19 May 2016

Four 2013 BBM True Heart Japanese Women's Pro Wrestling Autographs

These cards have been in my scan folder for so long that I didn't really remember where they came from or how I got them. Luckily I found this picture on a Blowout forum thread and if my post is to be trusted, these came from a box of 2013 BBM True Heart Women's Pro Wrestling cards I opened on 02 JUN 2015.


This was a pretty good box as far as autographs go. In the upper left is Lin Byron, who is probably better known by her masked alter ego, Ray. I've posted a couple of times about Ray, as she is a wrestler I collect, and she also was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in her head a few months ago. She is undergoing treatments and there have been a couple of charity wrestling events in Japan to help her out.

Next to Ray is 235, who is also known as Fumiko Sato. I don't know a lot about her, but it seems like she doesn't get much respect among fans of joshi puroresu.

In the lower right is probably the best pull of the box, as KAGUYA is a masked identity of the very popular but now-retired wrestler Mio Shirai. It's a pretty cool card. She and her sister, Io Shirai, were a very popular tag team. Io is now one of the more popular wrestlers in the Stardom promotion. Stardom is the promotion that really seems to be pushing an American presence. They did a couple of shows in California last year, they recently opened up an international webstore (with prohibitive shipping rates), and they also have a subscription-based Youtube channel that rebroadcasts all of their shows in a timely manner with English subtitles.

In the lower right is Mima Shimoda, who has been wrestling for so long that she's got a fansite hosted by GeoCities. Granted, GeoCities is still available in Japan, but for Americans it's a relic from the 90's. She is one of the more famous and revered Japanese women's wrestlers. Her career stretches back to the the late 80's and she's still in the business, with ten matches so far this year.

I don't know why I never got around to posting these cards over the last year, but here they are. I haven't been chasing much in the way of baseball cards lately. I still pick some baseball stuff up, but most of my eBay watch list right now is wrestling cards, comic book / Star Wars sketch cards, and UFC-related stuff. That doesn't make for a lot of blog page views, but baseball stuff was starting to all feel the same to me. I'll come back around to it eventually.

7 comments:

  1. This is certainly different. That's one of the reason I like reading all the blogs...to see what other bloggers like to collect.

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    1. I like it when people post a variety of things. We all collect little bits of cardboard, but our collections all have personal touches that make them different and unique to us.

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  2. I wonder if thats why I don't see too many wrestling card blogs is because of low viewership. I feel its a bit of a double edged sword. I feel you should write whatever you want on your blog (which I usually do), but at the same time, if nobody reads it I guess whats the point. I do wish there were more bloggers that talk about stuff besides baseball.

    Anyways, those are some nice cards. I should look on ebay about some of these sets, I'm just not too active in collecting wrestling right now. But love reading blogs who are.

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    1. That could be part of it. I see a fair number of wrestling posts on forums and wrestling cards sell fairly well on eBay, so there are collectors out there. I guess for whatever reason they never really found a niche among bloggers. It could also be that many collectors treat wrestling as kind of a side collection to whatever their main collecting interests are.

      I try not to put too much stock in page views, but over the first couple days after publication an average baseball post on my blog might draw 40-60 views, a basketball post and any NASCAR, wrestling, or UFC post with a female as the lead picture might draw 25-30 views, and a NASCAR, wrestling, or UFC post with a male in the lead picture might be lucky to get out of the teens.

      I am determined to just post about whatever I have on hand for the most part, but I do try to rotate subjects to keep things relatively fresh.

      There are a few eBay sellers now that are in the business of selling Japanese wrestling cards. Since the 2016 BBM True Heart release was a few months ago the selection has been picked over pretty well, but there is still a fair amount of stuff out there. Every so often someone will bust open a few more boxes and some new stuff will show up. The language barrier is difficult for me when it comes to this collection, but I am getting better at figuring out what things are and where I might find them. If you find yourself looking for something specific I can keep an eye out for you.

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  3. Female Japanese wrestlers who wear cat masks and Star Wars sketch cards are right up my alley. Great cards buddy.

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    1. Thanks for reading all my posts! You're one of my most faithful readers / commenters, at least by my estimation. I haven't run a metrics utility or anything, so your trophy has an asterisk on it.

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    2. Sweet. Bonds and I have something in common!

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