Welcome to another installment of Figure Friday and once again thank you to everyone who voted on my Twitter, I appreciate it! Today we take a look at “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” Austin Aries from WWE Basic 71! This figure is currently available on RingsideCollectibles.com, where I got mine!
That being said lets take a look at Aries’ very first WWE action figure in the packaging. As you can see on the box it has an image of him as well as “First Time In The Line” as mentioned earlier as it is his very first WWE action figure. In the past he’s had some Impact Wrestling ones. This one is based off of one of his NXT attires as you can see the large NXT logo behind him. Also in this set are Seth Rollins, Finn Bálor, John Cena, Baron Corbin, Undertaker and Charlotte.
Looking at Aries out of the packaging you can see the figure is pretty simple, but he does have a simple look. Personally, I do like the figure for the most part although his head scan feels a bit off, which is where a lot of people have complained about this figure. I agree, something is just strange about it and I’m not quite sure what it is specifically. It’s grown on me a bit but I think his Jakks head looked better honestly. Unfortunately if you wanted to head swap with the old Jakks figure the Jakks head will be too large and probably won’t match skin tone wise. Granted it’s not the worst scan I’ve seen, I just feel it could’ve been a bit better. Maybe once you have it in person it’ll grow on you like it did me.
Besides his head sculpt I like the figure. The designs on his tights are well done. You can see all the little details on his rear where it says “Aries.” His tattoo is pretty cool as well. I also like the fact he has thicker arms as sometimes the guys can have thinner or over muscular arms. His seem quite perfect for his look and I feel Mattel made a good choice with that. Lastly, the light blue socks under his kick pads are a nice touch as well. The kneepads do not restrict his knee movement too much either so you can pose him quite well.
I decided to convert mine into a temporary Elite, meaning I can easily swap the parts back once his official Elite figure releases in the future assuming he’ll get one. You can see that in my Instagram photos attached within this article. My Elite Austin Aries is made from an old Elite CM Punk body with all the tattoos removed then just a head and arm swap if you were curious how I did it.
Overall, it’s not a bad figure as it’s grown on me the longer I’ve had it. I am just not a huge fan of the head scan, perhaps it’s just the expression on his face that feels off. If you would like to get him now I suggest getting him on RingsideCollectibles.com as the set will not be in stores for quite some time.
Look for a new episode of Figure 2 Photo on Monday on the WrestleZone Facebook and YouTube pages showing how I made the “Last Chancery” photo above. In the meantime, if you’d like to keep up with more wrestling figure news as well as my wrestling figure photography give me a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube!
Thanks and I’ll see you next week!
Figure Friday WWE Basic 71 Austin Aries
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