How Kamala Could Have Made Me The Million Dollar Man

Yes, I like Kamala

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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Of course, the title for this blog is a bit (a lot) of an exaggeration, but I thought it was punny so I went with it.  I recently came across this article, The 15 Rarest Wrestling Action Figures Worth a Small Fortune.  It caught my eye because when I was growing up, I had many of the LJN WWF figures.  But because I was a kid, I tore into them and had my own super cards.  Only in my federation could SD Jones body slam Andre the Giant.  But I digress.  

A few of my figures

When I was in college KB Toys was holding a clearance sale on the Hasbro line of WWF figures.  I snatched up several and never opened them.  I did the same thing when I came across a few at a flea market.  I put the figures in a plastic tote and left them in a closet.  A few years ago I met Ted DiBiase and he autographed my Million Dollar Man figure.

The rare Kamala
whatculture.com

Anyway, back to the reason for this post.  As I scrolled through the 15 rarest figures according to the website, I reached the rarest figure.  You can imagine my shock when staring at me was Kamala in the yellow package.  I glanced at the value: $3,000 to $10,000.  "Cha-ching!" was the first thing I thought and was already spending the money on tickets for Wrestlemania 32.

I ran to my closet, riffled through The Million Dollar Man, Doink the Clown, Giant Gonzales, and Texas Tornado to find Kamala at the bottom of the heap.  I looked him over and yes it was indeed in the same yellow package as the one I had seen online.  Then I took a closer look.  

Stars and moons...

It's all about that belly paint.  The yellow crescent moon is where you'll find the green. Apparently, when Hasbro produced the figure in 1993, they made Kamala's moon a star.  But there were a few that were done with the proper moon.  My Kamala has a star moon and is probably worth about what I paid for it more than 20 years ago.

There's plenty of speculation as to why the company made the moon look different, including avoiding gimmick infringement because James Harris owns the Kamala gimmick.  Tweaking the moon to a star protected Hasbro I suppose.  According to the article, there are only two dozen of these rare figures out there.  Sadly, I am not the owner of one, but it's cool.  I'll keep my Kamala the way he is, mint on the card and ready to rumble.

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