R3 TECH STILL RULES: Complete History of WWE's R3 Figures!!

[3Lephant (Naptown Icon)]

The Complete history of WWE's R3 Tech figures! I've been working on acquiring these R3 figures for well over a year. When I started making videos about action figure history, a complete history of R3 was always at the top of my list. I joined WF while these figures were on retail shelves. I hope it brings back some fun memories for you!

[Old School Collector]

I had very few R3 Tech figs, but I’ll check this out later this evening for sure 🤘🏻

[Warrior Wildness]

Not sure I actually had any R3’s, but they look pretty sweet! Thanks for sharing.

[Deleted]

I loved this line. Shame they let it crash and burn the way it did, some of those figures are still among the best that those guys have gotten.

EDIT: Also never knew before today that Draft Tajiri has that wider Edge/Christian/Rock/DDP torso instead of the smaller Jericho torso from the UF figure and somehow...the Draft figure looks better to me. Need to get that one when things start to get back to normal.

[Deleted]

Great video. Jakks really did pump pout so many bad looking figures, the heads likeness were really poty luck, some spot on, other mostly dodgy as hell. But when they nailed it they really did like RV and a few others in the video.

[hbkjason]

Fantastic video man, really interesting stuff. I love the effort in your videos and really enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane.

I was not a fan of this line at all, the bodies looked freaking weird, even more so when they did not have knee pads on. I am always in the minority on this one, but I have always thought that the R3 Big Show scan was awful. There were a few good figures, I liked the ring gear Rock from the WMX2 pack, Kane I thought was good and Jehh Hardy too. However, as a whole I am not really a fan of this line.

[The-Rock]

Great video, and overall pretty accurate. One point of contention I have is that I remember people were relieved and happy that Unchained Fury was TTL vs. R3 because at the time a lot of people still didn't like R3's, didn't want to convert a full collection of TTL's to R3, and didn't like that we'd have R3 figures of sort of supplemental guys like Hurricane, Tajiri, and Storm before we even had main wrestlers like HHH or Angle. The only other thing I'm not sure is correct is about the introduction of RA's...because those were in stores by January/February of 2003. When RA's came out it was "oh come on, now i'm going to have 3 scales of wrestlers in less than a year!!?" In another post on here I think I mentioned how R3's were a little ahead of their time and it was poorly executed. RA's (which arguably were a step back) would've been the logical next step after TTL's, and then eventually R3's.

I thankfully never got overly invested in R3 figures (I had S1 Matt Hardy, S2 Edge, S5 Jeff and RVD, Draft Chuck, Hulk Still Rules boxed set, and nWo Nash in ring gear). I'll never forget finding Matt Hardy on new Years Day 2002 at Target and being disappointed to see how much smaller he was than TTL, however the big ladder he came with was awesome...and the head scan and playability were great vs TTL's which had these massively thick legs. Series 1 was originally supposed to have both Matt and Jeff Hardy (that's why Matt is in an attire that was more typical of what Jeff wore), and I forgot who replaced Jeff or if the series was supposed to have 7 guys initially. It was admittedly overwhelming to walk into a store (I remember KB Toys, specifically) and seeing the Draft figures because I don't think we ever got prototypes and it wasn't clear (at least as a kid) who was actually in the series and who to look for. Draft series was also overwhelming because it was like well do I buy the guys I've never had figures of (Maven, Tajiri, etc) or do I get R3 updated versions of main eventers (Booker T, Angle, RVD, etc.), do I buy this version I can find right now of Hogan (without any accessories) or do I hope I find ring gear nWo Hogan later. I remember that Chuck was pretty much the only guy I was deadset on getting, and somehow he was a lot harder to find than billy gunn even though they were released in equal quantities.

The jointed fingers ultimately ended up sucking and making the figures look weird. The joints for all the figures were pretty stiff, the scales were inconsistent, and part choices were awful. One of my biggest figure collecting regrets was deciding to pass on Summerslam 01 Edge in favor of R3-S2 Edge. Edge was too thin, lacked wrist tape, and was too tall vs TTLs/RAs. I also vaguely remember R3's had issue with the foot joint where they couldn't stay standing up and would buckle.

The overall downfall of the line was that they didn't make enough wrestlers, many of the figures weren't in ring gear, and the figures always had some critical imperfection (no tattoos on undertaker, Flair with black hair, no wrist tape, Kurt Angle had hair, no knee/elbow pads, draft series using silver in place of white to distinguish it, differing sizes of the same figures like S1 Austin).

[The-Rock]

Apr 25, 2020 4:51:07 GMT -5 hbkjason said:

Fantastic video man, really interesting stuff. I love the effort in your videos and really enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane.

I was not a fan of this line at all, the bodies looked freaking weird, even more so when they did not have knee pads on. I am always in the minority on this one, but I have always thought that the R3 Big Show scan was awful. There were a few good figures, I liked the ring gear Rock from the WMX2 pack, Kane I thought was good and Jehh Hardy too. However, as a whole I am not really a fan of this line.

