"We have something really special coming out next year that's going to be a ufc.com exclusive, so you're only going to be able to get it at www.ufc.com and I can't say exactly what it is, but that one is my favorite figure I think of all time. It's really awesome and I can't wait for us to start getting some press on it and getting some pictures out there. It's really early to talk about it now, but I can't wait for it. It's going to be really cool," stated Enrique Ruvalcaba, Director of Marketing at JAKKS Pacific, as he talked about the new line of UFC, WEC and Pride action figures. Check it out!
PC: How are you doing Enrique?
ER: I'm doing well.
PC: Could you give us a little background on how JAKKS got into MMA?
ER: Yeah, absolutely. For anybody out there that doesn't know of JAKKS Percy, I will give them just a little bit of background. JAKKS Pacific is actually the 3rd largest toy company in the country. You have Mattel, Hasbro and then there is kind of a 2 or 3-way tie depending on the year. We like to consider ourselves #3 and actually we're probably #2 when it comes to the action figures specifically. We have a lot of history of success and one of the things that worked for us in the past was WWE. WWE was a cash cow for us. It did really well for us. It was a great brand and we lost it and as part of that, we were trying to figure out why we lost a little bit of business at the end. It wasn't like we completely lost it; we did let it go. Part of the reason, as far as we could figure, is that the UFC captured a lot of that audience and certainly the pay-per-view audience. There are some consumers that directly crossed over. There are some that like the WWE and the UFC. I think that the majority of the consumers are different. There are different consumers that didn't necessarily follow the WWE, but from a pay-per-view standpoint, they really loved the brand and watched all of the events.
Generally, we saw the trend that the UFC was getting huge. There are a lot of people who have piggybacked off of what is going on now with MMA. So MMA for us was a natural connection. We are a collector-driven brand, collector-driven company and everything we do, we try to capitalize on the trend and really give consumers what they are looking for. So MMA was a natural. We started working with the UFC and eventually worked out a deal and started making action figures. The deal is pretty all-inclusive. It's all 3 Zuffa owned companies, Pride, UFC and WEC, so what you're going to see from us is action figures from Pride, WEC and of course the UFC.
PC: Could you tell us your job description with JAKKS Pacific?
ER: I am the Director of Marketing for the fight brands. That means that I work on TNA, which is a new wrestling property that we're working on, and we also have the UFC. I do essentially everything. I'm a brand manager so I am the Director of Marketing here and specifically in the brand management role. That's just a little bit of everything. It's letting consumers know what our brand is all about, letting people know that we're making action figures, putting out the right pricing, putting out the right marketing and making sure our brand sells and that we're making money.
PC: Are you a fight fan as well or is it something that you're gradually trying to get into?
ER: I've been a big fan for a long time and for me, it was the perfect scenario. I grew up with it man. I remember UFC 1. I thought it was crazy at the time, I was a teenager, but even before UFC 1, one of my favorite movies was Bloodsport. You remember? Bloodsport was like guys from all over the world coming together and battling it out. Of course it was fiction, right, but I also grew up with Streetfighter and Streetfighter was the same thing. You had martial artists and crazy characters and it was all about who was the best. Then the Gracie's came along and up started the UFC and it was kind of that same mindset of the stuff that I liked back then. It was trying to see who was #1 and the best in the world. You know, can a Karate guy beat a Sumo guy, and that was really cool for me. I remember watching UFC 1 and even in the dark ages when they wouldn't put it on TV. I would always go to the video store and try to pick up the latest one. I've been a fan for a long time, so when we had the opportunity to shop it around, it was the number one thing I did. I came in and let them know I wanted to manage it, I wanted to do it and do it right and it worked out.
PC: Who decides what fighters get figures made of them and what poses will be used?
ER: Everything we do here at JAKKS is essentially a team effort. While I head up the marketing, there are people that play a critical role and I would like to give credit to like Peter, he is our Director of Product Development and also my boss. Just a whole bunch of people and I like to be pretty democratic about it. I probably have the strongest opinion as far as role outs, so I kind of push out what we should be making. And they're honest about it. They will say, "I don't think we should be making this guy, let's do this guy or we haven't done this guy yet." So it's really a group effort and we just want to make sure we're doing the right thing.
PC: Have you ever had any fighters come after you man because they didn't like their figure (laughing)?
