Breaking It Down 31: Some Good Stuff from TeamBreaks.com

We made some changes to our budget and I haven't been able to participate in the breaks over at TeamBreaks.com for a couple of weeks now, but I still have some scans of cards I got from breaks I participated in previously.

This first one didn't come directly from a box break. It came from one of the randoms after the breaks were done. I won the top prize, which was promised to be a pretty good UFC or WWE hit. When the package arrived my prize was this Finn Balor NXT In Line autograph from 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed. It's a pretty cool card but not something I was particularly interested in, so it went up on eBay. I got a decent price for it, although not quite as high as I hoped. Still, in the end I had a few dollars in my Paypal account that weren't there before.

This Paige VanZant Victorious Debut Commemorative Medallion did come from a box break. These things are a case hit out of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles, so this was a pretty good item to snag for my spot in the break. There are plenty of other things I want more than this, though, so it went up on eBay as well. It sold right about at the price I thought it would. After eBay, Paypal, and the USPS all took their cut I had a little bit of credit left over in my Paypal account to cover some other stuff that will probably show up in a post at some point if it hasn't already.

This last card is the odd duck, as it really isn't good enough to be worth the effort of listing it on eBay. It's doomed to languish with all the other unwanted relics and autos in the back of some 5000-count card box because the cost of shipping it somewhere is more than it's worth. It's a 2012 Topps UFC Finest Jumbo Finest Threads relic card of Frankie Edgar, featuring a big blue swatch of t-shirt.

UFC 196 was pretty nuts, with Holly Holm and Conor McGregor both getting submitted in the big matches of the night. I thought especially the fight between McGregor and Diaz was entertaining, as they were exchanging some nice solid punches all through the early going. The fight results were pretty disappointing from the UFC's point of view, as McGregor and Holm are worth less with these defeats on their records and the losses muddy the waters as far as matchups going forward.

Breaking it Down 30: A Few More Hits from TeamBreaks.com

I got a few more hits from the box breaks on TeamBreaks.com recently, picking up some UFC and WWE cards for my collection. Through these breaks and a little help from eBay I was able to complete my 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed base set, which is a pretty decent high-end card set. Some of the big names are missing, but that is probably due to licensing/legal issues/public opinion stuff. I continue to be pretty lucky with pulling hits from these Undisputed breaks, but all I ever get are Divas. Each break spot gets you five specific hits from the list and I usually have a pretty good mix of male and female wrestlers on my list, but I just keep hitting the women pulling Diva cards. They sell/trade pretty well, though, so I can't complain too much. This time around I got a Natalya base autograph. Her signature is pretty nice, and includes a little heart inscription which I guess is perfect for today's commercial holiday. I'm not trying to be mean, but this is the first thing I thought of when I saw this card:

I guess I'm just jealous that I can't be as beautiful as Mario Lopez. Sorry about the poor image quality on that. I built it using Word and Snipping Tool as there isn't much in the way of photo editing software on the machine I'm using right now. I bought the base slot in this box as well and added a few new cards toward my set, but I didn't scan them here.

Another product opened during this particular night's breaks was 2015 Topps UFC Knockout, and I was able to grab a hit from that box for one of the fighters I drew. This is a Knockout Autographed Relic card of Glover Teixeira and it's numbered # 50 / 99.

It's not a bad hit to look at, although I think the sticker autograph blends in a lot better in the scan than it does in-hand. The latest product is 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. I haven't seen it in person yet but it tries to alleviate the appearance of the stickers by surrounding them with a little frame, kind of like we've seen in the recent Topps Supreme Baseball releases.

I actually got this final hit in a previous break, but since I'd made my purchases for that break entirely with break credit I had him hold the card until I actually spent some real money to get into a break. I'm not in the business of actively trying to bankrupt the folks who entertain me. It's a base autograph of Michael Chiesa from 2015 Topps UFC Champions. I'm not really a Chiesa fan but it's a decent enough card, especially since it was won with break credit.

That's my latest bunch of UFC and WWE hits from TeamBreaks.com. Now that I've put together the WWE Undisputed set and the UFC Champions set I may slow down a bit with the breaks, although they are cheap enough that it makes for a good evening of fun once a week.

Breaking it Down 27: 2015 WWE NXT In Line Sasha Banks Autograph

Once again I joined a 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed break at TeamBreaks.com, buying the base card slot and a couple of random wrestler spots. I haven't scanned the base cards from the break yet, but I did manage to score a hit from the random wrestlers portion. Again it was a female wrestler, Sasha Banks, although this time from the NXT In Line insert rather than the main WWE roster. NXT is the WWE's developmental property. I didn't have a lot of personal interest in this card and eBay sales are pretty strong on it, so I've already got this one listed on the auction site. Hopefully I'll be able to turn it into some Paypal credit and be able to buy something nice for one of my collections. I have something good in mind already, actually, but you'll have to wait a few weeks to see what it is. 