I also was never a fan of the line. For every 1 figure that was awesome and an upgrade over the TTL version, there were 4 figures what sucked. A lot of stuff like reusing the entire body of Steve Austin or Edge for Booker T, or the aforementioned awkwardness of some figures having molded on elbow and knee pads (Matt Hardy, Edge, Angle, Big Show) vs. no elbow and knee pads and being too thin and small for the TTL one's to fit properly.

For every Jeff Hardy, RVD, Rikishi, Big Show or Rhyno that custom molded parts...there was a HHH, Undertaker, Booker T, Hogan, Christian, Chuck, etc. that had repurposed parts that didn't fit and looked terrible.

[CMW Toys]

I personally loved the R3, agreed some were terrible, but there were some that were incredible.

I remember getting the Hogan and Rock 2 pack for my birthday one year...I loved it.

I recently got back into getting R3, would love to find that Hogan again.

[Deleted]

Apr 25, 2020 12:37:09 GMT -5 The-Rock said:

When RA's came out it was "oh come on, now i'm going to have 3 scales of wrestlers in less than a year!!?" 

I remember this being the sentiment on here at that time as well, plus people thinking that Jakks were just going to dump the line after a year like they did with the R3 figures.

As an aside, I remember when the Unlimited figures were first shown on here and it was hyped as the most exciting figure announcement ever and people stayed up way late to see what they were going to be and the line went over like a fart in church. Good concept, poor execution.

[charabro]

Class video mate, just subbed, currently enjoying your mortal kombat videos

[King of Kings]

Very good video! Inspired me to finish my R3 collection, which I was only 15% of the way into but gave up on. Ordered a few today. Question, for you or anyone else out there: what are the 'unicorns' of the R3 line? I remember for a while it seemed like Tajiri and Rikishi were hard to find, but I don't really see ANY of Series 3 The Undertaker so I'm wondering if the game is changed now

[3Lephant (Naptown Icon)]

Apr 25, 2020 23:00:09 GMT -5 King of Kings said:

Very good video! Inspired me to finish my R3 collection, which I was only 15% of the way into but gave up on. Ordered a few today. Question, for you or anyone else out there: what are the 'unicorns' of the R3 line? I remember for a while it seemed like Tajiri and Rikishi were hard to find, but I don't really see ANY of Series 3 The Undertaker so I'm wondering if the game is changed now

Before I started writing the script for the video, all I had was R3 Tech Series 5 in the package from when I was a teenager. That meant I had to track down literally every R3 lol, it took about a year or so. Wrestlemania X-8 Double packs are by far the hardest to find, I don't know that I ever saw Kane/Angle in the package on eBay in the year+ I was searching. Series 1-2 are fairly common, but all of Series 3 are somewhat rare. Series 4 Test and Rikishi were also a challenge to find.  Hope that helps!

[The-Rock]

Apr 25, 2020 15:54:08 GMT -5 @kyoken said:

Apr 25, 2020 12:37:09 GMT -5 The-Rock said:

When RA's came out it was "oh come on, now i'm going to have 3 scales of wrestlers in less than a year!!?" 

I remember this being the sentiment on here at that time as well, plus people thinking that Jakks were just going to dump the line after a year like they did with the R3 figures.

As an aside, I remember when the Unlimited figures were first shown on here and it was hyped as the most exciting figure announcement ever and people stayed up way late to see what they were going to be and the line went over like a fart in church. Good concept, poor execution.

Ya I was never into Unlimited from the second they were revealed and I remembered they would rip really easily too. In fact I forgot those existed until you mentioned them. 2002-2004 had a lot of extraneous sets that just took up shelf space (Unlimited, R3, TTL's, RA's, Those bend-em's, those smelly grapple gear gets that looked like they came with sludge but just smelled like it, and the list goes on).

I always kind of felt like Jakks pivoted to RA's in response to R3's not selling well or from some higher-up at WWE complaining that R3's were too thin and didn't look muscular enough next to other toys on the shelf. While the move from BCA's to TTL's always made sense (more articulation, new technology, etc.), I never quite understood why R3's required their own line as opposed to just starting to produce TTL's with more real scale and specialized parts (which is what RA's ultimately were). The only explanation I can probably come up with is that *at the time* Jakks had kind of already reached the ceiling of producing virtually all the WWF wrestlers. R3's were announced and protos were shown in September or October of 2001...which means that they started working on the project probably a little before WWF acquired WCW. So creating a whole new line, that looked and felt different was the only way to continue to generate and sell figures. Prior to the InVasion WWF was just 1 roster with not that many wrestlers.

