WWE Elite 93 Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat review

For all of his iconic WWF moments, Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat made an even bigger mark during his run in Mid-Atlantic, NWA and WCW. Ever the nomad, The Dragon routinely switched between WWF and NWA/WCW. He settled down with WCW in late 91 beginning one of Steamboat’s greatest stints of his career.

With this latest Elite offering, Mattel focused on the 1993 era where Steamboat was locked in a heated feud with Stunning Steve Austin. Let’s see if this release has any fire left.

Packaging: I’m not as big a fan of this packaging scheme compared to some others. It’s a bit busy with the various blues, blacks and reds. On the plus side it makes it very easy to highlight a figure in a color scheme like Steamboat.

The stats and bio break down his secondary title wins, oddly omitting the fact he was the NWA champion — his career highlight by far. His bio is briefer than usual as it just focuses on his latter WCW stint.

Likeness:  Steamboat is steadily becoming like Shawn Michaels in how Mattel can never quite nail his likeness.

Some figures look better than others. This one looks closer to a mid-90s Dragon with a wide smile although I think the hair is just a bit off.

The expression is definitely one Steamboat made, but this is an occasion where a neutral secondary portrait really would have been useful since he’s gonna look a little weird smiling while locked in a submission hold from Steve Regal.

Mattel has the proper part setup with the ripped cruiser weight torso and slender arms.  I do question the default claw style hands. These are great for poses, but not as useful for The Dragon as chopping hands would have been.

Scale:  Steamboat wasn’t a giant at 5’10”. He looks just a bit shorter than the two inches Ric Flair and Austin have over him, but he definitely should be looking up at the 6’3” Steve Regal. The Austin figures looks too thick while Regal is too slender though Steamboat seems a bit too small stature wise.

Paint: The airbrushing on Steamboat’s tights is insane. This is Mattel just showing off the quality work at this scale. I’d expect something like this from a higher end company, so the fact Mattel was able to work this in the budget is very, very impressive.

Beyond the tights, the paintwork is solid — check out the laces on the red boots, which also have a highly detailed airbrush style design.

Articulation:  This is the first Dragon figure to have double-jointed elbows. He’s getting an Ultimate Edition figure, but for now this is the best articulated Steamboat figure from Mattel so far.

You won’t have any problems with the flying body press or Steamboat’s vast arsenal of moves including enzugiris, head scissors and flying chops.

Or at least it would had Mattel gone with chop/flat hands. I think I’ve got enough random ones of those to swap out, but that shouldn’t be necessary in this case.

Ricky Steamboat has:

• neck
• ball-jointed shoulders
• bicep
• elbow
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• waist
• hip
• thigh
• knee
• ankle

Accessories: Steamboat largely ditched the entrance gis by this point of his WCW stint, but he did go back to the wings and flaming torch, which could have been repurposed from the Defining Moments figure.

Mattel did throw in some solid extras. He’s got a set of swappable fists, but the coolest add-on was the WCW TV title. The Mattel WWE team have been trying to knock out the various titles that previously weren’t under the license and it’s cool to see new additions join the ranks.

And clearly the biggest accessory “win” here has to be the removable headband something that’s been long overdue for every Dragon figure outside of the Defining Moments figure.