WWE Ultimate Edition Fan TakeOver Ultimate Warrior review
There’s no debate the pinnacle of The Ultimate Warrior’s career was 1990. At Wrestlemania 6, Warrior did the unthinkable in cleanly defeating Hulk Hogan to capture the WWF championship.
While Mattel has already done this attire in Elite form, it was the runaway winner in the Fan TakeOver vote for Warrior’s first Ultimate Edition figure. I voted for Survivor Series 90, one of my all-time favorite WWF events. And a look we still haven’t gotten from Mattel.
Anyway, it’s not shocking the Mania 6 version won and it’s a much better choice for an Ultimate Edition Warrior than the Halloween Havoc 98 attire with the first series. Let’s see how close this one comes to being the ultimate figure of the Ultimate Warrior.
Packaging: Mattel switched up the UE packaging to basically invert the previous UE setup. Instead of a predominantly white package with red color scheme it’s swapped so red is the dominant color.
I literally have no memory of Warrior actually saying that catchphrase at the package top.
This still helps keep the focus on the figure with better framing with the red outline. The side features a nice portrait of Warrior with his wild 90 appearance.
Mattel added a percentage breakdown of the votes. Clearly the Summerslam 89 is low on fan priority wish lists.
The bio is more of a general overview of Warrior’s career instead of focusing on Mania 6.
Likeness: Just like the first time Mattel did this look, they shortchanged on the hair sculpt. Warrior had a true mane that was both high and wide. This hair sculpt is the same we’ve seen from various Warrior figures and a disservice to collectors who want the authentic appearance of his big moment.
The head sculpt is solid in capturing Warrior’s intensity though I’m not sure if the regular Elite version isn’t better with the higher hair.
Mattel gave Warrior the defined muscular torso, which fits his physique at this era. It looks better than the Elite version.
Warrior’s fringes and tassels hang better now than previous figures.
It’s a major improvement over earlier figures and looks more authentic.
Scale: Warrior was 6’2” so he’s looking up at foes like the 6’7″ Hulk Hogan and Earthquake.
He is shorter than Earthquake, but not Hogan. I’m hoping the upcoming UE Hogan fixes that height issue.
Paint: I feel like I’m going to nitpick this one a lot more than I wanted, but it is necessary.
Ultimate Warrior’s hair color is all wrong. By 1990, he’d started adding blonde highlights and this solid brown is definitely off.
Warrior’s arm tassels needed some green and the left one should be predominantly yellow instead of orange. His wristbands are commendably in the right order as well, which is a nice bit of attention to detail.
Mattel actually got the appropriate amount of Warrior logos on the front of his tights — five — but they should be bigger. This would allow the yellow outline to stand out more and not have the inner pink blend so easily with the orange tights.
A common Mattel problem is not getting the proper hue of a wrestler’s tights, but they got the right shade for the orange here.
Thankfully, Mattel did incorporate Warrior’s tan, which was basically a perquisite for the muscular stars of that era.
Now for the most “controversial” aspect of the figure — the chest paint. Warrior rocked this for his backstage promo and ring entrance. Mattel applied it perfectly. The only problem is once the match started, the paint smeared off almost instantly.
That means you can’t really pull off how Warrior looked for 99.9% of the match and that iconic image of him holding both the WWF and Intercontinental titles.
It’s one of those weird deals for Mattel as they can’t win either way unless they did a separate torso,
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Articulation: Warrior had a limited move set, but was all about high impact blows with clotheslines, shoulder blocks and the occasional suplex.
The Ultimate Edition articulation scheme provides all that’s needed for Warrior.
Ultimate Edition The Ultimate Warrior has:
- neck
- bicep
- ball-jointed shoulders
- butterfly shoulders
- elbows (double-jointed)
- wrists
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double-jointed)
- ankles
- toe
Accessories: Warrior has a decent amount of accessories even if one isn’t very useful.
He’s got an alternate head sculpt that’s basically the same as the old one just without any face paint. This really would have been a great opportunity for a new hair slicked down Warrior head sculpt that could be reused for various figures. Given the higher price point reusing an old head sculpt that doesn’t really work is kinda lame.
He comes with swappable fists, which is definitely useful.
Finally, he comes with both the WWF and Intercontinental titles.
I think this is the first time we’ve gotten Warrior with the WM6 accurate yellow strap Intercontinental title. His previous Elite in this look had the yellow strap with the WWF title and now we have the appropriate colored black strap championship.
Worth it? Ultimate Edition figures are now $32.99. Some of the UE figures are better values than others. Warrior would fall in the other category. He’s just lacking in worthwhile accessories and overall execution to justify the upgrade from the Elite figure. You can get him now for $26, which is a much better deal.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
This figure has some key issues that hold a potentially great figure down. Unlike Hasbro who corrects errors with previous versions of figures, Mattel retained the problems with the earlier Wrestlemania 6 Warrior. This one at least has better articulation and the tassel implementation is better.
Where to get it? As with all the Fan TakeOver figures, this is an Amazon exclusive so you’ll need to check there for him. Hopefully you can get a price cheaper than resellers trying to cash in.
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