Magazine Archives: WWF LJN Customs: ‘80s Kids Perfecting ‘80s Toys

By Erik Boyer from FightfulMag.com issue 3

Picture that you’re ten. Your favorite action figure is affixed to your right hand. Now, picture someone taking it from you, laying it on a flat surface, and chopping off its head — with the promise that, in return, you’ll get something even cooler. If you were an ‘80s kid, there’s a good chance that figure was a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Wrestling Superstar from LJN — and chopping off that figure’s head is what these folks, known as “customizers,” do. But, they always come through with their promise.

Before customization (i.e. the art of “Frankensteining” your favorite action figures into a much better figure) is discussed, consideration of the massive explosion in WWF LJN popularity must be made. A gentleman known as Brutus Valentine wrote a riveting book entitled, The Complete Guide to LJN WWF Wrestling Figures, which documents quite literally all one needs to know about collecting the line, from all of the variants to the superstar’s win-loss percentage during the time that LJN made the figure and during an interview, he explained its evolution since.

“Customizing is as old as the figures being manipulated. A kid wants someone not offered, so Mom paints up a character resembling the one they wanted over one they didn’t,” Brutus validly pointed out. Often, LJN owners’ favorite characters would be inserted into blood feuds inside young imaginations, which, by definition, require some color. So, naturally, little Johnny adds some red paint to Hulk Hogan’s face. It’s evolved a bit. After LJN collecting began to rise on the resale market around 2012 (when their original owners were turning 30 and had some extra disposable income), by 2014, some very high-quality customs started to appear for sale on eBay. Around 2017, customizing saw a new level of popularity, when Facebook groups promoting the concept began to pop up more and more. With each subsequent year that’s passed, the practice became more common, the quality more sophisticated, and the demand much greater. The year 2020 ushered in customizing’s zenith — until this year, of course.

Customizing as a side gig must be a labor of love, as within each transaction, a monumental dichotomy exists. The money collected doesn’t scratch the surface of compensating the time and energy involved in producing each custom figure. Of all of the wildly talented customizers in the game, three stood out — all for very different reasons. Sinn Bodhihas the most unorthodox approach, Alan Carpenterutilizes a very traditionalist style, and finally, Zaash Mannhas an ultra-modern technique. If you’re a collector, strap in.

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Sinn Bodhi, a professional wrestler by trade out of Las Vegas, has a long, storied history with LJNs. Growing up above the US-Canada border, he and his best friends, Adam and Jay, would get together, each bringing their collection of LJNs to engage in that day’s home-held house show. Via the practice, each of the three essentially learned how to book effective professional wrestling programs. Adam was a particularly big Hogan fan. Scuffing it would leave him wholly incensed.

So, kids being the jerks they are, Sinn and Jay would wait until Adam left the room, pick up his Hogan, then smash, grind, and do as much of a number on it as possible until Adam’s footsteps were heard. So, the next time you’re at a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) event, maybe take a “beater” Hogan LJN (beaters are highly damaged figures from which customs are often produced) and color furiously all over it with a marker. It’d be an easy way to affect WWE Hall of Famer Edgeat his very core. By the way, “Adam” is Adam “Edge” Copeland, and “Jay” is Jay “Christian Cage” Reso.

You may also recognize Sinn, who signed a developmental deal with WWE in 2006 and the self-described mix between Doinkand Jake “The Snake” Roberts gimmick of Kizarnywas born. Kizarny moved up to the WWE SmackDown! brand in 2009, and his influence is still heavily felt in the WWE. How? Well, if you’re an NXT fan and know of its primally violent champion, Karrion Kross, you can thank Sinn. He trained Kross at his professional wrestling school out of Vegas, affectionately known as The Snake Pit — known industry-wide as Future Stars of Wrestling. Sinn also moderates Snake Pit Pro, a Facebook group exclusive to industry professionals, where a great deal of coaching took place, especially during the pandemic. Bodhi is recognized at almost every show he goes to by another worker, who often refers to him as “Coach.”

When COVID-19 struck, Sinn’s largest source of income vanished into thin air for over an entire calendar year. Needing to subsidize at least a portion of that gargantuan piece of the pie lost, he considered what he should do. Sinn had always been artistic. Drawing and creating just came naturally to him (evidenced by 2000’s Fred the Possessed Flower, a single-handedly written and drawn comic book Bodhi published). Sinn decided he would start doing something he saw online years back but never had the time to try his hand at: creating custom LJNs to order.

When asked to describe his process, he said the best way to describe it was that he’s “like a MacGyver. I don’t have the exact same process for every character… Did you see that WarlordI did the other day?” Seen. Studied. Dreamed of one day owning. Whatever, same thing.

“So, the top half is Ted Arcidi, the bottom half is Bruno Sammartino, but I totally sculpted the legs, sculpted the kneepads, the boots, the abs, the body armor, the veins, and I chemically grew a Warlord head from the Hasbro series.” Sinn explained that one can grow or shrink any action figure’s head by creating a silicone mold of it and then adding certain chemicals that either expand or contract the molecules inside of the mold. It turns out this is a common practice among customizers. Dr. Frankenstein would be proud.

Almost every aspect of Sinn Bodhi’s life, outside of the veritable zoo he keeps at home with his wife and child, is pro wrestling related. Once you see his ring-persona, it’s easy to see that Bodhi is professional wrestling personified.

