by Ken Tuccio

When I was a child I had a dream.

Some 8 year old kids spend their days envisioning what it would be like to win the Super Bowl, or they daydream about hitting the game winning home run in Game 7 of the World Series.

I was a little different, my dream was to be a pro-wrestler.

Don’t get me wrong, as a kid I watched and played almost every sport imaginable. I was insanely average in soccer, stereotypically white in basketball, and decent at baseball, but none of them appealed to me quite the same way pro-wrestling did.\

I’d watch the WWF as a kid and be enamored with the showmanship and spectacle it provided.

Joe Montana was cool and all, but he didn’t run onto the field wearing facepaint and tassles like The Ultimate Warrior did. Cal Ripken Jr. was an amazing shortstop, but he didn’t get to hit opposing players over the head with a nightstick like the Big Boss Man. It was for those reasons, and many others, that I decided at a very young age that professional wrestling was the career choice for me.

The problem with being an 8 year old with a dream of being a pro-wrestler is that you have no idea how to achieve it. If you wanted to play football you signed up for Pop Warner, if you wanted to play baseball you played Little League, but there wasn’t a kid’s pro wrestling organization; which is probably a good thing, because the idea of an organized event that consists of a bunch of 9 year olds locking each other in figure four leglocks while wearing brightly colored tights sounds like a pedophiles dream.

Obviously, since I'm not WWE Champion right now, it's easy to tell that I never actually pursued my dreams of being a pro-wrestler in any organized manner. I did, however, pursue it in an unorganized manner … in my bedroom … with the aid of this …

WWF Wrestling Buddies.

These bad boys were created by Tonka in 1990, and in my opinion they’re the best piece of pro-wrestling related merchandise ever created.

WWF Wrestling Buddies were rather simple toys. They're stuffed versions of your favorite superstars. The first series of Wrestling Buddies consisted of four superstars : Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, “Macho King” Randy Savage, and “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase.

As a child, I was an admitted Hulkamaniac. I said my prayers, took my vitamins, and even saw Suburban Commando. As such, the only Wrestling Buddy I ever owned was the one you see in the picture above; Hulk Hogan. Looking back, I wish I owned the whole set, but I was an 8 year old child who had to depend on his parents to purchase stuffed versions of entertainment for him. I believe my Father thought that one stuffed version of a grown man in his underwear was all his son really needed.

The WWF Wrestling Buddies prided themselves on being durable versions of the WWF superstars they were meant to represent. The entire purpose of the Wrestling Buddies was to allow the average adolescent fan to pretend they were wrestling actual WWF superstars. In many ways wrestling a Wrestling Buddy was like wrestling a soft midget, only midgets don’t bleed cotton when cut with a pair of scissors.

Throughout my childhood I've had to have had countless matches with Hulk Hogan, and my brother and I regularly had tag team bouts pitting the Tuccio Brothers against the vicious tag team of Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. We’d always win, even on those rare occasions when my Pound Puppies saw fit to make themselves involved in the match.

Stupid dogs.

The Wrestling Buddies were insanely popular, as they were the first stuffed animal that boys could own without feeling embarassed. I’m sure there were many kids who looked forward to being tucked into bed at night next to Randy Savage, and they weren’t ashamed of it one bit.

What amazed me about WWF Wrestling Buddies was that, in many ways, this was a one-trick pony. The only really popular series of Wrestling Buddies was the first one, as the series’ that proceeded it didn’t have the same appeal as the original. Many companies, Tonka Included, attempted to recreate the overwhelming success of Wrestling Buddies, but they never could.

Tonka tried to take the concept outside of the WWF, releasing NFL versions of wrestling buddies, and even Star Wars versions as well; effectively allowing an 8 year old boy to fulfill his dream of piledriving Darth Vader. Rival wrestling organization WCW released their own versions of Wrestling Buddies , which were never as popular as the WWF ones, because no child worth his salt wants a stuffed Lex Luger.

Heck, even just last year TNA Wrestling released their take on Wrestling Buddies, with a product called Interactive Bashin’ Brawlers.

Interactive Bashin’ Brawlers were essentially Wrestling Buddies with a voice feature, allowing the stuffed wrestler to talk to you while you were slamming them against your bedroom wall. I’m not ashamed to admit that I own the Samoa Joe Bashin’ Brawler ...

Many guys would be embarassed of owning a stuffed version of a chubby Samoan donned in short tights, but I’m not most guys.

The thing is, no matter how many companies attempt to recreate the success that WWF Wrestling Buddies had, it’ll never happen. The most successful ventures are the originals, and the first series of WWF Wrestling Buddies proved that.

Personally, I one day hope to hop on eBay and purchase the entire first series of WWF Wrestling Buddies for my own enjoyment. Me not doing that yet isn't due to financial reasons, it's more a case of me not wanting to exert the effort involved with typing “Million Dollar Man Wrestling Buddies” into the search prompt.

Seriously, that's alot of letters.