Welcome to another installment of Figure Friday! This week we take a look at the brand new WWE S.H. Figuarts Stone Cold Steve Austin figure! The S.H. figures are imported from Japan, as you’ll see Japanese all over the packaging. They’re super articulated but also very expensive, around $60 a figure. You will not find these at retail, but you can get yours at RingsideCollectibles.com. That’s where I got mine! Series 1 includes Steve Austin and The Rock, as you’ll see in my photos with this article.
Before we get started let me just say that these figures are NOT compatible with the Mattel ones. If you look through the photos below you will see a size comparison. These figures are drastically smaller, but have a lot more articulation and changeability, which is really cool if you can justify the price. I personally think they’re great as you can accomplish so many more realistic poses with them, not to mention the different facial expressions and hands you can swap out.
Looking at Austin in the packaging you can see the box is pretty small, which is great for storage purposes. A lot of the Mattel figures come with such “large” packaging while these come with so much more in such a smaller box. It’s kind of funny. I really like the color scheme of Austin’s box although it probably would’ve made more sense for Rock’s box since people always associate him with SmackDown, at least from that era. Rock’s box is red, as you’ll see in a future review. On the box you can see they put Austin’s most well known catch phrase. There are also a few images of him posed along with a lot of Japanese text, which I unfortunately do not understand to translate it here for you but I am pretty sure the English near it means the same thing.
When you remove Austin from the box you can see all of his hands, heads and accessories that he comes with. He comes with a removable entrance vest as well as two beer cans with “flying” beer coming out of them. You can remove the beer from the cans if you don’t want that effect in your display. Austin has four different head sculpts, which honestly look a lot like him for the most part. They’re much better sculpts than the Mattel ones honestly. He has a smirking scan, serious scan, serious looking to the side scan and a yelling scan. To swap the heads I recommend using your thumb and pushing his head up from the chin back as it will pop off. Then you just pop on the one you want and add a little pressure to secure it on the peg and you’re good to go. He also comes with three sets of hands. One set is open where the fingers can clinch, a pair that’s also open but has pegs in the middle to hold the beer cans (you can also pose his middle fingers and index fingers with this pair) as well as a pair of fists. They’re easy to swap, just pull them off carefully and pop them onto the tiny ball joint.
The biggest upgrade to these style figures is the articulation. These have so much more. They are ball jointed just about everywhere. The wrists, abdomen/waist, chest, elbows, shoulders, neck and head all are ball jointed. They have extra shoulder/chest joints to help you do poses like headlocks. They have double-jointed elbows as well to really help you pose their arms properly. The few drawbacks on these are the knee pads/elbow pads (not on Austin) are molded instead of a separate piece like Mattel, but that also helps you pose them better as the piece isn’t restricting any movement. These also don’t have ball-jointed ankles like the Mattel figures kind of do (their joint is slightly different depending on the Elite figure).
Besides the fact they’re drastically smaller than Mattels I think these figures are really nice. They’re amazing for photography and display purposes as you can recreate so many moves with them a lot easier than the Mattel WWE figures. As said before if you can justify the price be sure to pick them on RingsideCollectibles.com! There’s a Triple H, Undertaker and Vince McMahon coming out this year as well to go with these, so stay tuned for those! I’m sure I’ll be reviewing them eventually.
Thanks for checking out Figure Friday this week! Look for an all-NEW episode of Figure 2 Photo on Monday showcasing how I made the Stone Cold Stunner photo above and look for a review of The Rock from this series very soon!
In the meantime, give me a follow on my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube if you’d like to keep up with my latest wrestling figure photography you won’t see on here as well as the latest Wrestling Figure News!
Thanks and I’ll see you next week!
Figure Friday SH Figuarts WWE Steve Austin
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_1
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_2
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_3
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_4
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_5
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_6
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_7
-
Wz_figure_friday_sh_steve_austin_8
