Why does GAB DM Sting get so much hate?

I guess they say the head is too big. I think the figure is pretty cool. Not sure it was worth the DM price of 25 bucks though at the time with just a jacket included.

Its not a bad figure, but also not worth the $20-25 MSRP.

The head is bad, the torso is too big, the legs are too thin and the boots look like thick socks. Other than that, it's great.

It's a representation of an awesome moment and a figure a lot of people were pumped for. But basically top to bottom it wasn't a great figure - the head scan just looks off, the torso if too large with the little chicken legs, and there had to be a running change to correct the boots. Add in that it was a clear cash grab at a $25 price point with a really rigid jacket and no other accessories, and yeah, it got and deserved a lot of criticism. I think it ended up as low as $7 on RSC.

I have the figure and I'm glad they made that attire. But it's definitely one of their worst in terms of execution.

Aside from the cavalcade of incorrect part choices. Quite frankly it had been done better by Jakks in legends of the ring and DMs were turning in to a joke at that point. You went from soft goods and multiple accessories to rubber jackets and less accessories than regular elites with the pinnacle of that being the Mega Maniacs Warrior. It's hard to look at DM Bret or DM Steamboat and not feel cheated looking at the later figures in the line.

Sting is my favorite wrestler. My family went on vacation during GAB 90. It was waaay easier to avoid spoilers then, but when I got home I was excited to order the replay. The silhouette shot of Sting watching the pyro come down is one of my favorite wrestling shots and I love that red, white and blue attire/face paint. This was Sting's big moment and he delivered.

That's the opposite of this figure. We'd waited for a Surfer Sting (or any Sting for that matter) from Mattel. They'd started to really master the likeness of guys and they looked better than Jakks for the most part. The gritted teeth expression was a weird choice and hardly what anyone thinks of when they think of Sting. The head size was big and the Batista torso isn't great in terms of posing/Scorpion death locks.

Sting's legs are very thin and don't look in proportion with that body. The boots were regular laced versions until a running change fixed them. The plastic jacket was far harder to remove than necessary and due to its plastic nature you couldn't move his arms or anything.

In hindsight the figure seems even worse as Surfer Sting definitely would have benefitted from the Ultimate Edition set up with various head sculpts including worn paint, possibly alternate face paint a la Jeff Hardy and either a cloth or swappable jacket like the UE Bret Hart.

With Sting gone, it's made a lot of us wonder what could have been with Surfer Sting figures, which never felt like a real priority and lackluster execution.

It sucks

Sting was my first favorite pro wrestler and is pretty much tops for me to this day. That said, I really don't like the figure.

The head sculpt looks nothing like him. The nose is too big and his teeth look weird (it was like they sculpted his teeth inaccurately just to make the head look even worse). The face is too thin, and the paint wasn't fully accurate, either (his eyes weren't surrounded entirely by white paint that match, and the red and white stripes weren't so rounded on his forehead).

Then his legs were WAY too thin, and that boot sculpt is too skinny, too.

Still isn't the worst figure Mattel has made, but it's so disappointing. One of pro wrestling's all-time great moments, and Mattel totally botched the figure.

Looking at an image of that night and then looking at that figure makes it almost painful to see.