Monday Night Wars

WWE has always been weird about not showing Rey unmasked. You can watch all that stuff on the Network, but I remember them going out of their way to avoid that era when releasing Rey DVDs back in the day. And if they had to cover something with unamsked Rey in a documentary, they would only show the back of his head.

It is strange, because it's one of the only kayfabe things that the company has held on to.

Well I get why people are down about Rey, but I'm not sure how that translates to the entire line being crap.

I've never been into maskless Rey or much of '99+ WCW, but that was undeniably one of the more special things in this line so far. Hall in the jean outfit, the first WWE-branded maskless Rey, and The Disciple are the ones that stick out to me great ways to incorporate previously signed talent in new ways that make sense for a line such as this. I knew going in we'd likely not be seeing most of the international cruisers or the Jerry Flynn & Chaz's (though he is technically possible now...) of the MNW. But still...S1 is flawed but alright, and Series 2 just falls kinda flat for me and heavily lacks accessories. I imagine Rey might have been a rushed conversion of the UE since they had to pivot likely due to WWE changing their mind on the maskless situation. They showed off a black entrance jacket late into the Nitro stage campaign, and it doesn't look like he comes with it here.

I have hope the line will get better, though. Two versions of Harlem Heat repaints will be cool, plus there's the possibility of The Headbangers, The Sandman (thank you, ECW Raw invasion in 1997), The Dudleyz, maybe Raven (!?), Sting being freed up to hopefully sign a merch deal in a few weeks, whatever is going on with Savage, the Steiners...there's some potentially awesome figures being worked on right now that have either been absent from the line for awhile or haven't had a WWF/WWE figure in ages.

Hasbro is great at getting their product out. The Legends and GI Joe stuff is easy to find. Classified had a rough couple of years initially, but now they are cooking with gas. They learned not to put sought after figures and looks as store exclusives and are writing all the wrongs they did at the beginning of the line by giving Walmart sought after looks.

Steve’s only “official” (social media) comment on the matter certainly made it sound like it’s not coming any time soon, which would indicate it was more than a production or switching lines issue.

Though of course anything is possible.

I agree, Canada being skipped over again stinks.

Are Bret’s spare heads really that large or is it just the angle of the pics?

Angry about the Rey but as I said in the other thread, at least they didn't pull a PWG Sami and wait until preorders were already shipping before letting people know the figure had been changed from what was promised.

Not that it's the same magnitude of change but when that Sami was finally shown to not have the PWG logo, there were a ton of people I saw livid because that was the ONLY reason they had pre-ordered it.

But really I agree with the people that the execution of this whole line has been a letdown. Beyond the fact that I'm certain I won't find any of them in stores, even figures that should be slam dunks are wiffing entirely. I don't know how they went so damn wrong with that Hall figure, but yeah. And Undertaker as a cruiserweight is confusing af. Now they chickened out on the Rey. I really wanted to get both the Hall and Nash from this line but with Hall being tiny, he's gonna look like Rey beside Nash. About the only figure shown so far from this line that I'm still really into is Fake Diesel which, in my quest for wrestlecrap figures, I have wanted for some time.

How did Mattel mess this up so bad? This is the most celebrated period in pro wrestling this should have been easy Ws all around! How did they screw this up so BAD?

For 150 each...I can...