2018 Topps WWE Undisputed

Undisputed is the high-end wrestling offering from Topps. It comes on thick card stock and features 10 hits per 10-pack box, with 8 of those hits guaranteed to be autographs. I didn't buy a whole box, but I did snag some 2018 Topps Undisputed.

I found an online shop that was offering Undisputed by the pack at a reasonable price, so I ordered two packs. As I said before, each pack promises a hit among the five cards inside. Based on what I've seen, parallels are a little harder to come by this year, probably due to the fact that there aren't any parallels in the product that aren't serially-numbered.

Here are the pack odds. It's too late to send in a NPN request, as that expired at the end of September. I've been sitting on these photographs for quite a while apparently.

Most packs give you two or three base cards and one or two inserts. I like Sheamus, so that is a decent base card pull for me. I don't like Roman Reigns as much, but he seems to be pretty popular among wrestling fans. It is pretty nice to get an Andre the Giant appearance in this pack. He was one big dude.

Brock Lesnar irritates me, but I guess if a heel can get under your skin, that means they're doing their job well. The inserts I've seen all focus on 30 Years of Survivor Series and 30 Years of Royal Rumble. There may be other insert sets, but I doubt it. There's just not enough room in the checklist for much more.

The hit from this first pack is an Orange autograph of Jinder Mahal. He's not one of my favorite wrestlers, but he's a pretty big player on the current roster and I am happy to add his signature to my collection. I don't think I had previously acquired any of his signed cards.

I do kind of like his gimmick with the Singh Brothers. It's very much a video game set-up where the Singh Brothers are mini-bosses who pester you while you try to defeat the main boss, Jinder Mahal. They all play their roles very well. 

It's nice to get a Bayley card in the second pack, with a cameo appearance by Nia Jax. It is also fun to get a John Cena card in this pack. His new longer haircut kind of throws me for a loop, but that's just because it's different from what I'm used to seeing. Apparently I'm not the only person who was surprised to see it.

This pack also had a Royal Rumble card inside, with Lex Luger as the co-winner of the 1994 Royal Rumble.

I was pretty happy with the hit in this pack, a Green autograph of Charlotte Flair. This one is numbered # 02 / 50. The color splash on these parallels does some weird things to the wrestler photos sometimes, because it overlays the photos and changes their skin and clothing to that color.

This Nia Jax Blue parallel autograph was an eBay purchase. It is numbered # 22 / 25. I was also watching a Green autograph at the same time, but the Blue only went for a little more than the Green, despite having half the print run. It is a little bothersome that the blue ink of the marker blends in with the blue of the color splash, but I don't think it looks as bad on the actual card.

This last pack came from a group break I joined. It was a random pack box break, so there were 10 slots, and the packs from a box were randomly attached to a slot. I got some pretty decent base cards, with Alexa Bliss, Ruby Riott, and John Cena.

The hit of the pack would have been an awesome pull if it pictured a different wrestler. This is a Purple autograph of Dash Wilder, numbered # 4 / 5. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I've had much worse results out of group breaks before.

Undisputed is a fun product, with a lot of on-card autographs and parallels to chase. I usually try to get a little of it each year, especially if my favorite wrestlers appear on the checklist.

2017 Topps Clearly Authentic

Collectors seem to like acetate cards and autographed cards, so Topps recently came out with a product that is made up entirely of autographed acetate cards, 2017 Topps Clearly Authentic. There is one encased autograph in each box, and there are twenty boxes in a case. Most cases hold 18 cards from the regular checklist and 2 cards from the Rookie Reprint checklist. The regular checklist is made up of 82 cards of current players on this year's Topps flagship design. The Rookie Reprint checklist contains a mix of retired and current players, but reprints their rookie cards on acetate. I believe all of the Rookie Reprints and their parallels are numbered, while only parallels from the base checklist are numbered. Some of the base cards have photo variations, but I don't know if they are seeded any differently.

