WWE Elite 86 Colonel Mustafa figure review
As the WWF slowly started heading to the New Generation era, many of the stars of the 80s began transitioning into new roles and personas in hopes of remaining relevant. The Iron Sheik made a shocking return to the WWF aligning with his one time hated rival, Sgt. Slaughter, to complete the Triangle of Terror. As far as factions go, this was hardly the Freebirds or Triple Threat, but they headlined Summerslam 1991 against Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior.
On the grand scheme of having a comprehensive WWE Mattel Elite collection, Col. Mustafa isn’t the most important, but he’s a nice depth piece and he helps to fill in another Survivor Series team. As well as knocking out one more member of the vaunted 1992 Royal Rumble field. Let’s see how the dear colonel stacks up.
Packaging: Although he’s part of the Summerslam-theme Elite 86, Mustafa has the traditional Elite packaging. That’s the norm for all Target and Wal-Mart exclusives though so it’s not a surprise. The white and red is OK, but it’s a little underwhelming.
The package art is cool though showing Mustafa in his camo glory and a ring gear/promo portrait. His bio has to be a little lean since Mustafa didn’t accomplish much of anything while rolling with Slaughter and Gen. Adnan.
Likeness: Mattel has two Iron Sheik head sculpts. One is a stern, serious sculpt and the other is a big smiling sculpt used in the RetroFest figure. Colonel Mustafa rarely smiled and typically had a stern expression to convey his seriousness as a “solider” in Slaughter’s army so this wasn’t the best call.
I can’t quite place the torso, but it’s not quite ideal for Mustafa’s thicker torso and pronounced muscular gut. It’s not terrible, but it could have been even thicker.
The pants have the right amount of size and bagginess. Ditto for Mustafa’s signature curved boots. Sheik never had the biggest arms, but they were solid and the figure arms work.
Scale: Mustafa was relatively short at 6′, but his stockiness made up for his lack of height. He should be looking up at the 6’7″ Hogan, 6’4″ Sgt. Slaughter and Ultimate Warrior.
Jakks couldn’t ever figure scale out consistently and had Mustafa taller than Slaughter. We’re getting Iraqi sympathizer Slaughter in Elite 89 so by the end of the year, we’ll be able to have a better comparison soon.
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Paint: Mattel typically doesn’t have big issues with paint applications so that wasn’t surprising. If anything it’s always that they could use a few more paint applications on certain areas.
As the package shows, Mustafa rocked significant camouflage in his singlet. The figure has some camouflage, but it’s faint and barely registers. It doesn’t hurt that it’s so sloppily applied.
The shade of tan is a little browner than the Triangle’s attire as it should be lighter almost like a dirty white. His boot design is fine and there’s no slop along the figure.
Articulation: At this point of his career, Sheik was no longer doing hurricaranas and Shooting Star presses. (Checks notes) whoops, well, Mustafa didn’t have too many limitations with his repertoire — he just did the moves slower.
The main issue with Mustafa is he didn’t actually do much at this stage of his career beyond punching and kicking. He can pull off his Camel Clutch finisher and have it look tremendous.
Of course the butterfly shoulders of the Ultimate Edition would make it look maybe a tad better, but I was able to pull off a pretty convincing one with the Elite model.
Col. Mustafa has:
- neck
- bicep
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbows
- wrists
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double-jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: I always appreciate when Mattel gives us the complete version of the figure. In this case, it’s by providing a cloth top for Mustafa’s ring gear. At times, he’d wear this when beating down people alongside Slaughter and Adnan.
It fits OK though it tends to ride up since it’s just a little short around the torso. and thanks to the cloth material, isn’t an issue to swap on and off.
The outfit is mainly accurate save the missing medals on the left side. Apparently, WWF used some reasonable facsimile to actual medals so Mattel had to ditch them. I assume we’ll see this again with the Elite 89 Slaughter.
Additionally, Mustafa has his trademark black beret. It’s a nice snug fit. And he’s got some saluting/chopping/hand thrust hands. Those are good inclusions for him.
Worth it? While I got other Elite 86 for $16 at Walmart, as a Target exclusive Mustafa is the standard $20 price tag. As a somewhat limited exclusive, I don’t mind paying that for him.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Using the serious head sculpt would have addressed my biggest issue with Mustafa although better camo and a lighter shade of the outfit would have balanced them out. This is a still a unique entry to the collection and knocks out another of the 1991-92 roster.
Where to get it? You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding Col. Mustafa at Target stores. He is on Target.com though I haven’t actually seen him come in stock as of yet.