I picked up a few Topps WWE Now cards over the last couple of months. These first two are from the Royal Rumble in January. I am not trying to get every WWE Now card like I am for the UFC version, but I'll try to pick them up if they feature wrestlers I collect.
The two most recent UFC Now cards released have me worrying about the health of the line, though, as the UFC 209 cards only had print runs of 35 and 33 copies, which I think is about half of the previous low. They probably need to advertise them a little harder and leave the ordering window open a little longer for the UFC cards, especially for UFC events that don't feature at least one of the very biggest stars in the company.
I consider myself a John Cena fan, although I don't actively chase his cards. I read that after he won the World Championship belt by beating AJ Styles, he went into the crowd to celebrate with a kid who was there with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Back in 2015, Cena became the first celebrity to grant 500 Wishes with the Foundation, and I imagine that number has grown since then. It's hard not to be a fan of someone who gives that much back, especially to children. I thought this card featured a pretty cool moment, so I ordered a copy of it. The announced print run on this one was 82 copies.
Nia Jax is a wrestler I've started collecting recently. I went back and forth a little on ordering this card, because I was still deciding whether to start a Jax collection. I eventually decided I would start a collection, and went ahead and ordered a copy of this card, featuring her victory over Sasha Banks on the Royal Rumble undercard. I was kind of surprised to see that this card outsold the Cena one, with 83 copies ordered. The Women's division actually had 3 of the 5 highest print runs (100, 88, and 83) of the 9 cards printed for the Royal Rumble, with Randy Orton (85) and John Cena (82) rounding out the top 5.
I also got this Bayley card, showing her getting the Raw Women's Championship with a victory over Charlotte. This one had the largest print run to date on a WWE Now card, with 288 copies printed. Bayley is pretty popular among wrestling fans, and I think this was her first individual Now card. I have started a small Bayley collection, but she is so popular that I can't hope to keep up with her releases.
I'm excited for Wrestlemania this year! Those are pretty cool cards....yeah, I wonder how much longer UFC has in the NOW business. On a side note, I'd love to see BBM get in on this instant/NOW type bandwagon.
ReplyDeleteI would like to get into the current WWE storyline, but it always seems like I've got too many plates spinning at once. About all I can manage is to sit down and tune into the (approximately) weekly UFC events. I don't think I could afford a BBM print-to-demand program that matched my interests.
DeleteI like the concept of Topps Now, but I think they really overdid it with baseball last season. It seems to fit WWE or UFC a bit better with better defined events, rather than just a daily grind of Now cards.
ReplyDeleteThey burnt me out on baseball Now cards last year, and while I've tried to watch for WWE cards a bit, they've really lost their shine for the price.
It looks like they are well on their way to going overboard with baseball again this year. Just to get all of the Spring Training team sets would cost someone $1500, plus some of the other offseason cards and the WBC overload. I have kept up with the UFC releases so far, and only get the WWE singles of wrestlers I collect anyway. They are releasing sets instead of singles for Wrestlemania and NXT TakeOver, and I think I'll just pass on those instead of buying a bunch of cards I don't want in order to get a couple that I do.
DeleteI guess I should at least jump in and say that the price per card on the Spring Training team sets and the Wrestlemania/NXT sets is more reasonable than the $9.99 they charge for singles. The Spring Training sets are like $3.33/card, the Wrestlemania set is $3.50/card, and the NXT set is $5.00/card. I still don't necessarily like being 'forced' to buy the bundle if I am only interested in a couple of the singles.
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