WWE Elite 100 Andre the Giant review
Talk about timing. I’m going back through my wrestling video collection — yes, I still have DVDs of my wrestling tapes — and am now at that fateful Piper’s Pit in 1987. After weeks of debate, Hulk Hogan has a confrontation with his BFF Andre the Giant where (spoiler) he reveals he’s aligned with Bobby The Brain Heenan and challenges Hogan for the WWF title at Wrestlemania III.
In a very random coincidence, Mattel’s WWE Elite 100 series hit featuring Andre basically in the exact attire he wore during that Piper’s Pit. Not that I needed convincing to get civilian mode Andre, but this triggered my 80s kid see it on TV, buy it in stores mentality.
Let’s see if this figure leaves me as speechless as The Hulkster.
Package: It’s been 100 Elite series so Mattel deserved to take a bow and go with went a little fancy and went with silver foil with an embossed Series 100 on the upper right corner.
The interior also features Andre’s massive hand closing in like his old-school T-shirt.
I really like the comic book style artwork used on the package from Jonathan Bartlett. I’d love to see Mattel continuing to go forward with this style.
The bio is written from more of an all-encompassing career standpoint, but does make note of the custom WWF title Andre had made prior to his showdown with Hogan.
Likeness: Mattel hasn’t had a problem nailing Andre’s likeness. This figure has the same cold dead in the eyes look Andre had that fateful interview. His hair might have been a little fuller and wider along the sides, but that’s just me being picky.
Casual gear Andre rocked a large sports jacket with a collar shirt and dress pants. This would be Andre’s default interview gear and it’s a very useful alternate look for one of WWF’s greatest attractions.
I do think they could do a better job with Andre’s hands, which don’t fully capture their stature. It feels like the Elite 78 Drake Maverick has wider and thicker hands.
He’s also got dainty baby feet too, which you’d think would’ve been noticed as the smaller feet would create needless standing issues.
Scale: Andre should be the tallest dude in every situation at 7’4″. He’s taller than the 6’9″ Hogan, the 6′ Roddy Piper and 5’10” Bobby Heenan. Fortunately, Mattel is no Jakks where Rey Mysterio figures could be as tall as Undertaker figures.
Paint: Andre wore a tremendous somewhat checkerboard style jacket with a salmon shirt. At the confrontation Piper’s Pit, Andre appeared to be seriously sweating or spilled a huge drink and has stains on both sides of the shirt.
We didn’t need that kind of accuracy so I’m fine that Mattel just left them out. The pattern on the jacket is almost perfectly lined up and printed, but there’s a few sections where it didn’t quite line up specifically the right jacket pocket.
It seemed like on both Piper’s Pits where Andre wore the pink shirt, he wore black pants, but that could me an optical illusion trick with the footage making the dark blue pants come off as black.
Andre’s head sculpt doesn’t have any problems whatsoever and the printing even covered his faint five o’ clock shadow.
There’s also a chase version with Andre in a blue jacket that lacks any kind of pattern.
Articulation: This is solely promo mode Andre and he doesn’t need Ultimate Edition articulation to stand there and look menacing. At best he’s raising his arms up to further his intimidation factor and place his arm around Heenan or Ted DiBiase’s shoulder.
Andre the Giant has:
- neck
- bicep
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbows (double-jointed)
- wrists
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double-jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Andre is in street gear so his accessory options are limited, but Mattel really went above and beyond in this case.
He comes with two sets of swappable hands — fists and pointing. Those are always good for display and after having watching the Piper’s Pit again, these are all useful gestures for Andre in that faceoff. The right pointing finger is spot on for when Andre challenges Hogan FYI.
I initially missed this, but Andre also comes with Hogan’s gold chain with the cross. That is a very cool touch. Course now I greedily wished Mattel also included a ripped Hogan shirt as well. I don’t a yellow Hulkamania shirt so it would have been awesome to get that as well to complete that moment.
Finally, Andre has the WWF title strap Heenan had custom made for him. I’m really impressed by the detail here as it contains the flags for the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Worth it? WWE figures are now $22.99. Target tends to have a decent number of sales to bring it back down to the old standard of $19.99. He’s also a figure you might not want to wait out for a sale though.
Rating: 9.7 out of 10
Mattel knocked out the look making for a quasi-essential figure if you’ve got the display space.
Where to get it? You can get Andre from Target, but he’s not one to pass on as he’s becoming one of the harder members of this wave to spot on shelves. Amazon has him currently at secondary reseller prices.
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