What's up with MNW 5 ?

Well, the entire line is just repaints designed to sell Build-A-Figures of obscure wrestlers (or outfits on them). It wouldn’t surprise me if the quality goes down.

I have no idea if the line is all that successful. Walmart gets so few of them that it’s mostly a line for scalpers.

their parts choices have been really not good at all lately i will say that.

the 'johnny gargano syndrome' needs to stop. period. there are very few guys those boots actually work for and none of them wear those boots when mattel chooses to use them.

the 'legsleeve kneepads' needs to stop. it hinders articulation and once again, the guys that actually wear them, never get them on mattel figures.

the ddp chase figure that uses the austin torso?

the seth rollins greatest hits figure that uses the daniel bryan torso??

i mean i really hate to say it but if youre looking at the figures critically theres almost always one thing wrong with the figure that mattel had the power to do right, but chose not to. my conspiracy is that mattel will never make "the perfect figure" on purpose.

There all knock offs from Vietnam lol.

I’ve seen a lot of people praise the new MNW UE Triple H, specifically because of the new torso, but I just don’t see it. It looks terrible IMO, something about t just looks off. I also wish they had chose a different shirt for him because if they knew they couldn’t use the full uncensored version of “I Am That Damn Good!” or whatever the exact phrase is, then why bother with that design at all?

This change to Vietnam production is really hurting the line. I’ve gotten so many figures in the past month or two that have had QC issues, way more than previously. Whether it’s smudged paint applications, Fx facescans being grossly misprinted, wrong skintones being used for parts of the body (I had a UE Target Taker that had a way darker butterfly joint than the rest of his body for example), joints that are way too tight or way too loose, the quality has definitely gone down. The optimist in me hopes that it is just growing pains as the Vietnam factories are barely starting to produce the figs but the cynic in me thinks they switched over to them because the costs of production are notably cheaper for Mattel and it will continue to show in the final products that the consumer receives.

Mattel has struggled with proper parts selection for figures ever since they got the license.

How many times has Bill said something to the effect of 'we forgot we even had that in our parts inventory'

When customizers can make the perfect figure with all Mattel parts then... well then...

I think Razor turned out great, and I normally don't care for cloth accessories that aren't robes. Once you situate the vest, it's a solid depiction of late-era Razor. I get why people don't think he should be in the line, but Razor and Diesel (hopefully a real Diesel next time lol) were so important to the "war" aspect of this that they make sense to do late-era versions of.

Lita kinda sucks now that I've seen it close-up: all of her stuff is painted on (necklace, top, loops in the pants), and they gave her a standard pants mold instead of the baggy ones from Elite 41. The match this was based on (vs Steph) has her in baggy pants, so why even change it!? The saving grace is her Hardy hands, good addition there.

Syxx is a big improvement with the much better head and 2 Sweet hands, I would be tempted to upgrade my Flashback one if these figures ever hit my area. I don't understand why they don't just use the 123 Kid torso for him instead of that old one with the weird curve on the sides. I bet this figure would look awesome with the 6 Ball shirt from the original on it.

Warrior's jacket is loaded with detail, definitely an impressive figure for that at least. His hair not having a wash and the WCW logo being painted over the WWE molded mic hurts it a little bit, but I think it is a better fit here in MNW than the Nitro stage. Warrior returning was a very surreal moment in the MNW regardless of how both it and WCW itself turned out afterward.

Seems like an alright set to me, though I would agree some fresh names or highly desirable looks would help a lot. Nothing I'm really too interested in, especially not at secondary market prices. nWo Dusty looks great and fits the "non-essential but still cool to have" BAF ethos.

EDIT: Been hearing about the quality control issues affecting this line and others, and yeah, that needs to absolutely get figured out at the prices we pay nowadays. Hopefully some early hiccups that get fixed.