Figure Friday: ¢#®!$ ℬ∑№ℹ+

This week's figure was quite cutting-edge when it came out but is now more than a bit dated. It definitely had its good points, such as its true-to-life appearance, the result of digital scanning of the wrestler's face by Jakks Pacific. It also has many joints and other points of articulation. So yes, this figure is technically sound, but all of that suddenly becomes less important when you realize that it's a Chris Benoit doll.
 
Yes, this is one of many Chris Benoit action figures, manufactured, obviously, before his grisly death in June of 2007. It could even be one of the same ones Daniel Benoit owned, exonerating his father in a Nancy Grace-concocted leap in logic.

This figure came packaged with a gold medal, harkening back to a storyline in 2001 in which Benoit had stolen Kurt Angle's gold medals, leading the Olympian to repeatedly attempt to retrieve them, each time failing in comedic fashion. Once, Angle stole them back from Benoit, only to find out that they were simply chocolate coins in gold foil. Another time, Angle had to reach down into a downed Benoit's tights, where he had stuffed the medals for safekeeping, and carefully retrieve his property. It was very funny stuff, tempered slightly by Benoit's double murder-suicide six years later.

Because of the controversy over Benoit's legacy (on the one hand, he killed his wife and son, but on the other hand, he could pretend to beat people up very well), this is the kind of figure that is worth nothing to some people and a fortune to others. As for me, I never had the foresight to keep all my action figures in their original packages, because I, like an idiot, wanted to actually play with them for years and years like you're supposed to.

I'm just glad that I have this figure secured away in a cramped Glad bag full of all of my other figure, from which it can never escape. Having a doll of a dead murderer in your house is not only a bad idea, it's the plot of Child's Play.