Mattel's Women of WWE!

The Badass Women of World Wrestling Entertainment by Mattel

I have both fond and frightening memories of female entertainment wrestling.  These are all centered around G.L.O.W., the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling which crept into my television watching schedule in the late 80's to both fascinate and scar me.  It doesn't help matters that my most prominent mental image of this show was an outrageously made-up Mimi-Bobeck-type character that would grab her opponents legs and bite them.  It seemed like American Gladiators on acid, but that didn't stop me from tuning in for more.  A few years ago I started noticing a great explosion in the quantity and quality of wrestling figures in the toy aisles.  I'm not quite sure why the popularity increased, but I quickly realized that Mattel had acquired the toy license from Jakks Pacific and the female figures suddenly looked amazing.  I'm not a fan of wrestling, but these figures really appealed to me and over time I found myself owning four tough little ladies.

The first I'll review is my favorite of the four, Beth Phoenix from the Mattel WWE Royal Rumble PayPerView Series 3.  This figure is great.  She has a really strong musculature while still looking feminine.  Judging from the photos I've seen online of Beth, the facial likeness is very good as well.

The artculation of this whole line is similar to both the DCUC and MOTUC lines from Mattel, but this articulation seems more naturally sculpted into the figures, with plastic of a firmer quality and tighter joints.  It should also be noted that these WWE figures are at a consistently lower price point, usually $2-5 below DCUC.

The face paint and clothing decals are pretty much perfect.

Next up is one of the more popular (and most undressed) figure, Kelly Kelly from Mattel's WWE (Basic Figures) Series 6.  She's basically a scantily clad semi-formidable-looking girl that had fanboys drooling.  I always thought that plastic lust was beyond odd and I'm still creeped out by all the comments made about the Marvel Legends Shanna the She-Devil years ago.  At least the Kelly Kelly figure sparked an equal amount of talk about customizing potential, too.  Nothing is better for starting a good custom than a simple, unadorned buck.

One thing I must say about the level of skin coverage in Mattel's WWE line is that overall the women are actually less provacatively dressed than the men for a change.  Most of the male characters wear nothing but microshorts and boots, but the women often are wearing pants or shirts with sleeves (actually "sleeve" - apparently the single arm thing is in fashion in the wrestling world).

Next up is Mickie James from Mattel's WWE (Basic Figures) Series 3.   I'll use this figure as an example to talk about the great facial sculpts on all these figures.  I have rarely, if ever, seen a sculpted smile on a "realistic" action figure look good (cartoony figures can pull it off easily).  Some awful grins that come to mind are DCUCs Harley Quinn and Stargirl, or DC Direct's Nightstar figure or Mary Marvel Bust.  I don't know if these WWE figures are utilizing 3-D facial scans or not, but either way the results really work well.

The last of my small collection is Michelle McCool from Mattel's WWE (Basic Figures) Series 7.  She is a little non-descript compared to the other three figures, but she's still pretty great.

There have been a decent amount of females released in Mattel's WWE line so far.  I believe this is all of them, in no particular order:

Beth Phoenix 2-Pack Series 1 & Royal Rumble PPV 3 - Michelle McCool WWE 7 - Mickie James WWE 3

Kelly Kelly WWE 6 - Brie & Nikki Bella WWE 15 TwinPack - Melina WWE Wrestlmania Heritage PPV7 - Melina WWE 5

Natalya WWE 9 - Vickie Guerrero WWE 13 - Layla WWE 15

Eve WWE 11 - Maryse WWE 8

I'd like to mention that of the many figures I don't own, the ones with the sculpted shirts are a thousand times better looking than the rubberized "add-on" shirts.  These add-on shirts make the characters look bulky and unproportionate, which is a shame because accurate body proportions are one of the best features of this line.

Time for some Group and Comparison shots!

Here is a shot showing all three of the main Mattel buck styles currently in production.

And here is a group shot of the 4 ladies reviewed today.  Note their different body types.  I read somewhere that there is an array of body parts that Mattel uses to give variation and specification to more accurately portray different wrestlers' bodies.  I wish that same level of consideration would go into their other toy lines as well.

Cheers!