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

[MonsoonMan]

Happy Figure Friday y'all! wow! its already another figure friday!

ive been slowing down on the in store purchases and thus have been ramping up on ebay purchases 🤣 📈 i dont know what im gonna do with all these figures, maybe start a museum? anyways i ended up turning to ebay for the chase DDP and Sandman figures i had been hunting for; i just wasnt having any luck with those figures locally.
i got my great khali all built up and am somewhat underwhelmed? stay tuned in a few for the review on that guy. gotten a few older CM Punk figures in for a favorable price even though i know mattel is gonna be sprinkling those figures in the GH line(at least they should be??).
got my Dudley Boyz pack in!! very excited about those guys; YES they are tall

however coming in today..........




Elite Series 71
John Cena

Cant Quite Seee who it is today……oh wait yeah its JOHNNNNNNNNNN CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA That’s right coming in today is mr fruity pebbles himself John Cena. After seeing the main event version of this figure kicking around from store to store I found a great deal on this figure loose but complete on ebay, so I bit. This John is sporting his lime green Never Give Up / HLR gear, but with newer longer parted hairstyle. The headsculpt captures john in that classic Cena smile and the likeness is spot on in the sculpting from every angle. The hat doesn’t REALLY fit on the head too gracefully but I sacrificed a Main event figure and am using it for an interchangebale head on this figure. John was given his signature dog tags and softgoods lime green HLR Respect tee; the shirt looks great, but IMO it fits the figure a little tight, John was never a skintight shirt guy he always seemed to size up by one or two sizes on his tees for a comfy fit. Underneath the entrance gear, they gave John the modern ’cena’ style torso and painted on some lime green wristbands and armband. The wristbands on his right arm feature ‘U cant C Me’ logos while the left arm wristband feature his “ok HLR” logo—which apparently is banned in this day and age due to politics. His left arm armband is also green and features the “Never Give Up” logo. Finishing up this figure are some dark blue jorts with a light blue belt, sculpted kneepads and some blue/white/black sneakers.
All in all this is a pretty great cena figure. My only main complaints are the painted on wristbands, but I can only complain as the modern cena figures now have sculpted wristbands. The hat, as I mentioned doesn’t quite fit the figure with the new hair sculpt, but I guess that was the draw of this figure as it was a drastic aesthetic change for john. I mentioned that I bought and sacrificed a new John cena Main event figure in an effort to sort of upgrade this john by giving him those sculpted wristbands and an interchangeable hat head. It gets the job done im sure that since I put so much effort into this mattel is gonna pop this figure in the greatest hit line now.

[MonsoonMan]

Coming in today with a YOU SUCK Sunday!!⭐🏅





Network Spotlight 3
Kurt Angle

Retiring against Baron Corbin today is the True American Hero, Kurt Angle. Ive had this figure on my radar for the longest time, it just seems like MOC prices for this figure are just over the line of what I would be willing to pay, so I gave up on that and I scooped this figure up in a loose auction but seemingly in mint condition. As mentioned, this Kurt comes to us from Wrestlemania 35 where he faced Baron Corbin in his final match. That being said Kurt comes to the ring wearing a red sleeveless shirt with “You Suck / Thank You” “Farewell Match” logos on the front and back and a star spangled gold medal for entrance gear. I don’t have too much to say about the rubber shirt; by default I hate it but the logos and paint apps look fine. The headsculpt on this figure looks great, it captures Kurt in a positive smiling, smirking expression and the likeness in the sculpting is spot on. Kurt came to the ring wearing a symbolic half black, half American flag decorated singlet. The singlet features a red stripe going down the left side that features a blue “Kurt Angle” logo—the paint apps on my figure got funky and it reads “KURTRT ANGGLE”. Finishing up this figure are some small black kneepads with red detailing and some short dark blue shooter sneakers. For accessories, mattel included interchangeable pointing hands.
All in all this is a great ring gear kurt angle. Im glad that mattel didn’t change his body recipe for his modern figures as this kurt could really pass for a wrestling machine era kurt aswell. This figure looks great with the red wwe title and it really is crazy to think how far Kurt was from the championship at the time compared to Lesnar. Having reviewed a bunch of figures with double jointed arms up to this point, I really wish this figure had been provided them as the poseability is really lacking. Also---does anyone else remember a couple of boxes of this series being found at a random New Jersey toy store recently and they were selling the figures for like $10 a piece? Oh its true its true.

