Rebuilding my collection again....for the Third time

Summerslam Elite BAF John Cone
X-Pac


Bronco Busting in today and finishing off our reviews for the John Cone BAF lineup today is X-P-A-C! this was the figure I was most excited for as this is one of my top favorite X-Pac attires and although it did see some basic line love I was excited it made the cut for an Elite line appearance. This figure comes to us wearing some rad black sunglasses for entrance gear and the newest Legends series head. The headsculpt on this figure captures X-Pac’s likeness great and he is captured in a confident, happy smiling expression. This figure holds an amazing likeness to pac and is accurate to the timeframe as he was not wearing a bandana during or leading up to the match. This figure is wearing X-pac’s red attire—im fairly certain this was just before he started repping the black and neon green DX gear, but the attire consists of a black and red singlet top with Silver ‘x’ arrows going across the chest and a small silver Pac logo centered above the intersecting point of the arrows. The lower body continues the design/color scheme with some silver ‘X’ on the middle outer portion of the tights with some black D’s centered making a DX logo. mattel botched the paint apps and forgot to complete the red arrow paint apps on the upper legs. Pac was given his signature black ‘armored’ kneepads and finishing up this figure are some black and red kickpads that continue the overall color/design scheme.
All in all I love this X-pac figure, im so happy this attire saw an elite form release. Im really upset that they botched the red paint apps on the legs…ONCE AGAIN, ONE THING holding it back from being a perfect figure. I think that being from a hair vs hair match they should have given Xpac those old hair clipper accessories, but that just may have broken the budget. I also would like to have seen a different head on this figure even though it looks great and is completely appropriate—lets get xpac tongue out heads trending again.

Happy superstar saturday y'all!

hope everyone had a great week and is rolling into the weekend well!

no figure hunts this weekend for me 😂 i found the elusive Scott Hall MNW figure this past thursday thus completing my two month long mission to complete the MNW series 1 wave. i dont forsee my locale getting series two for a few weeks/months so im gonna let off the gas pedal for a weekend and just chill out, really no chance of seeing anything new at my local target either so yeah. i did do a little shopping on Mercari this morning and scooped up an older elite figure for a good price and a few accessories i had been looking to acquire for a fair price. Mercari was almost better than ebay for a hot second imo but now they tack on a bunch of fees at checkout and i have been doing less and less shopping there.

ANYWAYS, got a bunch of figs to share and talk about, hope yall are still enjoying the thread and content. im still having fun collecting and taking pics so im gonna keep at it 🤘

coming in today with a quick SHAWN MICHAELS SATURDAY




Lost Legends Shawn Michaels

Superkicking in today is a classic Shawn Michaels figure that has seen a few releases in the line so far and i was able to snag the Lost Legends line release. This Shawn figure comes to us wearing the gear he sported at Bad Blood 97 in his Hell in a Cell match against the Undertaker. during the pre match promos and during the match, Shawn was rocking a hair down look and this figure reflects that. the facial sculpting portrays shawn in a serious, straight faced, determined expression and it looks good and is fitting for the match--the likeness however is far from photorealistic. Shawn comes to the ring wearing (some) of his entrance gear from the match; this figure was given silver studded shoulder pad and accompanying arm sleeve. the real gear had a matching pair of studded chaps and honestly i owned the original E19 figure back in the day and the entrance gear ALWAYS bugged me because it was black leather gear with little silver studs throughout and the sculpting looks great but im not sure why mattel molded this all in silver. im sure mattel could have molded these in black and applied silver paint detailing to the studs easily, but its not the route they chose to take. speaking of black and silver, Shawn comes to the ring wearing a primarily black and silver themed attire for this event, starting off with some black handwraps featuring silver heartbreak hearts. he was given a lightweight torso, pretty sure the torso formula for shawn elites has never changed, it works for him. Shawn's tights are black with those silver hearts throughout the legs and a Heartbreak Kid logo on the back. finishing up this figure are some black kickpads with silver paint detailing on the side for the closure of the boots; mattel painted silver tabs with little black heartbreak hearts on them.
all in all this is a great figure. it brings fond memories for me as it was MY first elite shawn michaels figure back in the day. the figure design still holds up to this day, it would look great with a new trueFx head and double jointed arms, but for the love of god i just bought this figure mattel please dont re-release it anytime soon. 😂 also big props to the person who sold me this figure it is literally in mint condition for being loose.