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Zaash Mann is considered by many to be the best in the world at customizing LJNs. Just don’t ask him if he’s the best —or even good for that matter. Although he’ll thank you, and even though he has to know it, he would never admit to it. The interview with Brutusrevealed that Australians are quite self-deprecating, satirically ball-busting people. This self-deprecation is evident in Zaash, who’s widely hailed. In his eyes, he’s just okay and that’s at first. Then, “just okay” changes to “quite bad” in a matter of minutes. That may have something to do with his lineage — his father is a very successful professional artist for one, and two, he’s extremely hard on himself.

In fact, Mann self-identifies as “not ‘a natural’ at anything. I consider myself quite bad at anything I start off doing, but that’s part of the fun for me, the challenge —and I still consider myself quite bad at customizing. I’m my own worst critic… you’ve got to put time into them. And that’s what it boils down to: the time you put in. You could spend a night painting a face, or you could spend a week painting a face, but the more subtle layers you put into painting a face, the more realistic the face is going to look.”

One look at Bam Bam Bigelowor CM Punkreveals Zaash’s accuracy. However, one thing the world should know about Zaash is that, as his wife says, “I can never do anything in halves.” He’s got to go 250 mph while giving 150 percent of himself to whatever it is he’s doing.

Before throwing a great deal of his focus toward LJN customs, Mann was a competitive BMXer well-known in Australia. A gruesome injury shifted his attention away from racing and toward creating. His competitive nature and penchant for perfectionism created speedy and emphatic improvement in his customs. Valentine even remarked that “four or five years ago, Zaash was surely good but nothing spectacular —you wouldn’t recognize old customs of his to be Zaash Mann’s in a million years. Boy, has he really come along in a major way.”

In 2021, Zaash’s LJNs, to be perfectly honest (though he would never think it, much less say it), make most others’ attempts look elementary. “My goal is not to make LJNs the way that they would have made them in the 1980s. It’s not a bad style —I enjoy it —but my goal is to make LJNs the way that they would make them today,” Zaash informed. “I watch hours and hours of video a week on new techniques. I study master artists operating on the one-sixth scale.”

The one-sixth (1:6) scale is larger than the scale LJN falls under. Most reading this article will know that LJNs are big for action figures —most are eight inches —but compared to others, by contrast, LJNs are one-ninth scale (1:9).

It should come as no surprise then when you watch a video of Zaash, you might see why he’s so damn phenomenal. The one-sixth scale customizers are using six different shades of color to create a skin tone. LJN manufacturers only used one shade when they created the iconic action figures 30-plus years ago. Collectors of Mattel’s current lines are likely to be more accustomed to Mann’s output of LJNs than anyone else’s —his work may even be more accentuated than the Mattel’s Elite collection. His figures’ eyes may feature a little bit of bloodshot in the very corner. There may be some tiredness beneath them and crows-feet on the sides.

As of press time, he’s the king of LJN customizing, and the king wants to change the game. He’s kicking around the idea of a limited edition series. Three figures, ten of each —and their price? Still ridiculously too low, but as far as the game and how customizers produce —CM Punk changed wrestling. Why can’t Zaash change the world of customizing?

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The pandemic forced Alan Carpenter to work remotely, a common theme for many, which resulted in him spending a lot of time cruising the Internet. It was one of those surf sessions where he found a custom LJN for the first time. It blew his mind, so he went down the proverbial rabbit hole, where he found Mike Steyer’s YouTube how-to on customizing. He couldn’t wait to try it, so he did —and it turned out extremely well. He was off to the races, improving with each attempt. His rocket-like ascent to the top tier level of the game can largely be explained by his artsy background, formerly taking gig-work painting murals.

A fan-favorite Carpenter creation was of Magnum T.A., the former National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) rising star that wrestling’s governing body fully intended to have as their version of the WWF’s Hulk Hogan until a horrible car accident ended his career. Truth be told, Alan’s Magnum is the reason why he received the nod over so many other deserving customizers to be interviewed for this article. It is absolutely remarkable.

Carpenter’s take on an American Wrestling Association (AWA) version of Road Warrior Animalplaced second in The Rubber Rumble (behind only Zaash Mann’s Bret Hart), which, until the inaugural CustomMania late this June, has been the biggest LJN customizing competition in the world. It’s crazy to think that after just one year, he produced the second-best competitive custom LJN on earth. An even more powerful moment than taking second place in The Rubber Rumble, was when on September 19, 2020, Joe Laurinaitis himself commented on a Facebook photo of the custom, saying, “This is an awesome Action figure!”

Joe passed away two days later. It’s pretty cool to know that, out of all that we’ve discussed LJN customs in this article, a man on the last steps of his march found out that his likeness was masterfully captured by a fan upon whom he made a deep impression when he was, say, ten years old. He didn’t stand to gain a single red cent from it. The ten-year-old Carpenter that exists within the grown version chopped off another figure’s head played Dr. Frankenstein, and in turn, ensured that Animal would live on in immortality.

Erik Boyeris a recent graduate of Full Sail University’s Creative Writing MFA program and has been an avid mark of the LJN WWF Wrestling Superstars line. Since 2019, he has written about professional wrestling for several online publications.

Twitter:@WriterikBoyer