Unfortunately the WWE Undisputed boxes weren't great sellers for the breaker in question, so I am still a number of cards short on a base set from the product. I need to get out there and grab the singles I need before they dry up and become hard to find. It seems like that happens pretty quickly with some of these high-end sets. Everyone busts through them so they can find the big hits and resell them, and then the product all but disappears.

Breaking it Down 26: 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed Nikki Bella Autograph

In addition to buying up all the base card slots for the WWE Undisputed breaks on TeamBreaks.com, I tried to grab a random wrestler spot or two in each breaks. Each slot purchased got your name put in the hat several times. Then the list was randomized against the hit checklist for the product, so your name matched up to a specific hit, like a specific wrestler's autograph or their auto-relic.

I've had decent luck with these random slots, pulling several different hits. There has been plenty of different stuff in each box, but my hits have all come from the Divas division. That's good because they sell well, but I would really like something from the Iron Sheik or John Cena. I won't complain too much, though, because some people don't hit anything at all. This is a pretty nice card with an on-card autograph and plenty of color. I'm not sure I can gather any part of the words 'Nikki Bella' out of that signature, though. And that hat of hers is ridiculous. Griffey definitely rocked the backwards cap better.

Breaking It Down 25: More WWE Undisputed Base Cards

I've been trying to build the 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed set through TeamBreaks.com and so far I've had pretty good luck. I've had to lurk on the site when his weekly breaks are done so I can jump in and buy the base slot as soon as he posts the ones for the next week, and I've been able to get it each time. I think they've caught on to my game, though, as the price has gone up a bit since they started busting boxes. I've pulled a couple of hits from the boxes, too, but that's a different post. The Rock and Sheamus were my personal favorite cards from this batch. The Rock was always a great entertainer in the ring, and obviously he's gone on to even bigger fame in mainstream entertainment. He reminds me of basic training, as there was a guy in my platoon who had The Rock's whole routine down and he would do the whole thing in the barracks after the drill sergeants were gone for the night.

Dusty Rhodes kind of escaped me in my childhood. I may have been aware of him, but I didn't watch enough wrestling to be aware of many wrestlers outside of the really big stars who I heard about in advertising or from other kids at school. Brock Lesnar is like a real-life movie villain.

I've always liked the Big Show. In just about every fandom I have I am drawn to the outliers; the people who are much bigger or smaller than the other people (like Gheorghe Muresan, Manute Bol, and Muggsy Bogues) or who do things a different way (like R.A. Dickey, the knuckleballer). In a larger-than-life sport, Big Show is even bigger than just about everyone he battles in the ring.

Trish Stratus is probably the most-recognized WWE Diva, although it's apparently been quite a while since she retired. I was thinking that JBL looks a lot nerdier in this picture than I remember him, but in looking him up I found that he kind of is a nerd, as his career outside of wrestling is financial analysis. I wonder how a financial analyst found his way into the WWE? I never liked him very much, but since he was a heel that was kind of the point.

I guess Ryback is the main guy I am aware of in this scan. I don't know much about him, though. I am mostly aware of Jimmy Uso because he and his brother, Jey, were a pretty good tag team for me when I was playing the WWE SuperCard game on my phone. It was a fun game and I enjoyed pulling all the wrestler cards and building my team, but like every other game out there it was a time sink and I eventually cut myself off from it.

I am moving into a new position at work. I spent several years in the Pay department, but moved laterally into Accounting a few months ago after I got my degree. At the time I thought there might be some upward mobility there, but things sort of closed up there. A position recently came open in Contracting with a progression that will take me about as high as I can go with my current credentials. It'll take a couple of years to climb that ladder, but after I get there a pretty big raise comes into play. I've been working for a long time at moving out of the entry-level positions in the building, and now I'm finally at a point where it's happening for me. That's pretty cool.

We got a half-day off on Wednesday to start the holiday weekend, so I put in a leave request to just make it a whole day off and make a 5-day weekend out of it. I am hoping that my kids will have a pleasant Christmas and that we can all go and see the new Star Wars movie during the break. Someone I know dropped a huge spoiler on me and I don't think I will be able to forgive them for it. I should have taken the approach that Billy did and just dropped off the map until I saw it, but I don't have that kind of dedication. I need the internet too much.

Breaking it Down 24: A Stack of WWE Undisputed from TeamBreaks.com

Recently I posted about a pack of Topps' new high-end WWE Undisputed set. I liked the cards so much that I joined a group break of the product. The breaker I went through was TeamBreaks.com, a one-man show that focuses mostly on UFC products, but also busts other products from time to time. I didn't get any hits from the break, but I did purchase the base card spot and the parallels spot and got a nice stack of cards from them. The Red parallels are the most common in the product, and I wound up with 5 of them in all, with Sgt. Slaughter being the highlight for me. I got to see him wrestle at a live show a few years ago, which was pretty cool.