Monday Night Wars Series 1
The Undertaker

Leading the druids in today is a STAPLE of the Monday Night Wars a legend who never waivered in wearing the wwf jersey---the phenom, the Undertaker! As expected we have been seeing a ton of undertaker figures across the board and across the lines as of late and this is actually a pretty good representation that shines above…or below…from below….i don’t know. I actually was pretty freaking hype for this figure as my first official undertaker figure was the BCA signature series undertaker and this figure seemingly is the elite version OF THAT!!! This taker comes to us with a new headsculpt; VERY 1998 with the dark, straight hair and full goatee. He has a few strands of hair sculpted over his face and like I said it totally reminds me of that BCA head. Taker was sculpted in an angry, judemental, scowling expression and it does seem to capture his likeness but there seems to be a factory paint botch on his moustache area and it kinda messes with the portrayal a bit. This figure was given the old Network Spotlight Elite torso and although I really do like the sculpting details, it so freaking thin and it just doesn’t really truly represent Undertaker’s physique accurately. This torso has sculpted detailing on his shoulder pads and he has three horizontal straps that are secured across his chest by rivets. Mattel went as far to include the paint apps to those small rivets. The attention to detail continues on the legs of the figure as he was given the same legs as his most recent legends figure and they once again added silver detailing for the strap sculpting on his outer legs. Unlike that legends figure however THIS undertaker was given the Hollywood Hogan cuffed style gloves and IMO they look great on this figure as Taker wore a similar style during this time. Finishing up this figure strangely again, Mattel decides to give him those ultimate style boots with the toe articulation.
All in all I personally really like this Undertaker and it brings back heavy memories from my favorite and First BCA Undertaker figure. My biggest complaint is just that they re-used that old torso that was SUPER thin. Even the new arms and leg choice look a bit goofy with the torso on this figure but nevertheless I like the look mattel chose for the deadman to represent in this line.

coming in today with a STONE COLD SATURDAY 💀 and wrapping up our reviews for the core 4 figures of the Monday Night Wars Series 1



Monday Night Wars Series 1
Stone Cold Steve Austin

Finally rounding out the main 4 figures of the wave is the Texas Rattlesnake Stone Cold Steve Austin! Of course you cant even bring up the Monday Night Wars without the contributions of Steve Austin, super happy to see him present in series 1. Big props to mattel for this figure as it is essentially a ‘greatest hits / vault’ figure in disguise as this is a Defining Moments Steve Austin figure with modern appointments. For entrance gear, Mattel gave steve a brown and black camouflage hunting hat with a red STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN logo with a skull on the front. the Defining Moments figure wore this cap except with orange font. Pairing with the hat is a nice softgoods jacket also with some woodland hunting camo print. I owned the original defining moments figure back in the day and distinctly remember the original DM jacket material being much heavier suede like fabric; this new jacket is just printed cloth however it still looks great and the jacket fits the figure fine. We once again see the ultimate edition angry steve headsculpt that mattel has been choosing for quite a few figures now; the headsculpt does hold a great likeness to steve and conveys a good bit of emotion so I have no complaints just wanna see some variety. Steve comes to the ring wearing his classic street gear look of a black t shirt and jeans this time around wearing an iconic Austin 3:16 softgoods tshirt. +10 to mattel for making this shirt a non Velcro shirt and providing us with the badass back design to the shirt with the smoking skull. Finishing up this figure, Steve is wearing some light blue jeans and black boots. For accessories Mattel gave Stone Cold a silver can of Steveweiser (Broken Skull Ipa).
All in all this is an amazing figure and its definitely one figure im glad mattel brought back to the line. The camo jacket looks great I really like the detail captured in the pattern of the camouflage and the Austin 3:16 shirt looks cool as hell with the smoking skull design on the back. As mentioned it is basically a re-release of his vaulted and highly sought after Defining Moments figure but it fits in fantastically with this line. if i could have any complaints or suggested changes with this figure it would of course be the addition of the gold chain necklace accessory and i would have also loved to have seen a smoking skull championship included.

Aaaaaaaaaaandd we're back!

just returned from a business trip to South Carolina! i went to FOUR walmarts that had the exact same remnants of MNW series 1 on the pegs(HOGANS), nothing exciting or out of the ordinary at all beyond that. when youre in the trenches time moves slowly! WHERE ARE THOSE SERIES 2 FIGURES AND WHY CANT WE ORDER THESE ONLINE?!?!

ANYWAYS, ive gotten in a few older figures that i picked up after enjoying a little too much Ric Flair Drip 🍁 prices were great but beyond that there was no drawing force bringing these figures to my home. but nonetheless there are now fewer holes in my Mattel collection than there were before so thats pretty cool! got my Legends of the Territory 4 pack in--AMAZING, i love it, i needed it, im so happy mattel did this for us. there are a ton of 'seemingly' good deals on mercari but as i mentioned before when you go to hit that checkout button they tack on $3-4 in taxes and fees, turning what would be a $23 loose figure into a $30+ figure with shipping and fees. NOT COOL. sellers are getting insulted by low offers but i tell them im not buying a figure to line mercari's wallet either so we both get upset and walk away unfullfilled.


