The Kamala moon belly is arguably one of the most valuable wrestling action figure collectibles of all time. The history of the WWF Hasbro Kamala moon belly action figure is uncertain, but over time collectors have been able to paint a clearer picture about the origins of this prized collectible. These mint on card figures have been traded for prices as high as $15,000, such is the rarity of this figure. It is known that between 12 and 24 of these figures were produced in total, but the reasons why the moon belly was eventually swapped out for the more commonly found star belly Kamala remains unclear.
Toy trader Zombie Sailor had an opportunity to meet one of the legendary designers of the WWF Hasbro line, Ron Rudat, and Zombie asked Ron if he knew of a reason why the moon belly Kamala existed. Rudat was unable to answer this question, but suggested in the interview that the WWF Headquarters may have asked for the change after the first release with the moon belly. Ron also hinted that it is possible that HQ communicated with the Hasbro marketing team to request the change.
As there are so few of these figures in the wild, it is advised to be extremely careful if you look to buy or are offered a Kamala moon belly. There are few pictures of the real figure itself, but there are an abundance of fake figures and a faked version even appeared once on television on an episode of Pawn Stars. This is definitely worth a watch if you have not seen the show before. As mentioned in Pawn Stars, the expert mentions that traditionally 24 samples would go out to lawyers and heads of brand at the WWE for sign off, and it is speculated that Kamala himself may even have rejected the moon design in favor of a star after being shown the proposed figure. Typically, Hasbro would receive pictures (reference slides) that would be used to create initial drawings and designs of the to-be-released figure. What is strange is that the reference slides of Kamala contained a moon, as does the image on the front of the unopened figure card. So why the change to the figure?
Ron Rudat created the initial drawings for Kamala in 1993. It was the responsibility of Ron to think about the sculpts, consider re-purposing other figure's bodies, but it would not have been Ron's job to think too much about the paint, stamps or colors used on the figure. As we can see from the drawings, no star or moon is on the figure's stomach. We can therefore deduce that these initial designs would have been presented to both WWF or Kamala himself without a rejection, further adding weight to the theory that the change came at the very last minute.
Well, first things first, these figures do not just appear on Ebay or Mercari or other auction sites. It is well known that so-called grails move from collector to collector within the community, and on the off opportunity one is for sale, these can be found for sale in Facebook groups. What we do know, is that Matt Cardona of the Wrestling Figure Podcast does own one of these "holy grails" as seen in the images on the right hand side. It is believed Cardona paid $10,000 for this figure from a fellow collector.
If you're looking for a Kamala moon belly, you will need to join the queue. There are hundreds of other folks desperate to get their hands on this very special collectible. If however you want to buy other figures from the line, you can find WWF Hasbro action figures for sale on our online shop.
We recently posted an article titled how many WWF Hasbro action figures are there?, and what we do know is that 150,000 of the star belly Kamala were produced in comparison to the 12-24 Kamala moon bellies. There may also be a few prototypes with the moon within the community, and as many collectors see week-to-week, fascinating finds appear from the wild all of the time, so perhaps we will eventually find out the real reason why the Kamala moon belly existed.
