The hardest to find Exclusives possibly ever.
In March of 2022, Mattel announced the new Walmart-Exclusive Ruthless Aggression Elite Series, which would be arriving later that year. These figures would be focused on the 2002-2007 Era of WWE, known as “Ruthless Aggression”. It was disclosed that this series was planned to go six waves, with three figures per wave. The figures also had a strong resemblance to the Jakks Ruthless Aggression figures, often coming with interesting accessories like a Lamp, a Ring Bell, or a Ladder.
Checklist:
Series 1:
- Shawn Michaels
- Batista
- Brock Lesnar
Series 2:
- Rey Mysterio
- Rob Van Dam
- Booker T
Ruthless Aggression Series 3:
- Kevin Nash
- John Cena
- Shelton Benjamin
Ruthless Series 4:
- Eric Bischoff
- Undertaker
- Stone Cold Steve Austin
Series 5:
- Edge
- JBL
- Torrie Wilson
RA Elite Series 6:
- MVP
- The Miz
- The Rock
Ruthless Aggression Elites: The Fiasco
At no point so far have these Walmart Exclusives been readily available.
Series 1 arrived in August of 2022. The ordering system for Walmart was immediately dysfunctional, with stores showing in stock and available for pickup but those orders being cancelled. This ends up being consistent with the entire line.
Walmart listed a random assortment of Ruthless Aggression Elites for order, but you’d take a chance on getting Shawn, Lesnar, or Batista. I ended up going this route and was able to get the three through two orders.
Series 2 was very briefly available for order, then showed sold out. I only ever found one Rey Mysterio in store. When the annual Wrestlemania shipper hit (some) Walmarts, it had a few of series 2 on it. I picked up RVD and passed on Booker.
Series 3 was shown as available for order, beginning in January. The orders started being cancelled in April. Some Walmart stores received displays in connection with the WWE 2k video game, and that had been the only sighting of Series 3 in stores.
Suddenly, the flood gates opened.
At the end of June, people began finding series 4, 5, and 6 all at once. The usual suspects of influencers on Instagram all have theirs.
Since that initial burst, the most common ones to find in stores have been Undertaker, Stone Cold, Kevin Nash, and John Cena. Eric Bischoff and Shelton Benjamin have been around, but usually sell faster than the above names.
Hopefully there is another shot with the Ruthless Aggression Elite series 5 and 6, as those were only very briefly available and only in some stores.
The Best of the Set: Kevin Nash was a much needed piece to finish the 2002 nWo, and Eric Bischoff is a great figure. The rest are all good, there was only one real miss in this set, which was nWo Booker T. A regular Booker would have been a better fit. The blue jeans Undertaker could have also been done better.
What I have so far:
- Shawn Michaels
- Batista
- Brock Lesnar
- Rey Mysterio
- Rob Van Dam
- Kevin Nash
- Shelton Benjamin
- Stone Cold Steve Austin
- The Undertaker
- Eric Bischoff
- Edge
By the end, I passed on Torrie Wilson, John Cena and Booker T. I was able to complete the set in August, 2023. The Ruthless Aggression Elite line was a great idea in theory, that was marred by poor distribution and caused a lot of frustration among the collecting community.
Hopefully Walmart gets their act together ahead of the highly anticipated Monday Night Wars line.
