The Hart Foundation’s original members of Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart were a tag team during the golden years of Wrestling, which is a term that fans consider from the 1980’s and 1990’s. Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart were a team during the years of 1985-1991, and won several championships including WWF Tag Team (they won this twice). After they went their separate ways and Bret Hart became an even bigger star as a standalone act, Jim Neidhart teamed up with Bret’s younger brother Owen Hart as The New Foundation. The team has had several different members over the course of their history, which included family members such as Jim’s brother-in-law, The British Bulldog, and Brian Pillman. What is also important to note is that in 2008 the WWE named the Hart Foundation as the third greatest tag team in history.
In a way, this feels like yesterday we were watching these two members of the Hart Foundation head into the ring, and it’s hard to believe that this hasn’t happened since 1991. As incredible as that sounds, imagine finding these two figures that were released last year at Toys “R” Us during their liquidation sale, and at 40% off. If you’ve been following our Twitter and Instagram accounts, we posted this purchase along with others for followers. For the most part in our reviews, we’ve primarily focused on the WWE Zombies, Mutants and Monsters figures that Mattel has been offering, which have all turned out great.
Right now, Bret Hart can be purchased for $19.49, and Jim Neidhart for $12.63 on Amazon.
Availability: 2017
The Hart Foundation has jointed Mattel’s WWE Elite line-up in their iconic wrestling outfits that fans of the golden age of Wrestling will remember. These figures use a new process called photorealistic technology to create the likenesses you see here, which is a great tool to create these facial details and clothing.
Bret Hart stands at just over 6 1/2″ tall and Jim Neidhart stands at 6 1/2″ tall. Bret Hart has a decent likeness, and Jim Neidhart seems to be a bit more accurate as far as facial details such as the goatee. Both figures are painted and sculpted in their pink and black outfits, with a black shirt with a pink heart on the front, and pink pants with white and black stripes down the sides, and black hearts on Bret’s right leg. Bret is given elbow and knee pads that are made of soft plastic, and both figures have white wrist bands.
The head sculpts have nice details, such as Bret’s long black hair, and Jim’s light brown hair and goatee, along with their faces being recognizable. While both sculpts are unique, Jim has some chest hair that is painted with a light brown wash, which came out good.
Both figures have similar boots, with the exception of the deco. Brett has white and red striped boots with black trim around the lower part of the boots, as well as a red star on both outer sides of them. Jim has white and pink boots, with an anvil painted in black on both outer sides. Another difference in deco is that their butt’s have different wording, such as Hitman and Anvil painted in black deco, with an additional heart on Bret Harts, and an anvil painted on Jim’s.
Both Bret and Jim include sunglasses, which fit nicely over their faces and doesn’t fall off easily. For Bret Hart, a common complaint is that these sunglasses were used for Big Boss Man, and Brett is not given his iconic sunglasses that was unique to him during his time in the ring.
Also included are WWF (now WWE) World Wrestling Federation Tag Team Championship belts, that are made of soft plastic, with the gold title made of hard plastic. The belts have very detailed sculpting with added deco around the words. The center of the belts has the word “World” painted in red, with an image of the planet Earth and blue deco indicating water all in an oval shape. Below that, the smaller words have black deco underneath the gold lettering. The sides of the belts also have gold details with two on either side. The belts close in the back, and this is pretty straight forward and easy to do.
Just like Mattel’s DC Universe Classics line-up, these figures have similar articulation to that, and this is very nicely done and all of these lines have looked great especially if you like to display Wrestling figures along with other lines that are similar to it. As you might be aware, this line has become the best Wrestling line as this is a superior style with excellent detail and articulation than what has come before. The articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball hinged shoulders, swivel biceps, hinged elbows, swivel-hinged wrist, ab crunch, swivel waist, ball jointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel boots, and hinged rocker ankles.
Overall, we have been enjoying Mattel’s Wrestling line-up and they have been doing an excellent job bringing both the golden age and modern characters into this line. These two figures are part of the golden age of Wrestling, which was a great time to be a fan. Both Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart are nice looking figures that fans will love.
Purchase:
