Toy Fair 2020 marked an interesting period for Mattel’s WWE line as this was the first time in years there was an actual competition for wrestling fan figure dollars with Wicked Cool Toys/Jazwares’ AEW line and Boss Fight Studios’ Legends of Lucha Libre. Could Mattel do anything to match the excitement of these new lines?
In a common move for the WWE, Mattel earned a lot of goodwill by going back to the past.
For old school collectors like me easily the biggest reveals was the return of the Legends line complete with continuing the wave numbering. It seems like this will be the line where Mattel will release alternate color schemes of characters like Razor Ramon, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and Sting with the occasional first time in the line legend.
The return of a dedicated Legends line has felt like a pipe dream and as someone who’s stalked Wal-Marts looking for the one per case legend like Pat Patterson and Don Muraco, this announcement has me very excited. Legends will be a Target exclusive line, but at least with them there’s a reasonable chance of them restocking their exclusives more than once per district.
Legends Wave 7 features Sting in his early Crow Sting attire, Razor Ramon from Wrestlemania 11, Bobby Heenan in a Weasel suit and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine as the first in the line representative. That’s a strong initial return to the Legends brand.
Celebrating the 10 years of the Mattel/WWE partnership, Mattel is releasing a subset line called Decade of Dominance featuring different looks from characters that’ve been in the WWE as long as Mattel has had the license. This first wave includes Survivor Series 90 version The Undertaker, Nation of Domination Mark Henry, RNN version Randy Orton and Chain Gang John Cena. This should also provided us some interesting old school/Ruthless Aggression/Attitude Era takes on Kurt Angle, Edge, The Hardy Boyz and Batista.
Mattel also showed the next wave of its Ultimate Edition series with John Cena and Becky Lynch. It’s sorta scary that a Cena figure can be considered a Flashback Legend. This could be my new default Cena figure thanks to the increased articulation. The Becky Lynch figure features a weak head sculpt so I’m not as sold on her figure, but this is from her historic Wrestlemania main event match so I might have to grab it when it hits clearance prices.
I was a little puzzled by Mattel’s decision to go with Velveteen Dream in his Hollywood Dream attire for the basic line as a Battle Pack with Ricochet as that’s an attire that would be a must-get in the Elite format.
Mattel showed the next step in its Elite figure of The Fiend, which continues to look impressive. That’s also the case with the scans of figures these days as Heavy Machinery and Lacey Evans feature some astonishing likenesses.
Finally, Mattel is continuing to work in more vehicle playsets with the Slambulance. Considering how often those were used in the Attitude Era, a to scale ambulance is pretty exciting,
What was your favorite of the WWE Toy Fair reveals?