I got four other Red parallels in the break, including Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Kalisto, and Eve Torres. In addition to the unnumbered Red parallels, I also got four serially-numbered cards. That Eve Torres is a Silver parallel, and is numbered # 09 / 25. Sting is a Purple parallel and his card is # 25 / 50. I also got two Black parallels, one of Brock Lesnar (# 19 / 99) and one of Jimmy Uso (# 87 / 99). The parallels are pretty subdued, with the Silvers especially being nearly indistinguishable from the base cards.

The base card slot in the break landed me 17 cards. Chris Jericho is another guy I saw wrestle at the same show where I saw Sgt. Slaughter. It was a 3-way match and he spent most of the time crawling around outside the ring, peeking up over the edge of the mat to watch Shelton Benjamin and Christian duke it out with each other. 

Here are a few more of the base cards I got from the break. I think Paige is one of the more popular female wrestlers at the moment. The guys I am more aware of are the older ones like wrestlers Rob Van Dam and Booker T and managers Paul Heyman and Paul Bearer. I am familiar with the Honky Tonk Man's name and gimmick, but I don't specifically recall seeing him wrestle. He is still active on Facebook, though, and you can book him for weddings and other events.

A couple more base card scans close this post out. I am familiar with all of these wrestlers to some degree, but I wouldn't count any of them as favorites of mine. They do all help me to fill out the base set, though, and I am going to try collecting all 100 base cards. Only 81 cards to go!

Pack of the Day 113: 2015 Topps WWE Undisputed

When Topps announced that they would be releasing a new high-end wrestling product called WWE Undisputed I knew I wanted to try some of it out, but I couldn't stomach the $200+ price tag on a box of the stuff. I found an online breaker who was selling the product by the pack and decided to give it a try. The pack promises 5 total cards, with one being an autograph or autograph relic card.

First up are the base cards and parallels I pulled. The cards are quite thick and remind me of the Star Wars Masterwork cards that were released earlier this year. The design is a bit different, but the thickness and texturing on the cards feels similar. The photos of the wrestlers are glossy cutouts and the backgrounds have a matte finish. That Edge card is a Silver parallel and is numbered # 17 / 25. It doesn't have a special finish or anything, just a slightly different pattern on the background. None of these are really wrestlers I collect, but the cards are cool enough. I guess the Bret "The Hit Man" Hart card is my favorite from this batch. I'm not sure which Hogwarts House that uniform on Cameron is supposed to represent. Slytherin, maybe? I remember watching Edge wrestle in my late teen years when my sisters and I would gather around the TV in my room and watch wrestling every week. My wife and I also saw him and Lita beat Kane when WWE RAW came to Idaho in 2005.  WWE is a great event to attend live, even if you're not that into wrestling. The best part of that event for me, though, was getting to see Roddy Piper and Sgt. Slaughter wrestle live. There was a several year period where the WWE came to Boise, but I don't think they've been back since 2010. I wish they would because going is a lot of fun, but we seem to get passed over for a lot of that kind of stuff since we're stuck in a black hole between Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, and Seattle.

The card backs feature a few demographic tidbits like height, weight, and hometown. This is followed up by a few bullet points with highlights from the wrestler's career. It's a nice, clean design.

There are a couple of inserts in the product. I pulled a Famous Finishers card of Undertaker's Tombstone move. It's a decent insert, although the idea has been used a few times before. I guess it's hard to find a lot of things that haven't been done yet on cardboard, though, and a wrestler's signature closing move is a pretty big part of their persona. The Tombstone isn't the most photogenic move out there.

I pulled a decent hit card, with an Autograph Relic Card of Dolph Ziggler. I'm not too familiar with him, as he came around after I'd moved away from following the WWE very closely. A brief look at his Wikipedia entry tells me he's probably a decent guy. I would get back into watching the WWE, but I've got so many hobbies that it's hard to make time for it. Based on the box breaks I've watched of this product, this Dolph Ziggler relic auto is a pretty common pull. I guess they had a lot of his stickers.

The back of the Famous Finishers card features a write-up about the move, as well as a particular highlight of a time when the wrestler used the move in a particularly memorable way. It would be cool if the picture on the front matched the highlight on the back, but it doesn't. The back of the autograph relic features the standard congratulatory message.

Overall this is a pretty nice product, in my opinion. Like any hit-driven product, you are going to miss far more often than you hit. There are some pretty good names on the checklist, as well as the usual array of filler hits. I would really have liked to get a hit featuring The Iron Sheik, John Cena, or maybe Randy Orton or The Big Show. The Diva hits appear to be pretty popular. Notable names that are missing include Hulk Hogan and Paige, but Pete Rose makes a surprise appearance for Topps in a non-baseball product with an autograph in the checklist. I don't know that I'd pony up for a whole box of this stuff, but it would be a nice product for the occasional pack or single hit purchased from eBay.