WWE Elite #62 Dude Love figure review

As the Third Face of Foley, Dude Love might have been one of Mick Foley’s more unique creations and it solidified Foley as one of the most creative guys in wrestling. Mattel has already knocked out a Cactus Jack and Mankind figure. Let’s see how they did with the Dude and if I’ll be screaming Have Mercy afterwards.

Packaging:  There’s nothing new with this Elite style packaging. I’ve become a big fan of how Mattel does the specialized packaging for the theme waves. This is the standard white with red accents color scheme, which is fine if not a bit boring.

The side photo choice matches the actual look of the figure better, which is something that isn’t always the case. The bio is just fine.

Likeness:  The head sculpt is tricky. Dude Love wore a wider headband that covered most of his forehead leaving just a smidge of hair up top. This should be tie-dye, but it’s just two colors and Dude Love rarely wore anything predominantly red.

Without the headband, Dude’s forehead is massive. This head sculpt would make sense with a large headband or a permanently sculpted headband. Or if Mattel really wanted to focus on the wrestling version, his hair should be fuller or at least the hairline shouldn’t be as pronounced.

I do love the actual expression and the likeness, which is vintage Foley. Of course it’d be cool for Mattel to have covered the ears a bit to hide his torn ear.

The lack of black kneepads indicates Mattel was going more for the heel version of Dude Love who fought Stone Cold instead of the one that teamed with him.

Scale:  Dude Love is 6’2″ and Mattel got his scale down right as he’s the same height as the 6’2″ Steve Austin and seems appropriately scaled to the 6’4″ Triple H.

Paint:  All of the paintwork is clean. My biggest issue with this paintjob is the tie-dye. Dude Love’s patterns went throughout the shirt. It wasn’t limited to most of the shirt and should make use of every bit of the fabric. This creates an appearance like he’s wearing a blue shirt with a large tampo on it. Mattel has done more complex attires before so it’s disappointing the shirt lacks a true tie-dye style.

The Dude Love lettering on either pant leg came out clean. Mattel could have added a little hair on his arms as well for a more authentic appearance. They did include the obnoxious fake heart tattoo with Love on the left bicep.

Articulation:  This is one of my least favorite bodies Mattel uses just narrowly beating out the Batista mold largely because the articulation is kinda awful. The clearance on the hips doesn’t allow a lot of back and forth movement negating kicks or in this case general posing for Sweet Shin Music.

I always worry about breaking the hip joint as the body doesn’t have much flexibility.

The plastic shirt hinders the ab crunch articulation point and his arms don’t have the reach to do many moves like a neck breaker or bulldog. He’s a pretty basic punching and Mandible claw figure.

This guy was immensely frustrating trying to come up with some remotely interesting poses that would look somewhat convincing.

Dude Love has:

• neck
• bicep
• ball-jointed shoulders
• elbows
• wrists
• wrist hinge
• waist
• hips
• thighs
• knees (double-jointed)
• ankles

Accessories:  Dude comes in real low on accessories as well with just his headband and sunglasses. That’s pretty lame. I’m not even gonna count the figure stand and artwork.

Worth it?  Right now, Dude Love is around $33. If you want him to complete the Faces of Foley or just a museum style display collector, he’s not worth this price.

Rating: 6 out of 10

There’s too many frustrating aspects of this guy to rate him any higher. He’s a much better figure in premise than execution and will need a little fix-ups to improve.

Where to get it?  Amazon still has him in stock, but you’re gonna pay over retail for him.