ANYWAYS

We have some more MONDAY NIGHT WARS content to light up and then i think we're gonna cruise RIGHT INTO the next LEGENDS line of figures!!



Monday Night Wars Ultimate Edition
Bret Hart

coming in today is the Ultimate figure alot of us were waiting and clamoring for; the Ultimate Edition Bret Hart wearing the all black gear ala his early Defining Moments figure! it seemed that there were a fair few board members having trouble finding this figure but my local wal mart had put these on the shelves way before the MNW Elites so i had a nice easy chance to grab both Bret and Roddy no problems at all. as i have mentioned in a few of my other Bret reviews, i never had the chance to own or play with Bret figures when i was a kid, so frankly all the mattel Brets we get im gonna scoop up. i was pretty excited for this figure as it marks the return of his all black gear to the mattel line-this time in Ultimate figure form. this Bret comes with three interchangeable heads and.......yeah mattel once again missed the mark on bret likeness this time x3. once of the first heads we get is Bret, in a serious, focued, teeth bearing grimace expression and although it is my favorite of the three included, it still ever so slightly misses that Bret Hart likeness. not sure if its the paint apps on the eyes, eyebrows or what the missing link is, but the sculpting seems decent enough, im JUST not seeing Bret the Hitman Hart. the second headsculpt included is a soft, happy, smiling scan and i can kinda see Bret's likeness here but he looks really """""relaxed""""" BretBro420 if you weilllll. the third scan included is an open mouthed shouting scan, kinda seems like they took that original Ultimate edition Bret headsculpt and maybe re-tooled it a bit and put a different hairpiece on the head---once again loses the likeness in the facial area, eyes-eyebrows, etc. so the thing with all of these sculpts is that they do end up looking great with the sunglasses on the figure, but removing the sunglasses from the figure really kinda pulls the rug from under the figure and knocks it down a grade or two. this Bret was given a new leather jacket sculpt for his upper body and it looks great and fits the figure fine. a side note, the Ultimate Roddy Piper that was on pegs alongside this Bret has the EXACT SAME leather jacket and although i get why they did that i wish they had not put two figures with the exact same accessory in a wave together. Bret comes to the ring, as mentioned, wearing his all black gear consisting of a black singlet top outlined in pink that features his trademark winged skull logo front and center on the singlet, the back of the singlet is blank. Bret's tights continue the designscheme as his is also wearing black tights with Pink and White stripe designs on the outside of each leg black 'hitman' logo going down the center of the stripes. the back of his tights feature a Skull logo with HITMAN in pink projected behind it. finishing up this figure are some small black kneepads and the Hitman's trademark white boots with pink star and black 'spat' designs on the toe and heel.
All in all this is another good Bret Hart Ultimate figure. im glad that we got the all black gear many have been asking for to make a re-appearance in the line, and i like the execution of the newly molded leather jacket. i just wish for the life of me mattel would really put a ton of effort into nailing down this bret hart likeness. we have had a plethora of mattel basic, elite, and ultimate figures and they all miss the mark by a varying degree. our collections are full of BART HARTs but very few actual BRET HARTs 😝 if i had anything to complain about, i wish mattel had packaged a winged eagle title or a possible canadian flag with this figure just to spruce it up a little more for tangible accessories.

Legends Series 22
Hulk Hogan


ICHIBAN! ICHIBAN! ICHIBAN! Axe Bombing into the reviews today is NUMBAH 1; ICHIBAN Hulk Hogan! another series, another Hogan this time Hulk is appearing in his NJPW look as ICHIBAN. this is a flashback to 1983 when the Hulkster won the IWGP championship in the 10 man tournament. this figure comes with a brand new headsculpt of a very young hulkster. the headsculpt captures Hulk in a smiling, open mouthed, positive, confident expression and the likeness to the hulkster is absolutely present in all angles of this headsculpt. they included a new hairpiece for this Hulk, no headbands only luscious golden bangs flowing across the hulkster's dome. for entrance gear, this Hogan was given a white t shirt with a red japanese Ichiban logo and some cool, translucent brown aviator shades. this hulk utilizes the original mattel hulk torso and they have been implementing it for the early year hogans figures as of late and i totally approve- this Ichiban figure looks as absolutely yoked as he truly was in real life. finally, Ichiban Hogan comes to the ring wearing some black trunks with white ichiban logo on the left hip area, small black kneepads, and silver/grey boots.
all in all this is another cool hogan to add to our timeline of looks for the hulkster. i honestly really like the look of the standard figure over the chase, the colors on the lower body just jive much better than the chase offering. at this point i do kinda feel like 'hmmm i remember jakks making all of these figures too' and im just hoping mattel does a little switchup here and either slows down on the Hogan releases or makes them more exciting moving forward (somehow) there was a community thread talking about this and honestly we are at the point where all the core looks have been made for him and we're at the point of really specific looks or outfits to be done which kinda just caters to the hardcore Hogan collectors. we need a mattel Inoki now to fill out our championship timeline and go against both our Hogans and our Muhammad Ali figures!