I think RA's didn't fall victim to the same fate as TTL's and were able to be the primary line from 2003-2010 because of the introduction of the classic superstars series and much larger rosters. It would have been hard to introduce a totally new type of line and market that as the primary and best line but still try to get people to buy CS in the old, less desirable RA form. For anyone that tries to bring up Deluxe Aggression, those were initially marketed as kind of the next phase of RA's...but it was pretty clear by series 2 and 3 that Jakks wasn't planning to make that the primary line. I converted to DA's then went back to RA's after the 3-4 month lag between releases in series and how detailed RA's like RA 18 HBK, RA 20 Flair, Masters, Booker T, others from 2006 were. Also the lack of scale difference with DA's was absolutely criminal.

[The-Rock]

Apr 25, 2020 23:00:09 GMT -5 King of Kings said:

Very good video! Inspired me to finish my R3 collection, which I was only 15% of the way into but gave up on. Ordered a few today. Question, for you or anyone else out there: what are the 'unicorns' of the R3 line? I remember for a while it seemed like Tajiri and Rikishi were hard to find, but I don't really see ANY of Series 3 The Undertaker so I'm wondering if the game is changed now

There were a few:

-Unrelenting/relentless Jeff Hardy was probably one of the hardest figures to find because I don't believe those saw full store, wide release. I'm almost positive they were exclusive to 1 or 2 stores.
-UCF 3 Rhyno because it was his only figure, and was 1 or 2 per case vs. the Angle, Booker, and RVD.
-Hulk Still Rules boxed set. It wasn't rare, but was exclusive to K-Mart which at the time due to an ongoing bankruptcy had a fraction of the stores that they had just a year prior
-WM 18 single and 2-packs. Two-packs weren't as widely released as other series.
-nWo in ring gear figures. Even if they were packed in equal numbers as the street gear figures, these sold out way faster and were harder to get.
-Austin in What? shirt from the Raw Draft Box Set

I saw plenty of Series 3 in stores.

[Mr. Show]

I never ever, not even one time, saw the Wrestlemania X8 2-packs in any store. Always wanted The Rock from that set especially. And the regular Flair.

[Deleted]

Apr 26, 2020 17:20:20 GMT -5 Mr. Show said:

I never ever, not even one time, saw the Wrestlemania X8 2-packs in any store. Always wanted The Rock from that set especially. And the regular Flair.

I remember never seeing them online except for the black hair Flair/Taker 2-pack. I eventually got Rock on eBay about 5-6 years ago. Amazing figure, still probably my favorite of him.

[The-Rock]

Apr 26, 2020 17:20:20 GMT -5 Mr. Show said:

I never ever, not even one time, saw the Wrestlemania X8 2-packs in any store. Always wanted The Rock from that set especially. And the regular Flair.

Same here. I remember thinking that even if I did find them, probably wasn't going to buy them because Taker didn't have tattoos and I didn't need a 4th shirted R3 Hogan (I had the Hulk Still Rules Box set). The bigger issue was, and I'm not 100% certain about this, WM X8 2-packs were released either by the time RA's had been announced or after RA's were already in stores...so it was the BCA/TTL thing all over again.

I don't consider the transition from TTL to R3 to be in the same category as the BCA/TTL, R3/RA, and jakks/mattel switches because TTL's were still widely being produced and in the same series as R3's throughout and after their lifetime. All the PPV series, TRU WrestleMania XX, Wrestling's Most Wanted, Superstars Uncovered, Signature Jams, Off The Ropes, Classic Superstars, etc etc still consistently had TTL figures from 2002-2005.

[cordless2016]

Always liked R3, even as a kid, and hated that they went to the RA style figures instead of continuing to develop R3. I think the introduction of R3 was the right direction after TTL, and they could have further improved the line with better sculpts and articulation. Sadly due to fan backlash and some dud figures they abandoned the concept and took a huge step back with the RA line.

Some of the figures were duds (the Austin torso with the arched back comes to mind), but the ones they nailed were great. The R3 Angles still hold up today until Mattel gives us more 1999-2001 Kurts, and the Kane and Big Show figures still blow Mattel’s versions out of the water (minus articulation). Edge and Jericho had some great looking figures as well.

Wasted opportunity IMO.

[HardyKOfan01]

R3 figures always hold a special place in my heart. I remember one day coming home from a friend’s house, and that night, my dad brought home a HUGE box that he got from a friend that were filled with the SmackDown and RAW Draft figures from 2002. Some were actually TTLs (William Regal was one), but most were R3. The box didn’t have every figure from the set, so I sadly didn’t get favorites of mine like Rock, Matt Hardy, Hogan, Billy Gunn, or Undertaker, for example, but I did get Kane, Big Show, Jeff Hardy (green shirt), RVD (yellow singlet), Kevin Nash, and many others. I got the SmackDown fist entrance set in that box, though! I eventually did pick up the first Matt Hardy R3 later on, and I’m working on getting more soon. They fit in well with the Mattels, too!