1997 WWF Magazine What A Russsshhhh Legion Of Doom

WWF Magazine's 1997 Legion of Doom cover is one of the cleaner finds from that pre-Attitude transition stretch. Animal and Hawk front and center, spiked shoulder pads locked in, war paint on, the "WHAT A RUSSSSHHHH!!!" banner running across the bottom in the font WWF printed on everything that year. This is the July 1997 issue, and it comes with the nine-card WWF Collectors Series insert still inside.

By mid-1997, WWF was in the churn. Steve Austin's "Austin 3:16" moment at King of the Ring had happened the summer before, the Montreal Screwjob was still months out, and the roster was running two tracks at once: the cartoony tag-team theater that built LOD's whole brand, and the harder-edged character work that would define the Attitude shift. LOD had been a fixture since their AWA and NWA runs in the early 1980s, and by 1997 they were on their second significant WWF run, brought back in part because the tag division needed the name. The magazine context matters here. WWF Magazine was the official in-kayfabe publication, so every cover story is written from inside the fiction. No backstage reporting, no contractual news. Just the characters, treated as real, in glossy print. This issue lands in that last year before the editorial tone of everything WWF-adjacent got darker and looser.

The copy we have shows the cover in the condition you'd expect from a newsstand-era publication that was kept rather than read to death. The card insert is present, which is the first thing to confirm when you pick this up, because the nine-card pack was a loose poly insert and a lot of copies lost it. Check the spine fold for creasing and look at the bottom right corner of the cover, which is where these took the most shelf wear. The centerspread pin-up pages are worth a page-through before purchase too. Lay it flat and check the staple seam for any rust bleed before you commit.

OWNER VERIFY: Confirm the nine-card WWF Collectors Series insert is present and complete.