There’s a new team gunning for a shot at the title of champion of retro wrestling figure companies. Title Run Toys, founded by brothers Leo and Jason, just celebrated their one-year anniversary in July 2025, so ahead of the launch of their new series of wrestling figures, they sat down to have a conversation with Slam Wrestling via Zoom.
Title Run Toys has been making pro wrestling action figures since July 2024, and they said, “It started as most great ideas do, over a bunch of adult beverages.” The initial idea was spurred on by “frustration with the current retro wrestling industry market” back in 2024. They were disappointed by what felt like a depressing trend of pre-order delays, which talent was or wasn’t getting signed, and the prolonged wait times for customers to actually receive what they ordered, so they said, “F#ck it, let’s make a company. Let’s do it ourselves.”
The next day, when they were sober, Leo and Jason still wanted to start their own company, and they began under the name Top Rope Toys. They said they had maybe twelve followers on Instagram when they received a follow from Bryan Clark fka Adam Bomb. At the time, they said, “That’s rad, we should talk to him,” and they were very surprised when he messaged back, so they got to talking to him and within one conversation they had signed Clark as their first official TRT talent.
At first, it was just the two brothers and an idea, then they had Adam Bomb, and “the dominos kind of start falling” from there. They leaned in to their networks, as professionals in their own rights, and connected with designers and artists, and “landed two logistical networks, production networks, all that type of stuff.”
“It exploded super fast on the back end, and we’re at a point right now, where we’re saying, all right, how do we take this thing forward?”
As of August 1, 2025, Title Run Toys has successfully launched their first series of wrestling figures, featuring “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, Wrath, “Dangerous” Danny Davis, Ernest “The Cat” Miller, and Juventud Guerrera, and they’re currently revealing the talent for their next series of figures, including Mike McGuirk, the Jumping Bomb Angels, Nikita Koloff, and Harley Race, with more names to be released in the days to come.
One of the things they were most excited to share with Slam Wrestling is that they would begin offering free shipping for Canadian orders, thanks to some help from Slam’s very own Rasslin Merch Machine, which they said is just one of things they’re willing to do to separate themselves from the competition.
Like most other companies, they ran into a few minor production delays with their first series of figures, and they had to make a choice.
“We could have said, ‘hey, we’ll put them on the boat. It’ll be two months. Whatever, we’ll ship them in September. No big deal.’ Yeah, we said ‘F it. We’re putting them on a plane, just so that we can deliver to our customers and our fans and say, we promised you, all right, they’re shipping.’ We’re not gonna drag you through the ringer, and so we rush shipped them out of our factory and got them here at a loss, essentially, to deliver to the fans, and we intend to keep that going forward.”
“We can put them on a plane, and they can be here in a week, or we can put them on a boat, and they’ll be like two months, right? So, we said, we were sticking to this promise, and even though we’re a little late now, I think a week difference versus two months is worth it, just so we can get the product to the fans.”
This promise means a lot to Title Run Toys because they’re not only a business, they’re also fans and collectors.
“It started when we were kids, when toys were three for ten dollars. Toys R Us and KB Toys were big here (in the US). And then, you know, we grew up. Those toys kind of went by the wayside and we didn’t really think about it.”
But then the Covid-19 pandemic happened in 2020, and during lockdown they had nothing but time to be online, and they fell back in love with wrestling figures.
“The most addicting thing in the world, besides hardcore drugs and cigarettes, is nostalgia,” and once they got bit by the nostalgia bug, it was all over from there. “It really is infectious.”
Despite being a retro wrestling figure company themselves, they’re still customers, and customers of their competitors, as well.
Leo and Jason clarified, the other retro figure companies “fulfill a need” for their own collections, but as a business, “We’re not going to touch talent that they have. And ultimately, we’re trying to exist to fill the holes that we identify.”
And what holes in the wrestling figure market have they identified? Well, for their first series of figures, they said the decision process was more like, “Oh my gosh, they want to sign up! Oh my God, there’s people that want to talk to us. Let’s get them and fill out our roster!” So that’s why the first series is a little more divided in terms of talent and brands and eras. “It just happened to be a great split of two specific eras.”
But as they started expanding and building and using their network of connections, they started honing in on more of the gaps “with folks that we would have loved to have as kids, from the early WWE, mid to early 80s, all the way through the Ruthless Aggression era.”
As previously mentioned, Bryan Clarke was their first talent signed, and TRT admits he “kind of got the juices flowing,” but there was already Adam Bomb figures available to purchase, so it didn’t make sense for them to make more figures of Adam Bomb, so they went with the WCW alternate, and created a figure of Wrath instead.
They recently announced they would release the first wrestling figure of Mike McGuirk, similar to how they released the first figure of Ernest “The Cat” Miller in series one.
They said the talent pool of wrestlers who are still available for independent figure contracts is clearly shrinking, between WWE legend deals and other independent companies contracting talent, so they’re currently looking into different avenues of signing talent and designing figures.
“I don’t want to call it proprietary, but we have our methods for identifying talent that needs to be targeted. That’s where we’re operating from. I think we’re the eighth contender in the retro wrestling figure Royal Rumble, and there has been a clear front runner that has taken a lot of elbows in the corner.”
Speaking of talent they thought really needed figures, but maybe aren’t so much of household names (in North America), TRT was especially excited to announce their contract with the Jumping Bomb Angels, Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, who they said received one of their best receptions on Instagram.
“The fans speak up and they tell you what they want, and that’s a great thing.”
TRT doesn’t work alone, and they’re extremely proud of their creative team, and the work they’ve done together.
“We’re like the Justice League or the Avengers, as far as it goes with creative talent. It started with Carl Jenkins (@carljdraws). He was our first connection, and we’ve been so, so lucky and fortunate that he’s been a great influence and part of the team. And then we got lucky, connecting with a very talented 3D sculptor (Olfa Ben Salah, @walfa_design). We can’t give her enough praise. I don’t think she even knew the term wrestling before we came into contact with her. She’s worked with us and grown with us. And then we got connected with Nick Camia (@extracooler). He actually helped us design our TRT logo. He does all of our card art design. And then the final entrant of our team was Chris Hargrove (@chargrove.toys). Funny enough, he’s about 15 minutes away from us, so we actually meet in-person and we hand out prototypes and make edits right there in real time. Honestly, he’s like one of our our best assets, so close by and skilled at bringing these sculpts to life.”
With a team like that, Title Run Toys is built for success.
“The name says at all,” they said. “We’re taking a shot at the title.”
They can’t give the exact number but they said TRT fulfilled “a ton of pre-orders” in series one, but more importantly, “Nothing gave me more joy than putting a figure in the box and visualizing that person taking it out of the box,” like when they got to see Ernest “The Cat” Miller open his very first wrestling figure.
They said their long-term goal is to impact as many people as possible, at prices that are affordable and sustainable and “become the title contender and the default toy company in this space.”
But Title Run Toys said this isn’t just about the money.
“We’re both professionals in our own right. We both have families, and it’s more than a passion play, because you know you hear ‘passion play’ like, oh well, that’s kind of the side gig, but it’s this weird, paradoxical fusion of both. It’s, like, we want the business to succeed, but for the right reasons.”
“We’re definitely coming in, hyped out of our minds.”
Title Run Toys series one wrestling figures are in-stock now, and you can follow TRT on their social media for news, updates, and sneak peaks about future wrestling figure releases.
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