I'm a sucker for a card gimmick, so I went out and found the best mix of group break slots I could, trying to get the largest number of possible cards for the least amount of money. I wound up with the Phillies and Reds in one break, and the Phillies and Mets in another break. I got shut out on the Reds in the first break, but I got 4 different Phillies in the case. The only one I didn't get was Maikel Franco. First up is this Jorge Alfaro card. You can see from the scan of the back how transparent the cards are. It's a pretty cool effect, and I think they look better in person because running them through my scanner makes them blurry. It has a hard time knowing what to focus on with encased cards.

The next card I got was this Roman Quinn horizontal shot. My only real complaint about this set is that some of the autographs are faint or streaky. I think Quinn's autograph is the worst of the bunch I picked up in that regard. 

Next up out of the case was Jake Thompson. He's been bounced back and forth between the MLB and AAA levels all season, and he's had some struggles. As far as I can tell, though, he's still pretty young and has time to figure things out.

The last card for me out of that case was Aaron Nola, a pretty good pitcher for the rebuilding team. I think he has a cool signature, even if I can't see his name in it. It kind of looks to me like his signature says 'tawns.' It was pretty nice to get four cards out of a 20-card case. It would have been nice to pull a parallel or a Reds card, but I can't complain too much after getting 20% of the cards in the case from one of the cheapest slots in the break. 

In the other case, I had the Phillies and the Mets. I didn't pull any Phillies, and I didn't get any Mets until the very last card in the break. I got this redemption card for a Red parallel of Steven Matz. Matz has had a rough year, starting the season on the DL, having a rough run of games, and then going back on the DL with a season-ending elbow injury. I think that if I were a pitcher, I'd be running far away from the Mets. The Red parallels are numbered # / 50. I'll revisit this one when/if Topps successfully acquires the signed card.

For some reason I also bid on and won this Kenta Maeda Red parallel on eBay. I don't collect the Dodgers and I don't have a Maeda collection, but I went out and got this card. I must have been caught up in trying to gather some cards from the set, and threw out some bids on a bunch of auctions that were closing. This one is numbered # 43 / 50. The signature is a little faint on this one, but it's a pretty cool card.

And that's my foray into 2017 Topps Clearly Authentic. I don't anticipate chasing down much more of this product, but you never know what will happen.

Breaking it Down 37: Phillies from a 2017 Topps Chrome Group Break

I bought into a 2017 Topps Chrome group break, choosing the Phillies spot largely with the hope of pulling some colorful Refractors of Maikel Franco or Pat Neshek. That didn't happen. I got a bunch of base cards that I didn't scan and a few basic Refractors that I also didn't scan.

I did scan the inserts and hits, though. My single insert from the break was this Freshman Flash card of Jorge Alfaro. He came to the Phillies in the trade that sent Cole Hamels to the Rangers. He's been doing pretty well for the team in 13 games so far this season.

I also got Alfaro's base autograph. The Phillies aren't very good this year, but it seems like there is a lot of buzz about their young roster. This team could be a contender in a few years. Alfaro seems to be pretty consistently ranked within the Top 100 on prospect lists.

Roman Quinn is the other Phillies player whose autograph I pulled in this group break. He's spent much of this season injured, a problem that has plagued him throughout his career. If he could get healthy, he'd probably be up at the MLB level, but his most recent injury is reportedly going to keep him out for the remainder of this season.

That's all I got in this group break spot. Not a lot there, but this kind of stuff is a gamble.

Breaking it Down 36: Two Spots in a 2017 Topps WWE Undisputed Pack Draft

Topps recently released their high-end WWE Undisputed product for 2017. It is a hit-centric product with 8 autographs and two relics promised in each 10-pack box. There are 5 cards to a pack, with various inserts and parallels available.

