WWE Hall of Fame Jerry The King Lawler figure review
Mattel botched its first Flashback Jerry Lawler figure. Instead of a New Generation or King of Memphis era figure, we got an older version that didn’t really fit. For its latest Hall of Fame series, Mattel fixed that wrong with a figure of the King that gets the royal treatment.
Packaging: I really like the Hall of Fame packaging over the traditional red heavy Elite style. The blue and gold make for a classier presentation. The portrait seems more like a drawing than a picture like most figures, which looks a little weird.
As usual, the HOF bio provides a far more extensive look at the character. I wish Mattel would adopt this for the Flashback figures in general.
Likeness: I’ve been converting my wrestling collection to Blu Ray and been adding classic stuff I’d never seen before. Lawler’s early run in Memphis was one of those undiscovered gems and I’ve thrilled to his feuds with pretty much anyone who was anyone in wrestling.
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This figure truly captures Lawler’s cocky swagger. Even as the beloved face of the territory, the King wasn’t afraid to unleash a flurry of punch lines and heel tactics against Jimmy Hart’s First Family. I dig the head sculpt as it shows a thoughtful confidence while largely keeping a neutral expression.
The torso choice is a good fit for Lawler. He wasn’t slender, but not especially broad either. Occasionally, he would wear elbow pads, but not consistently enough that they needed to be included.
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Scale: Lawler is 6 feet. That puts him shorter than the 6’4” King Kong Bundy, 6’3” Ravishing Rick Rude and 6’1” Randy Savage. I think the older Savage heads are undersized so Lawler seems to be scaled dead on.
Paint: OK, so here’s the catch. Mattel went with a really dull all black attire for Lawler’s Elite 18 figure. For this attire, Mattel added a splash of color going with a red and black color scheme. Lawler mixed up his outfits enough that this was a weak and boring choice. But it probably would have been fine had the first outfit been more colorful.
The line work on the crowns is pretty good even with white on two dark colors in red and black. Lawler’s goatee is solid and the chest hair has just the right amount of coverage.
Articulation: If you’ve watched any Lawler matches you know his arsenal wasn’t all that extensive — punches, kicks and piledrivers. The latter is the most important since that move was notoriously hard to pull off with Jakks figures. With those core moves down, there’s not much you can’t accomplish pose wise with him.
Lawler has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee (double jointed)
- ankle
Accessories: Like the Elite 18 Lawler, this one comes with the cape and harness and crown that Lawler can wear or hold. The harness has a great level of detail with intricate sculpting, but the Elite version had a painted red jewel in the center giving it an additional cool touch.
My HOF figure also had some sloppy paint work along the red trim. I’ll be swapping the Elite version out. The crowns are exactly the same so I won’t need to do a major switching of all the parts.
Worth it? The real question is if it’s worth buying essentially the same figure over again. If you’re an old school fan there’s no question this is the version to get. Target had the Hall of Fame line on sale for $15, which made this a much easier sell for me.
Rating: 10 out of 10
This is the classic Memphis style Jerry Lawler figure we needed in the first place. Hopefully Mattel has a New Generation era coming as good as this figure.
Where to get it? As a Target exclusive that’s your first stop, but if you’re desperate, you can grab one from Amazon.