R-3 Tech figures with all-original parts.

austin's torso was used for scott hall and booker t. maybe others but i can't think of them off the top of my head

I was always curious as to who was actually scanned.

Yeah, I hated that Austin torso from the jump. The line had so much potential but that torso killed it dead and you could tell by series 3 that Jakks weren't putting all their eggs in the basket like it seemed they would be when series 1 was first shown and talked about.

No, they had different torsos. Jericho's torso got reused on Chuck Palumbo later on.

Really baffling how they reused some strange looking parts.

Like Austin's torso was specifically based on when he stands on the 2nd turnbuckle with his arms up, resulting in a stretched torso and compressed shoulder blades. But in a vanilla pose, it looked like he was puffing his chest out.

Truthfully the scans were ahead of their time, looked way better than RA (which today look cartoony), but the lack of bicep articulation was annoying to me compared to RA.

Was the NWO 2 pack Kevin Nash legs used with the Hardys, or were they used with another figure? That might be another one, Rikishi too. I can't imagine they used his body with anyone else.

Weren't nash legs the same as Undertaker legs?

Yeah they were a bit stiffer.

When R3s came in and I hated those then. Too skinny and weird looking compared to TTLs. But cos i could get new wrestlers, I bought Chuck, Maven and Kevin Nash.


But now I like the look of R3s and think they had something special. With a couple of tweaks (more diverse parts, bicep swivels, no missing details and more wrestler choices) - they could have survived until at least 2005 when they could have introduced DA but more appropriate scale and similar sized parts to R3s. They would have resembled Mattel Elites I reckon.

I would love to hear the story of why Jakks decided to scrap them and go for RA, being the 2nd reboot line in 2 years. I know it was because of the poor reception but I'd love to hear from someone in the know (eg ex-employee).

I did this insane deep dive into the numbers of R3's....then as I was typing my post with all this in-depth analysis...my computer crashed and I lost it. TL/DR Roughly 2/3's of the 98 total R3's released (excluding box sets) were (i) straight reproductions (e.g. draft figures, UCF two-packs, etc), (ii) insignificant repaints (e.g., Edge in white with red vs. green designs, Hardy's in different colored shirts), (iii) of wrestlers who were long gone from WWE by the time their figure hit shelves (e.g., Scott Hall, DDP), (iv) of wrestlers in attires or gimmicks that were gone by the time the figure hit shelves (e.g., nWo figures, Kurt Angle with hair, all Kanes after Series 1), (v) street gear (e.g., R3-5 Booker T/Benoit, R3-1 and 2 and Draft Rock, nWo street gear figures, etc).

There were also only 6 guys (of the total 27 wrestlers who had R3s produced) who had their first Jakks figure as an R3 - Hogan, Nash, Hall, Maven, Rhyno, and Chuck.

Your average, somewhat well informed collector who had a preexisting TTL collection, tries to get 1 of new guys, keeps up with WWE and to some extent the internet, and understands that more desirable versions of figures will come out wasn't really springing to pick up anyone besides maybe 2-4 figures from the first 2 series to try R3's out, and then Nash, Maven, Rhyno, and Chuck because those guys weren't coming out in TTL.

Based on the general breakdown of who was produced and how the figure looked compared to TTLs and what was available. My guess is that your average person purchased an Edge, Big Show, RVD, Booker T, and 1 or both Hardys.

From my recollection, of the 98 figures produced...44 figures (UCF 3, UCF 2-packs, R3-4 and R3-5, WM X8 2-packs, unrelenting) weren't even widely available until the 2002 holiday season..at which point the aforementioned facts become even worse for R3 (Billy and Chuck were totally done, Hogan hadn't been on TV since August, Rock and Austin were off TV, Nash was hurt, Matt Hardy/Kane had different looks, etc.) and we generally knew RA's were coming. Also TTL's were still being produced (and in some instances like KOTR, WMW, and Superstars Uncovered Hogan) looked better than the R3 counter parts.

That being said, R3's likely didn't sell well and weren't well received because Jakks overproduced really outdated and undesirable figures. The nWo street gear Kevin Nash or Scott Hall sum up the problem pretty well...a street gear figure of a wrestler that hadn't been on TV for and was in the attire/gimmick that was produced multiple times throughout the year and was already super outdated once it hit shelves. If you reply to this, I'll do the deep dive on the first year of RA's to show you how much better it was for RA's.

The more recent Jakks equivalent to why R3's failed is when we got bombarded with shirted DX HHH's in 2007.