AEW Unrivaled says more about the company than AEW wants it to

Becoming a full-fledged wrestling company that competes with WWE means diving headfirst into the land of merchandising.

AEW certainly hasn’t been afraid to do that with their wide range of t-shirts and more. That includes their popular line of action figures called AEW Unrivaled, which regularly sells out online and in stores if you’re lucky enough to even find the toys.

But AEW Unrivaled has certainly caused its own controversy among fans in regards to who has and hasn’t been included in it so far. Those decisions might be innocuous or they might be a deeper glimpse into AEW’s priorities.

AEW Unrivaled jumps in the ring

When it comes to wrestling toys, WWE has pretty much always been the main player in the game. That’s not to say that other companies like WCW, ECW, and more haven’t also had their own lines on toy store shelves, but the go-to for most collectors has been WWE.

Collectible wrestling toys go back many years, with the classic LJN line still being popular among long-time fans today. The current WWE lines are all made by Mattel and feature different levels of quality and cost. But the Elite line is certainly a focus for many collectors.

Quite quickly after launching their weekly programming, AEW also launched a toy line of their own called AEW Unrivaled. It’s similar in style and quality to WWE’s Elite line. As such, they actually look pretty good next to each other on shelves, both in and out of the packaging.

For the most part, AEW Unrivaled has been a success. But that was no surprise as AEW has quite a rabid fan base. Produced by Jazwares, the line has had trouble keeping up with the demand, both on Walmart shelves and through online retailers like Ringside Collectibles.

An unrivaled controversy brews

While the overall success of AEW Unrivaled is undeniable, a few concerns have been voiced by fans and collectors alike. As more waves and special edition releases were announced, people started noticing two unfortunate trends.

First, there are a lot of duplicate wrestlers. At this point, The Young Bucks, The Lucha Bros, Jon Moxley, MJF, and Kenny Omega all have at least two figures in the line. That’s acceptable but Cody Rhodes has seven if you count variant. That’s a little much.

Keep in mind that there have been six waves of AEW Unrivaled, so that’s a lot of Codys. Wave six may be the most egregious in this regard as four out of the six wrestlers in the wave have already had figures in the line. It’s a little early for so many repeats.

It gets worse when you consider how few women have been included so far. To date, there have only been three female wrestlers represented, Brandi Rhodes, Riho, and the current AEW Women’s World Champion Hikaru Shida. And Shida’s figure isn’t released, yet.

Fans question AEW Unrivaled

Not surprisingly, wrestling fans and toy collectors are generally quite vocal groups, even more so when they cross over. They have not been shy about confronting both Jazwares and AEW about the number of doubles and the lack of female representation in the line.

Jeremy Padawer, who is a partner in Jazwares, has responded to these complaints on Twitter and said that the line will do better in the future. And Jazwares will most likely deliver in the long run. But one Tweet in particular stood out as it was a little perplexing.

While he’s quite correct about the development time for new toys, the problem is the wrestling timeline. Nine months before he Tweeted this, Nyla Rose was the AEW Women’s World Champion. But unlike the other two women to hold that belt, Nyla still doesn’t have an action figure.

Nyla Rose started with the company long before AEW Unrivaled even launched. She was also the champion for a few months. There’s no reason that she couldn’t have been included in the line by now instead of one of the many repeat wrestlers.

The fault for all of this does not lie personally or solely with Jeremey Padawer. It does beg the question of where AEW’s focus lies, though, particularly in regards to the Women’s Division. AEW has long been accused of not doing enough to promote it, and the handling of AEW Unrivaled doesn’t exactly help.

To his credit, Padawer also discussed better representation of women in the line as well as broadening its scope to include a greater variety of wrestlers, referees, and more. He has also mentioned a second line called AEW Unmatched, which will reputedly be comparable to WWE’s carded base figure line.

The concern with this scenario is that the AEW Women’s Division will find itself primarily represented in that less expensive line of toys. It will be great to see Nyla Rose get an Unmatched figure but collectors will want to see her also be part of the hit Unrivaled line, too.

Only time will tell how all of this plays out. Since these Tweets, AEW Unrivaled has continued to lack female representation and has repeated wrestlers frequently. But if fans give the line the benefit of the doubt and a little time, they will hopefully be happy with the results.