WWE Elite #74 Goldberg figure review
Like most WCW stars, Goldberg didn’t exactly get the royal treatment during his initial WWE run. Sure, he had a fun debut feud with The Rock, but eventually he had to bend the knee to Triple H.
At least Goldberg got to have a world heavyweight title reign for a bit. Since his comeback recently, there’s been various eras to Goldberg’s career and I figured it made sense to get the WWE version if for nothing else than the far superior head sculpt to his Entrance Greats figure. Time to see who’s next.
Packaging: Goldberg marks one of the first waves to get the new Elite packaging. It’s largely similar to the previous packaging with the white, red and black color scheme.
There’s enough differences that it stands out from the earlier packaging. It features the normal side portrait with an era-appropriate bio. Mattel normally does a good job with these historical write-ups.
Likeness: The WCW-focused Entrance Greats figure wasn’t bad. It’s just it didn’t have that Da Man expressive head sculpt I think of when I picture Goldberg. This figure fixes that with an intense head sculpt that captures the essence of Goldberg.
There’s not a big change from the EG figure as it has the muscular upper torso mold and smaller legs that best represent his physique.
Scale: Goldberg is 6’4”, taller than the 6’3” Brock Lesnar, but shorter than the 6’5″ Randy Orton and Batista.
Paint: To distinguish his WCW and WWE eras, Goldberg wore black and white tights possibly in homage to Two-Face. I did like this design and it looks good here especially with the paint work defining Goldberg’s bicycle shorts type trunks.
There’s a little issues with the black not going all the way up, but it’s not too bad. Mattel’s painters got a little too generous with the pink in Goldberg’s mouth for his tongue as all of his mouth save the teeth is painted pink. Not a very hard fix, but the kind of mistake Mattel doesn’t generally make.
Articulation: Modern Goldberg might be a spam video game character constantly charging his finishers, but 2003-era Goldberg had a more diverse repertoire. It’s not like he was a technical wizard so you’ll have no problem pulling off his big moves from the spear, jackhammer and crescent kick.
Goldberg has:
- neck
- bicep
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbows
- wrists
- wrist hinge
- waist
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double-jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Goldberg has a decent if not plentiful amount of accessories. The most prominent is the WWE title. It’s got the metallic gold paintjob and looks good, but I figure every collector has a surplus of these titles by now. He also comes with an alternate set of hands that swap out easily enough.
Worth it? Amazon had a big sale on WWE figures including newer ones like Goldberg so I got him for $16. With less mobility and stores putting less of a premium on stocking new wrestling figures, the demand is rising to double that price. You’ll be better off waiting until normal activities resume instead of overpaying for him now.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
This is a very well done take on the bare bones 2003 Goldberg. It’s hard to see how Mattel could have done this figure any better even if it’s not the most impressive release this year.
Where to get it? Amazon had this wave in stock but now it looks like it’s at secondary market prices now so hold off for a while.