I am a big pro wrestling fan. Growing up in the 1990s means I have fond memories of the wildly popular WWF Hasbro action figures that came out during the first few years of that decade. Crazy, over-the-top commercials promoting the wild and wacky toys, including a miniature WWF ring where my tiny titans could battle it out to become the World Wrestling Federation Champion! It was a glorious time to be a fan, and I still own my WWF Hasbro figures. When I heard that a book came out celebrating these cherished WWF Hasbro figures, I knew I had to check it out. So, is this 388-page tome of pro wrestling action figures’ glory days worth buying? Read on for my thoughts on The Unofficial Wrestling Figure Retrospective 1990-1994.

At nearly 400 pages, this is the definitive book on WWF Hasbro action figures. Anything and everything you could possibly want to know about these iconic toys is present in this book. Better yet, the author worked hand-in-hand with the people who designed and created these figures for Hasbro. This means you’ll find an entire chapter showcasing design sketches and notes for figures, as well as designs for rings, a forward from one of the WWF Hasbro figure designers, and more. In addition to a chapter focused on all of the WWF Hasbro action figures released between 1990 and 1994, sections of the book are dedicated to cards that came with the figures, development, rare releases, international releases, advertisements, stories from collectors, and much more.While I think The Unofficial Wrestling Figure Retrospective 1990-1994 is fantastic and it succeeds at what it sets out to do, it’s not perfect. Being a professor who teaches grammar at a major university, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming amount of instances where sentences were written incorrectly and punctuation was either missing or improperly used. It’s hard for me not to notice these errors, especially when there are so many of them throughout the book. Since this is a project that was funded through Kickstarter, my guess is a professional editor didn’t review and revise the content. Had one done so, it would be much more polished than it is.The Unofficial Wrestling Figure Retrospective 1990-1994 is excellent. If you can get past the grammatical issues, what you’ll find here is a touching tribute to a bygone era when children watched pro wrestling on Saturday mornings and played with their WWF Hasbro action figures for hours on end. Not only will this book meet your expectations when it comes to content, it will exceed them. At nearly 400 pages in length, it’s a great value and I highly encourage you to pick up a copy.