Kevin Nash Discusses Grief and Action Figure Collaboration (Exclusive)

Hasttel Toy and Collectibles, the creator of the "Grapplers and Gimmicks" line of wrestling action figures, produces a variety of characters from the 1980s and 1990s. Featuring performers like Damian Demento, Rick Martel, and Waylon Mercy, the "Grapplers and Gimmicks" line is created in the same style and design as the classic WWE Hasbro line that ran from 1990 to 1994, and creates action figures for some of the more memorable gimmicks of the time, some that never received a figure in the line.

Kevin Nash, a former WWE and WCW champion, was slated to have a figure run in the original Hasbro line, featured as Diesel in the unproduced and legendary "Orange Card" series. The series, also set to feature Bastion Booger, Jeff Jarrett, and Lex Luger, was dropped after Hasbro and WWE ended their licensing agreement.

The line of figures features three separate designs of Nash as Diesel, one with his gear from 1994, one with his gear from 1995, and an extremely limited series of 500 were created as Diesel with a white top on his gear. Additionally, Hasttel Toy produced an Oz figure, one of Nash's gimmicks during his first tenure in WCW, and the first time Oz has ever been created in an action figure form.

Kevin Nash Reminds Us That Grief Is Never The Same Process For Everyone

The creation of the Kevin Nash action figures by Hasttel Toys was not only the product of a friendship created during mutual interactions in the convention scene, it was also created from a shared bond of grief and remembrance. "I've known Mitch and his wife for years and years and years," Nash says, speaking about Mitchell Hasttel, the owner of Hasttel Toys. He says that he would spend a ton of time with Mitchell and his wife, Danielle, on the convention circuit and became quick friends.

After Danielle passed in 2024, Mitchell was inspired to create the line in her memory, as Nash was her favorite wrestler. Nash says he reconnected with Hasttel after Danielle's passing and wanted to give him his advice on grief, as he had lost his son, Tristan, in 2022.

I said, 'Everybody's different, but you got to keep going forward.' I said, 'No matter what happens in life, if you grieve and you decide to curl up in a ball in a corner, and you do that for two years, on two years and one day, you eventually got to stand up and take a step forward.' If you continue to take steps forward, you just have to deal with it. It's never going to go away.' People just say [that], no, time doesn't heal [the] deaths of wives and deaths of parents and deaths of children.

So we started talking, and he came up with an idea, and he wanted to do something for his wife. So I said, hey. He brought up this idea about the figures, and I said, 'I'm 100 % behind it.'

Nash says that the majority of proceeds from the sales of all the action figures will be donated to the hospice center which helped Danielle prior to her passing. Figures can be shipped internationally as well as domestically, with the 1:500 white gear Diesel variant completely sold out on the domestic side.

"I just want to say that we were not able to avoid the tariffs, and it wasn't China that paid for the tariffs," Nash tells me with a smirk at the end of our conversation,. He's referring to the recent tariffs placed upon imported goods by the Trump Administration, a group that Nash has been a vocal critic of, and one he was ready to nudge once again.

It was my buddy, Mitch, so anybody out there that thinks that the tariffs are paid by the country that the tariffs are laid upon, I can tell you firsthand, the tariffs were paid by my buddy, Mitch, not by the Chinese government, so the s*** don't work.

Pick up the Kevin Nash "Grapplers and Gimmicks" action figures at this link here, while supplies last.