thanks, brother 😎 yeah the Lex is a great piece to have! so colorful! so many new unique sculpts!


CONTINUING OUR REVIEWS OF LEGENDS SERIES TWENTY TWOS

WITH A ONE, TWO PUNCH, THREE PUNCH KNOCKOUT 🤛🤜👊



Legends Series 22
Muhammad Ali

punching, bobbing and weaving into the reviews today is the Elite debut of THE GREATEST, Muhammad Ali. this is a pretty straightforward figure; essentially just an elite version of his Mattel Creations Ultimate edition (there are no true exclusives left) however the execution is perfect and this is a great figure for the elite collectors. This figure comes to the ring wearing a white softgoods robe, the Ultimate edition figure had a robe made of a microfiber/terry cloth type material and this is just a straightforward standard mattel fabric material. it still hold up and looks great on the figure, just less authentic than the ultimate edition figure. this robe also features his name printed on the back in black font. This figure utilizes the straight faced expression headsculpt we saw utilized on his ultimate figure (and we will see again in the legends of the territory pack)--its a good headsculpt, it portrays a fair bit of likeness to the legend however i really prefer that teeth bearing, aggressive sculpt we saw on the ultimate figure. this figure utilizes the same style torso as his ultimate; not super ripped or defined; pretty sure this is the standard Rock torso. this torso looks and works great for Ali as he was athletic but not too muscular or overly defined. the figure was given black boxing gloves and some interchangeable fisted hands and holding hands. i actually had a lot of fun posing this figure around, i dont have any other boxing specific figures (other than ali or bob orton) but i do really like that mattel made the boxing hands interchangeable you could literally put them on anyone and have a boxing rules match, very fun for fantasy booking stuff. Ali comes to the ring wearing some white boxing shorts with black stripes going down the outside of each leg and then finishing up this figure are some white striped socks poking above some short shooter style boots.
all in all this was a cool little addition to the legends line. im reading that alot of collectors have about had their fill of Ali figures thus far and i can sort of agree. im not an Ali historian by any means-if anything these figures will make me research his work more, but its just a strange addition to our collections as far as eras and available talent to pose against is concerned. it was cool to see Ali get both a mattel creation Ultimate figure exclusive and an elite line release so collectors of each respective line get a chance to own this....LEGEND!

Just reading your thread again and i realized that im re building my collection for the 3rd , 4th or even 8th time.

Some of us may just enoy collecting more than we enjoy owning a collection lol.

Coming in today with an IF YA SMELLLLLLL Sunday!




2001 era The Rock custom

Coming in today is a cool little score i picked up on Mercari; someone had made a 2001 era Rock custom and was letting it go for super cheap, so i scooped it up for the collection! it looks to be the Elite 31 Rock trunks on a classic styled Rock torso and i love it so much. Rock was one of those guys i was obsessed with as a kid and this was that era where he went from being corporate champ / people champ to THE GREAT ONE. im not necessarily 'in love' with the headsculpt they chose but it is reminiscent of one of my favorite Jakks TTL Rock headsculpts i played with for nearly decades. it looks like that KMart 2 pack headsculpt with the raised eyebrow. this era rock brings back so many memories, i remember during the invasion storyline "it was so real to me" i wrote a letter to Linda McMahon pleading her to talk Vince into unsuspending The Rock so he could come back and help the wwf roster. i actually VHS recorded the RAW when Rock returned in 2001 i was so hype. i wish mattel would do more Rock figures with different color trunks; they seem REALLY stuck on making rock figures wearing silver or gold logo trunks and he worked in so many other colors and variations--blue always being my top favorite. i typically dont buy custom or fixup figures these days unless the price is totally right. in my 2012 era collection i went crazy buying top tier customs it was too expensive to keep up with. i also tend to share my own personal fix ups in the fix up thread, which i why i brought this figure here it was just a neat little purchase that i was happy to score $20 shipped is a great price for a sweet Rock figure like this.