01:13:37):
Maybe you want to do the blue ones, maybe you
want to do the black ones, maybe you want to
do your own concept. And then once they're done, you
send us backside pictures and then ultimately those pictures are
going to get reviewed by Paul Ellering and we'll probably
have him live to pick our top three winners, and

(01:13:59):
our winners are going to receive third place gets to
pick one of Wave two, second place gets to pick two.
The winner of the contest gets all four sets of
Wave two that includes demolition.

Speaker 6 (01:14:17):
Wow, well you heard.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Even and even if you're not in the top three,
we're going to try to give them something as well.
But I mean it'll be something small, but you know,
a little parting gift from from the Matt Maniacs and
nerd Closet for participating.

Speaker 5 (01:14:40):
That's all right, that's an imagine, guys.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
I just think it'd be cool. You know, We've got
some extra second figures laying around, and I thought, I
don't want to have them sit here wasting away and
three inches of dust on them, I said, I used
to customize figures myself. How cool would it be to
to send these out into the into the world of
customizers and have them give us their best led design,

(01:15:09):
so exact, judged by other than the legend Paul Ellering.

Speaker 6 (01:15:15):
How good is that?

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
Yeah? That's great.

Speaker 6 (01:15:18):
Well, well, mister Turner, we really do appreciate your time
out of your busy schedule. Everybody, wasn't too long winded, No, no,
it's perfect. Everybody, please check out the nerd Closet dot
com and check out these wonderful figures. The Matt Maniacs
Series two. You got the major players, Matt Cardoon and

(01:15:42):
Brian Myers. You got the Hardy Boys, Jeff and Matt Hardy,
you got the Powers of Pain, the Warlord and the Barbarian.
Definitely check them out, pre order, get them done, Order them.

Speaker 4 (01:15:57):
Now before it's completely closed.

Speaker 6 (01:16:01):
Yah, yeah, before it's completely closed, all right, sir, Thank
you so much again. Definitely appreciate your time. It was
absolutely wonderful time.

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
Thanks for having me on, guys. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:13):
Thank you,