By Michael Moore, PWTorch Collectibles specialist

In Brief: Despite his status as a fan favorite in several 1980s regional promotions, Terry Taylor's first action figure wasn't produced until 2011.




Action Figure Spotlight #25: Terry Taylor Jakks-Pacific TNA Deluxe Impact Series 6 Legends of the Ring
Originally released: 2011
What you can expect to pay: $8-15 (loose or packaged)
Recent sales: $15 (loose)

Terry Taylor wrestled his first professional match in 1979; 32 years later, he was finally given his first action figure.

Taylor was a fixture of the national wrestling magazines from the early ‘80s through the early ‘90s. During that time he had memorable runs in most of the big companies: he starred in Bill Watts’s Mid-South and UWF in the mid-80s, briefly feuded with Nikita Koloff over the NWA and UWF TV titles in Jim Crockett Promotions, became the Red Rooster in the WWF, and then went back and forth between WCW and the WWF.

Yet during all that time, not one figure was ever made of Taylor.

Taylor debuted in the WWF in 1988, around the same time as the Big Bossman, the Rockers and the Powers of Pain. Around that same time, interest was dwindling in LJN’s WWF Wrestling Superstars line, and production of those toys ceased in 1989. LJN made figures of Bossman and the Warlord, but never released toys of Taylor, the Rockers, the Barbarian, or other new wrestlers who arrived around that time.

Taylor left the WWF in 1990, just before Hasbro took over production of WWF toys. The cartoonish Red Rooster, who seemed perfect for a wrestling action figure, never had his own toy.

Taylor competed for WCW from 1990 to 1992, and during this time, Galoob produced WCW action figures. Even though this line included lower card wrestlers like Big Josh, Galoob never made a figure of Terrence Taylor or the Taylor Made Man. Even Richard Morton, Taylor’s York Foundation stable mate, had a figure planned at one point, as unreleased prototypes of this figure have surfaced on the secondary market over the years.

While Jakks-Pacific was offering up toys of past wrestlers in its popular WWE Classics line from 2003 to 2009, Taylor was firmly entrenched as an official in TNA. Given his role in TNA, Jakks-Pacific did not include any of Taylor’s past personas in this line.

The first Taylor figure finally surfaced as a part of Jakks’s sixth series of TNA Deluxe Impact as a Legends of the Ring figure. At his best, Taylor was a clean-cut babyface, and that is how this figure presents him, with simple black trunks and white boots. The head sculpt closely resembles Taylor, but the body is overly muscular, resulting in a figure that looks somewhat like Lex Luger.
With Taylor gone from TNA, it is possible that a Red Rooster figure could turn up from Mattel.

Correction

Kudos to the readers who pointed out that the Mike Awesome ECW figure from OSFTM featured in last Thursday’s Collectibles Column is not Awesome’s only toy. He was also included in the WCW Unleashed line of figures produced by ToyBiz in 2001. These figures were found at heavily discounted prices during that summer, after WCW had been acquired by the WWF. This is the less popular of Awesome’s two figures and usually sells in the $8-10 range.

Sloppy Signature Trivia Answer

The sloppy signature featured in last Thursday’s column belonged two former ECW, WWE, and TNA star Stevie Richards. Congrats to Jimmy Fazio, who was the only reader to correctly identify Big Stevie Cool’s messy autograph.

Do you have a contact about wrestling collectibles, a story idea, or a collection you’d like to show off? Contact Michael Moore at michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com.

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