It's hard enough to get figures of legends produced, much less female legends, but "ohhhh baby" here's another one for the Mattel roster. Joining Sherri, Alundra, and Wendi is The Great Mae Young. I'll refrain from bashing the Social Justice Warriors who caused The Fabulous Moolah not to be part of this lineup, but catch me on Twitter where the mood is always ugly and I'd be glad to rant with you. We're here to celebrate Mae's second entry into the figure world, and what a representation it is!
Mae is the "Collector's Edition" release to be shipped with Mattel's WWE Elite 81 series. It's the first series in awhile where I refrained from pre-ordering the entire set. Aside from Stunning Steve Austin (a pre-order for me solely for the WCW Tag Team Championship Belt), the rest of the series felt very passable. Starting with this wave there's a new feature on the packaging. The WWE hologram is circled by a logo signifying that the figure is "Certified Authentic." Ummm...what else would it be? It's not an AEW figure as they fly off of the shelves. Heck, maybe it's to quell the shock of actually finding a decent WWE figure in a store? Who knows. Once again, we're here to celebrate Mae and not for bitterness.
I love Mae. She was a great character in the world of wrestling and was always fun at appearances, too. Seeing as that I was the proud recipient of a Mae Young smooch, I would be biased even if this figure was awful. But it isn't. It's great. It's also lovingly packaged with the Mae Young Classic tournament trophy. Seeing as that Mae was small, the inclusion of the trophy makes sure that the figure doesn't "float" in the package. After Mae's prototype was unveiled, I was wondering if the upcoming Dusty Rhodes figure was going to include his tournament trophy. It doesn't seem to be the case but is certainly an avenue to be explored in the future.
Included with Mae along with the trophy are an "open" set of hands, ring jacket, and crown. Yes, Queen Mae Young reigned in the 1960's and I recall her wearing the crown occasionally in her later years as well. Mattel teased us with a "Queen Mae" doll prototype some years ago, but rumor suggests that it wasn't ever planned for release. The Jakks version of Mae was great and I'm certainly thrilled to have gotten one signed by the lady herself, but it seems sort of barebones now that we have this release. The jacket is soft goods and allows for various poses. The crown is unique to this figure and fits perfectly on her head.
Mattel really nailed Mae's unique posture as well. The molds for the legs certainly look like their new for this figure alone, but I haven't had the opportunity to check. The expression on her face is perfect and conveys the joy that she always seemed to be having in the wrestling business. An extra cool detail is that Mattel even included the tattoos on her left forearm. This is the quintessential Mae. Years ago no one would've predicted that the Mattel-WWE relationship would yield us several legendary women, but here we are with definitive versions. While it's obvious that Mae and Wendi were made due to the popularity of eras in which they were involved, it's still nice to know that the door is open for such releases.
While this is a "Collector's Edition," I don't see the demand for it being as high as some of the others. Superstar Billy Graham ended up hanging around in stores. If the shipments are the same for this figure, you may just end up running into her. Since I can't really see them ever producing Mae again, you may not want to risk it. The trophy could cause some additional interest from modern-only collectors. Ultimately this is a figure that makes you sit back and forget about the bitterness caused by SJW's "cancelling" Moolah and Mattel cancelling the fun of collecting due to some of their practices.
Ohhhhh baby!
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