[MonsoonMan]

Coming in today with a Trish Stratus thursday and beginning the reviews of the figures i purchased from Elite Series 111




Elite Series 111
Trish Stratus


Stratusfying in today is the women whose back the division was built upon; TRISH stratus! This figure comes to us depicting Trish in her appearance at Money in the Bank 2023! That being said this figure comes decked out in some really cool entrance gear; Mattel gave Trish her black cowboy hat with silver studded band and a softgoods black lace coat with black fur on the sleeves and collar. The hat only looks a little strange if you look at it from above, but from every other angle it looks great and natural on the figure. The jack also looks really good and and fits the figure great! underneath that gear they also gave a trish a new neadsculpt that sees a modern era trish stratus in a confident—somewhat neutral expression and its pretty good I do like it compared to previous elite trish heads. I think the sculpting is spot on with this figure is just the paint apps need some fine tuning. Going down this figure, trish is wearing a black/silver and mesh style outfit. The top is a sleeveless v cut top with some black and silver shoulder pads and a back “Thank You Trish” logo in white and silver. Trish is coming to the ring wearing some black wristbands with a diamond pattern design. There are some sculpted details for the outfit present on her hips and then the legs have some silver designs and the transition to Mattel’s attempt to produce mesh within the paint apps on the front of her thighs. Finishing up this figure are some (still) basic articulation black kickpads.
All in all this is a great modern era Trish elite figure. Her last Basic figure that was paired with Lita was a great enough modern recreation of her but I think this one tops that. The sculpting details in the headsculpt provide a true portrayal of trish’s likeness and the body recipe and outfit details are pretty spot on. I wish they updated the womens figure legs by now but I guess its still a WIP for them. I cant say that this is my favorite era of trish, I still wish that they could dial in that T&A era Trish, attitude era or raw womens champ trish but atleast we’re steering in the right direction for her likeness. I will say that despite my personal desire for a certain era of Trish’s career in figure form, this is still a SOLID figure and a great offering to have Trish in our collection!

[MonsoonMan]

happy Figure Friday y'all



Elite Series 111
Sandman

EXIT LIGHT!!!! ENTER NIGHT!!!!!! Smashing beer cans against his head and swinging a Singapore cane wildly today is the SANDMAN! I was level 11 hype for this figure I am a huge sandman fan. Back in the day I had commissioned my guy classicdas to make me a sandman from his ladder match against sabu and it turned out amazing, LETS SEE HOW MATTEL DID! This figure comes to us portraying Sandman in a lip rearing defiant, disgusted expression and I do see the likeness to sandman however its not necessarily a photorealistic interpretation of his likeness. This Sandman was loaded up with accessories for entrance gear I will say; he comes with a handful of his classic beer cans for entrance debauchery, barbed wire to wrap around himself and a Singapore cane. Everything looks good and scales well with this figure. The barbed wire is literally just a rubber strand that can be unwrapped from the figure quite easily. Mattel gave sandman a softgoods shirt for gear—this figure was treated to a white shirt that features a black ECW logo—I wish they would have done a cool design from the past but given that they probably have no access to licensing to those designs I completely get it. underneath that they gave this figure the elite ‘sgt slaughter/mick foley’ torso which is wearing a singlet top and has a bit of a barrel belly. Its whatever I guess I don’t know that sandman ever wore a singlet top like that under his gear? But it aids in the beer belly look that he was sporting for the entirety of his career. The chase figure features a red top while the standard figure is white. Finishing up this figure are some patterned sweatpants; the standard figure is sporting some white and black sweatpants with various skull designs placed throughout. The chase figure is wearing some brilliant American flag patterned pants we saw Sandman wear at Ecw’s Three Way Dance. Finally mattel opted to include Sandman’s stylish reebok sneakers.
All in all as I mentioned I was incredibly excited for the mattel Sandman figure and it honestly delivered in my eyes. The headsculpt is good enough to know who it is and how he feels; the body recipe and sculpt is good—I don’t think I have too many complaints with that. I will say that the bogus sneaker mold made the figure hard to pose, but beyond that I really enjoyed this figure and am looking forward to more mattel Sandman figures to fill out the timeline; I already have hardcore hak pre ordered

[MonsoonMan]

Happy Superstar Saturday

this week was full of ADULTING. out on a business trip but literally no figures on the pegs except for hordes of Top Picks Roman Reigns and AEW figures that are 10 years old at this point. what happens to the figure that NEVER sell? do they get clearanced to pennies? sent from warehouse to warehouse until they end up at toys for tots? burned in an incinerator? im genuinely curious.


wrapping up my reviews of Elite 111 today :





Elite Series 111
Cody Rhodes


Conquering the Beast and getting the proverbial torch passed to him today is the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes! This figure comes to us in the attire Cody Rhodes wore at Summerslam 2023 when he emerged victorious in his match against Brock Lesnar. This Cody comes to us with two interchangeable headsculpts, these are ones we have seen before from mattel; one is the straight faced, tight lipped serious Cody sculpt and the other is the open mouthed shouting expressive sculpt. Both headsculpts provide a great likeness to Cody from all angles however the straight faced sculpt sits really low on the figure’s torso giving him no neck syndrome. Also the neck tattoo placement is starting to bug me, I don’t see why mattel feels the need to print it on both the head and the neck, it never lines up gracefully. Same Cody body recipe that we’ve seen and also this figure comes with the clawed interchangeable hands we have been seeing his figures be released with lately. I feel like they may have given this figure bigger upper thighs? Im not sure if it’s the design of the tights but the thighs seem to be thicc’er on this figure. As previously mentioned, this Cody is from Summerslam ’23 so he is wearing some predominantly white tights with a large golden eagle design on the crotch and then some patriotic red and blue accents on the rest of his legs. Kudos to mattel as all of the red designs on his tights features that kindof scaley textured look and they were able to add paint apps to bring that across—there is also a bit of a metallic sheen to the accents aswell remains true to the real attire. Finishing up this figure are some white strapped boots with the American nightmare logo on the outsides.
All in all this is certainly yet another Cody Rhodes figure lol most-if not all ring gear Cody figures have been pretty solid and have turned out looking great. my biggest complaint is that one of the headsculpt sits far too low on the figure to look good, I also wish they would address the neck tattoo placement finally. I like the included multiple headsculpts as it greatly aids in posing this figure accurately for photography purposes of recreating moments from this match. As I mentioned I cant QUITE be sure if mattel updated the legs on this figure, visually to me it looks like they chose a more muscular thigh mold for this figure but I haven’t had time to really dig out my older Cody figures to do an accurate comparison.

[MonsoonMan]

We're Easy like Sunday Morning today y'all 😎





Ultimate Edition
Eric Bischoff


Coming in today from the WCW Nitro Scale Ring is Easy E, Eric Bischoff. With the current influx of new wcw and nwo figures, I felt like Eric was a must have figure for the roster as well as the scale Nitro Ring for photography purposes. This Eric comes to us with two headsculpts; one cheesy Easy smiling and the other a tight lipped, serious sculpt-both feature the Vintage swept back black hair Eric sported in WCW. The likeness is pretty good to eric, I personally feel like the cheeks are a little shallow on the sculpting but the likeness is certainly on point otherwise however. This Ultimate edition Eric comes with interchangeable arms that allow him to either rock a t shirt or his signature leather jacket. The jacket sculpt seems to be the same we saw on the bret hart/roddy piper ultimate figures. Mattel included two softgoods options for Easy E; he can wear either a plain white t shirt or the nWo black and white! The body recipe of this figure is kinda funny to me as he looks like an “everyday normal guy”; T shirt, blue jeans and no ab definition. That being said finishing up this figure are some blue jeans with some light dry brushing detail and black wrestling boot shoes.
All in all I feel like this Eric is a must have for the collection. whether he is ultimate edition or elite styling, we all need an Eric for our WCW roster. I wasn’t too crazy about him being paywalled behind the Nitro Ring, but atleast we haven’t seen mattel try and re-release him just yet although he would be a great member of the Monday Night Wars line..