#1082 - PLAYMAKERS/LARAMIE - PLASTIC WRESTLERS (Around 1986)

I bought this collection of 8 plastic wrestlers in Austria, but I didn’t know anything about them until very recently. They are unmarked and relatively small. At the time, I thougth they might come from those vending machines that sell plastic balls with some novelty toy inside, or, maybr, from a blister card from a Chinese or Indian bazar. The paint and the overall quality is very low, but the variety and body positions are great.

I later found out that they were manufactured in the 80s by companies such as:

• Playmakers, which sold them unpainted in a blister pack of 4 under the brand "Champion Wrestlers" (Made in Hong Kong)
• Ja-Ru, unpainted, under the brand "USA Wrestling Team" (Made in Hong Kong)
• Unknown Toymaker, painted, under the brand "Wrestling Champs/ Champions de Lutte" (Made in Hong Kong), using the same card as some of the "Wrestling Champions" bootlegs (same as the two-figure blister pack shown here, both on the front and on the back sides)
• Laramie painted under the brand "Wrestling Sper Champs" (Made in China, probably already in the 90s, as some colours schemes remind of Hulk Hogan)
• The colours used in my figures seem to be more "modern" than those of Laramie, I guess they could be even newer than these. However, for the "facts and figures" at the end of this article, I will use the apporximate year of 1986, as these is the educated guess for the Playmakers models.

I have eight figures, which are decorated in pairs wiht the same colour scheme, but two of them are not matching, so I supposed I was missing two more figures, but the truth is that I am missing 4 figures, as the original set from Playmakers clearly indicates that there are twelve models available.

Mine are: two blond wrestlers with long hair (note the same colour used in boots and trunks), two black-haired wrestlers with red trunks, and two brown-haired wresltlers with orange trunks. The two left-most figures the wrestler with beard and moustache and the bald wrestler with moustache do not have a second figure. 

They are somewhat similar to the plastic WWF wrestler shown here, but the singularity of these ones lies in that they are not bootlegging any known character.

Really cool, racket toys. 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: WRESTLER MINI FIGURES
• Toy Line: Unknown
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Unknown Manufacturer (China)
  
• Size of the figures: 5-6 cm