In my review of Brad Balukjian’s book The Six Pack, I wrote that I learned the most from his chapter “Conquistador #1/The Red Demon/Mac Rivera/Jose Luis Rivera/The Black Demon/Shadow #2/Juan López/El Sultan vs. Marcelino Rivera,” for which Balukjian flew to Puerto Rico to spend a pretty significant amount of time with wrestler Jose Luis Rivera and his family.
Imagine my surprise when, not long after this, I learned that Shawn Ng was creating KWK Kayfabe Heroes action figures of Los Conquistadores. Well, Santa Claus isn’t the only one delivering toys to the girls and boys this time of year, because I recently received the completed KWK Kayfabe Heroes action figures of Los Conquistadores for review for SlamWrestling.
Los Conquistadores are the first releases of KWK Kayfabe Heroes series two, and they are the first tag team release for this line of figures, although not the last, as La Resistance (Rene Dupree and Sylvain Grenier) are up next.
As has been the case with all other KWK Kayfabe Heroes, Los Conquistadores were available to pre-order in a couple different variants, and for this review, I received variant A of Los Conquistadores, which was limited to a run of 280 figures.
Conquistador Uno and Conquistador Dos come packaged separately, but they were sold together, as a team, so the cost for both was a little more than one individual figure from series one, but still less than two figures, so collectors get more bang for their bucks when they purchase a tag team.
When I opened the box holding Los Conquistadores, the first thing I noticed was that the packaging is different, a little more streamlined. With previous figures, the plastic “bubble” holding the figures was much larger, and it held any accessories that came with the figure, as well, but the new bubbles are smaller, more fitted to the proportions of the figure, and the plastic doesn’t enclose the entire card, which makes it more reminiscent of toys from the past, like the wrestling figures these are inspired by.
The cards still look great, with sharp colors and large photographs, which are more visible now thanks to the smaller bubbles, and I appreciate how the card back shows the full run of KWK Kayfabe Heroes, those released in series one and those yet to come in series two.
As I always do, I had to open a figure to see what it’s like outside the box, so I decided to open Conquistador Uno, Jose Luis Rivera/Marcelino Rivera Alicea. As always, the mark of real quality is there. The figure feels solid, yet playable and posable, with nice, tight joints. In figures such as Los Conquistadores, you might assume there’s not much detail, since they’re both in head to toe gold costumes, but that’s what makes the small details that much more impressive, such as the folds and creases in fabric across the chest and on the trunks, and the barely visible flesh tones around the eyes and mouth.
Something I didn’t mention earlier is that each Conquistador has a molded plastic gold cape that comes packaged separately, since the capes themselves might have been too large to package with the figures, and while the addition of the cape is a cool accessory, for those who want it, I actually prefer Los Conquistadores “naked,” so I can see all the subtle details of the figure.
In my opinion, Los Conquistadores is another win for KWK Kayfabe Heroes, who continue to evolve and improve in subtle ways while shining a spotlight on underappreciated, international wrestling talent. La Resistance is scheduled for release next, and you can currently pre-order them as well as KWK Kayfabe Heroes of Taka Michinoku and TJP.
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- SlamWrestling’s Not Another Collectible! section
