Toy Review: WWE Battle Packs 37 The Ascension (Mattel)

I first saw The Ascension in NXT when I first started watching NXT on Hulu from the beginning.   It was when they had stopped the competition and started a weekly wrestling show and, yes, I was watching it a lot to see Paige, The Shield, The Wyatt Family and others already on the main roster though it also featured Chris Hero, Big E Langston and Adam Rose.   Back then though The Ascension actually had Bram in it before he was released and went to TNA.   Funny, huh?   Fast forward to a few years later and this version of The Ascension is one I like but am not in love with.

When The Ascension lost the tag team titles to Lucha Dragons you knew they were on their way up to the main roster.   Their debut vignettes were good, but then they came out and wanted to not only look more like the Legion of Doom they began talking about how they were better than the older tag teams which put them into somewhat of a Legend Killer gimmick even Randy Orton would have likely passed on.    Here's the only thing you really need to know about The Ascension as a tag team on the main roster: They like to say "Welcome to the Wastleland" and have currently been teaming with Stardust, which is kind of working out for all parties.

I never realized these two were so close in height but a google search proved that they are.  I always thought one was taller than the other in a much more noticeable way.  Ah well.   I like these figures because they look like the wrestlers they are supposed to and nothing really seems off about them.   They have black tattoos and so as Elites one day they could have colorful tattoos and shoulder pad accessories but neither of those are reasons enough for me to justify spending $20 per figure on these guys or buying them again for that matter.

As soon as we saw this set at Toys R Us we bought it.   It was just one of those must-have sets because I also believe tag teams should come together.   I remember watching the New Age Outlaws and they shaved off half of Hawk's mohawk and even though it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me even still, Jim Ross sold it like they were killing someone and that always kind of gave the New Age Outlaws this sort of credibility that The Ascension doesn't yet have but perhaps could have gotten more quickly had they done something similar in their feud with the Outlaws.

This is technically our first NXT tag team of sorts even though we got these figures while The Ascension are on the main roster (And I do hope many of the tag teams in NXT see Battle Pack releases before being called up to the main roster) but it makes sense for this to feel like our first NXT tag team in figure form because The Ascension is the first real dominant tag team of NXT in general.