These figures are from Mattel's first series of WWE figures. Edge, CM Punk and The Undertaker are all Elite figures which come with accessories and more articulation. The Chris Jericho and Shawn Michael's figures are from the first series of two-packs which have the more basic articulation. The Stone Cold Steve Austin figure is from the WrestleMania Heritage series which is part of the PPV series, these figures also have the basic articulation.
Packaging
The packaging for the other figures have a similar hour-glass shape but is a more traditional wrestling figure box which has to be destroyed to gain access to the figure.
Attire Choice/Paint Application
The attire choice for Stone Cold Steve Austin would have been a pretty easy decision as the WrestleMania Heritage series consist of figures from specific WrestleManias. The Austin figure is based off his match against The Rock at WrestleMania 17. Thus the two knee braces are accurate. If you prefer Austin's earlier look of one knee brace, it is pretty simple to un-hook one of the braces at the hinge and take it from the figure. It's slightly dissapointing that a waistcoat wasn't included but a Jakks waistcoat will fit the figure perfectly. The paint app is also very good- it helps that the attire is one solid colour. The addition of the tattoo above the boot is nice to see and looks very accurate.
The Undertaker has his skull design on one thigh and roseary beads on the other. Undertaker's attire hasn't changed much in recent times so it's pretty accurate. His jacket and hat are nice (but expected) inclusions. The elite line is meant to include extra attire and the coat/hat is what one would expect to be included with The Undertaker. The hat is perfectly molded to the shape of his head so it is a perfect fit. The coat is hard plastic and can be quite difficult to remove the first time. But once you get it off and have the technique right, it becomes easier. All the tattoos seem to be in place. It's difficult to know whether they are accurate or not because he has so many but from what I can see they all look to be in place.
Edge's attire choice seems a little odd. It's not a bad choice as it is one of his latest attires. I don't know when the cut-off date was to decide what attire the wrestler would wear, but he was wearing attires with slightly different logos on before he got injured. His entrance coat is made of similar material to Undertaker's but is slightly softer. The technique to get the coat on and off is slightly easier to perfect because it is softer. The detail on the attire is nice to see. There is a strip of white on the back of each boot which I didn't know he had until I looked at some images. His tattoos are accurate and applied in the correct places.
CM Punk must have been one of the more difficult decisions as he has a lot of different colour combination tights and boots. They went with grey coloured trunks and kick-pads. It's not the most exciting colour combination but it is very accurate. The cloth "fists" t-shirt that is included with the figure is also good. It fastens at the back with velcro which makes it very easy to remove. His tattoo sleeves are very colourful, they're probably a little too bright to be accurate, but I'd prefer them to be too brightly coloured than not coloured at all. The amount of detail is unbelieveable. Tattoos of things like ice-cream cones and muffins, I didn't realise he had them. The only things that are missing that I can see are his two shoulder tattoos. One of them is a Pepsi logo and the other is the Cobra logo (from G.I. Joe) this is understandable due to copyright issues.
Shawn Michaels attire is a good choice. I looked back on his feud with Jericho and saw that in at least one of his matches against him, he wore those tights. They are very accurate- each stud on the tights is painted to the highest detail.
Jericho's attire choice is also accurate to the time of the feud. I think he wore this when he won the World Title in the scramble match. He was also wearing it in his match earlier in the night against Shawn Michaels.
Head Scan/Figure Sculpt/Articulation
The Undertaker's head scan is very accurate and has an excellent likeness. The points of articulation don't harm the look of the figure. For example, the cut in the torso which allows the figure to double over isn't obvious. This is nice to see as it allows for a little bit of realism. The Undertaker has elite articulation which means he has points of articulation at these points; Ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed shoulders, single-jointed elbows, swivel-hinged wrists, cut-torso, swivel waist, psuedo ball joint at the top of the leg (looks a lot more like a leg than an actual ball joint, works the same as a ball joint but nicely hides the articulation), double jointed knees, swivel at the top of the boots, up and down movement at the ankle.
Edge has elite articulation. His torso joint is a little more visible than Undertakers but that's not too much of a problem since it's only an action figure. The kick pads look very good and the swivel on the boot doesn't affect the look too bad. Edge's face scan is good, apart from the hair. The hair colour is wrong. I think Mattel have a problem getting the browny blonde hair colour right. I've seen images of basic series 1 Triple H and they haven't got that quite right, the Shawn Michaels hair is also wrong (which I mention later on). Edge's hair on this figure is more ginger than his natural colour. His eyebrows especially are a bright orange colour.
CM Punk has elite articulation and the same (or at least very similar) torso as Edge. He also has the same boots. His knee pads affect the articulation. It's not too noticeable unless you have another elite figure without knee pads. The pads are made with quite hard plastic which means that the knee won't bend fully.
The rest of the figures in the review are in the basic style so aren't as articulated. They have a ball joint neck, ball joint shoulders, hinged elbows, swivel hinged wrists, T-joint crotch, hinged knees, swivel boots, hinged ankles.
Jericho has the same boots as Edge and CM Punk. But they are all slightly different heights, so it's nice to see that Mattel has a wide range of part choices for the range of heights of WWE Superstars. Jericho's torso choice is good, it isn't too defined but isn't too flabby. Jericho's head scan is very life like. It is a bit unemmotional but does look like him.
Shawn Michaels seems to have the same torso as Jericho. This isn't a huge problem, but Shawn is slimmer than Jericho in real life, so is a bit innacurate. Shawn's head scan looks like him, but I have a few complaints. Throughout his feud with Jericho, he had his stubble and longer hair not tied up. The hair colour is wrong too. Like I mentioned earlier about the elite Edge, Mattel seem to struggle to get that hair colour right. I've seen a picture of a future elite Shawn Michaels and it has orange coloured hair.
I can't find many complaints about the Austin figure. The head scan is one of the best of any wrestling figure I own. The torso choice is also very good, it manages to capture Austin's body shape very well. The only complaint I have is about the arms. The triceps are massive. Austin was never the biggest guy so these arms were the wrong choice. The arms they used on Jericho would have been fine.
Accessories
I've already reviewed the accessories for the Elite figures but all the Mattel figures come with a display stand which I didn't take a picture of. All the stands are the same, they're a black oval shape and have the WWE logo printed on. In the package is a small piece of card with the WWE logo and the wrestlers name which slots into the front of the base. The Elite and Basic figures have the same name tag design, the WrestleMania heritage figures have a different name tag design which says, "WrestleMania Heritage" and then the wrestler's name. The figures have small holes in their feet which allow them to be attatched securely to the base. I hope that in future if there is a classic line, different base designs will be made. It'd be cool to stand someone like Goldberg or DDP on a WCW base or RVD on an ECW base.
Final thoughts
I'm not going to give the figures a score because it's a matter of opinion on what constitutes a 6 or a 9 out of 10. All I'll say is that I'm very impressed with Mattel's first attempt at wrestling figures. All their lines are in scale with each other, so if you would only want to buy a few elites because they're more expensive, they won't look out of place next to your basic roster.
you have so many, why dont you give me one cm punk or john cena
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