ER: Absolutely not. At least not so far (laughing), which I think is a good thing. Everyone that has seen it has liked their figure. It's actually been tougher to get some stuff through the UFC because the UFC is pretty critical over the likeness of the fighter. I'll give you an example. We're working on a Bas Rutten figure. We showed the figure to Bas Rutten and he loved it. He was like, "Oh my God. It's awesome; it's great!" He loved it. We have emails and they're so funny because he's a cool guy, so he loved it and the UFC was like, "Why is he smiling?" Because we gave him a smile. So they had questioned about why we were doing it the way we were. But the fighters specifically have always taken pretty well to them and I think it has a lot to do with just being an action figure. I mean, who wouldn't want an action figure of themselves? Everybody has been happy so far.
PC: Do you have a favorite figure so far?
ER: You know, I get that question a lot about who is my favorite guy so far. I don't know if I have a favorite. We did a really cool exclusive of Chuck Liddell in the beginning. We only made 500 units of them and we sold them at UFC 100. It was great, so that one is really cool. I like that one a lot. We have something really special coming out next year that's going to be a ufc.com exclusive, so you're only going to be able to get it at www.ufc.com and I can't say exactly what it is, but that one is my favorite figure I think of all time. It's really awesome and I can't wait for us to start getting some press on it and getting some pictures out there. It's really early to talk about it now, but I can't wait for it. It's going to be really cool.
PC: I love the Rashad Evans figure you guys have coming out soon. Who else is in the new series?
ER: Right now, we are in Wave 0 and Wave 0 ended up being an exclusive for Wal-Mart and Toys R Us and that's why it's called Wave 0 because not everybody can get their hands on it. As soon as it rolls out to everybody, which will probably be in December, you're going to see a whole bunch of new characters in Wave 1. The new figures will include Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Rashad Evans, Royce Gracie, Keith Jardine, Houston Alexander, Kendall Grove and Miguel Torres. That's Wave 0; and then 2 months after that, you're going to see Wave 1. In Wave 1, we've got Chuck Liddell, Anderson Silva, Forrest Griffin, Michael Bisping, Evan Tanner, Kevin Randleman, Cheick Kongo and Mike Swick. The only other one is going to be Wave 2, which probably won't be shipping until January, but we have some cool ones in there too. We've got Rampage Jackson, GSP, Minotauro Nogueira, Lyoto Machida, Bas Rutten, Thiago Alves, Nate Marquardt and Mike Thomas Brown from the WEC. It's a whole bunch of guys. We're going to do everybody. It's our goal to do the whole spectrum of MMA guys for all 3 organizations. We're going to put out a whole new series of guys every 2 months.
PC: Will we get a Dana White figure as well? I know you guys had a Vince McMahon figure at one point.
ER: Yeah, that's probably the second most common question I get as far as a Dana White figure and I've never answered it straight, but I always say JAKKS was founded on understanding the collectors and we know what collector's want to see. They want to see something different and unique and there is a lot of interest in a Dana White figure, so I can say that it's something that's probablyÂ…I wouldn't be surprised if we did one.
PC: Some people view these action figures as toys, but on the other hand, they could be viewed as collector's items. What is the demographic like with the UFC figures?
ER: That's a very interesting question. I like that question. It's a tough one to answer too. I think if you were to look at the fine demographic on any particular action figure, it depends. I will give you something separate that I think is an interesting perspective. Something like Star Wars, which is a brand that a lot of people grew up with and it is a brand that people know and understand and there are a lot of adults that buy it, so I would say 50/50. Something like UFC, it is in a really interesting situation because it's a toy. We make toys. We make toys for the manufacturer and we're in the toy isles and you can find us at Toys R Us. We're selling toys, so we definitely want to get the kids and we're going after the kids, but in this particular case, there are a lot of collectors. I would say with our UFC products, it's going to be in between 50 to 70% collector. So there are a whole bunch of men out there like me, that's 30 years old trying to get their hands on these figures, so we're actually going after both. Next year, we will be introducing a lot more kid-friendly figures, smaller scale equipped with features and sound effects. But of course we're going to do the collector stuff and they want the chaser, the rare stuff and they want us to do something special with these figures, so we're doing both.
PC: I appreciate your time man. You guys do a great job over there. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
ER: Sounds good Percy. Thank you for having me on.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]