I didn't really want to shell out for a box, but I bought two slots in a pack draft. There were 80 packs opened in the break, and the randomizer gave me slots 15 and 19 out of 20 in the snake draft format. That meant I would probably be locked out of the top picks in the draft, but it also meant that I wouldn't be getting the worst picks. A pack draft works pretty much how you'd expect. Participants pick in turn after all of the cards are opened, getting the entire contents of the selected pack. Once all 20 spots are picked, the draft order reverses for the next round. That meant I got picks 15, 19, 22, 26, 55, 59, 62, and 66 out of 80. I don't have all of the base cards in order, but I put hits and parallels into the proper spots.

Pack 1 - Pick 15

There wasn't much of excitement as far as base cards in this particular scan, but this is a look at the base cards. You can see that the Women's Division has their own checklist, designated by a W- prefix.

The Bret "Hit Man" Hart vs Edge card is part of the Dream Matches insert set. There are parallels for that set, but I didn't get any of those in my selections. With the 15th pick I got my 4th-ranked pack of the break, with a Brie Bella Autograph Relic Green parallel numbered # 21 / 25. Some of the stuff I really wanted but missed out on at the top were Bayley and Asuka autographs, as well as a "Macho Man" Randy Savage Gold parallel numbered # / 10.

Pack 2 - Pick 19

With the 19th pick I got my 5th-ranked pack of the break. I guess I had some different ranking criteria than some of the other participants, but that probably worked out in my favor. In the base cards I got a decent Triple H card and a Bronze parallel of Rowdy Roddy Piper, numbered # 55 / 99.

The hit in the pack was this Autograph Relic card of JoJo, the Raw brand ring announcer. I was probably swayed in my rankings by the face that I saw her announcing live at a Raw show in Cincinnati earlier this year. You see a lot of similar fabric colors and textures across the relics in the set, leading me to wonder if there was a specific event where all of the talent wore t-shirts that were used for these cards.

Pack 3 - Pick 22

With the 22nd pick I got my 15th-rated pack, so I was still feeling pretty good about this break. The highlight of these base cards for me is probably Big E.

The pack's hit was this Silver autograph of Chris Jericho, another wrestler I saw live at the Cincinnati show. He's a long-time favorite and great on the mic. This one is numbered # 17 / 50, and the only real knock is that the pen skipped off the foil at the start of his name, and you can see where he picked it up and started again.

Pack 4 - Pick 26

The scans for this pack came out a mess, with scans of all different sizes. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, this was my 17th-ranked pack, and I got it with pick 26. It featured a base autograph of Becky Lynch, numbered # 120 / 199, and a Gold parallel of Jason Jordan, numbered # 10 / 10. Jordan was recently revealed to be Kurt Angle's son in the WWE storyline. This was one of those packs that got ranked higher for me because of the parallel included alongside the hit.

The insert in the pack was this Dream Matches card of The Rock and Shawn Michaels.

Up there are the scans of the card backs from that pack, which I got all jacked up because the Becky Lynch autograph has a vertical front and a horizontal back, and I couldn't make the scans match up in even numbers.

Pack 5 - Pick 55

All of my picks were clustered into two groups of four, so it was a long time between my fourth and fifth picks. This was another pack that got a small bump in my mind because of the parallel. In this case, the parallel was a Rich Swann Green card, numbered # 01 / 25.

I also scanned this Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Goldberg Dream Matches insert alongside the hit of the pack, A Bronze Natalya Autograph Relic numbered # 48 / 99. It was my 28th-ranked pack, and I got it with pick 55.

Pack 6 - Pick 59

There's not much excitement among the base cards here. I guess Daniel Bryan has a pretty big following, but I missed out on his time in the spotlight.

There is another Dream Matches card here, featuring Undertaker and Sting. The hit is an Autograph Relic of Alicia Fox. It's a Bronze parallel, numbered # 48 / 99. I had this rated as the 31st-best pack in the break, and I got it with pick 59.

Pack 7 - Pick 62

Pickings were getting pretty slim here in the last quarter of the break, but since I was out before the last 14 picks there was still some value to be found. This pack held a Bronze parallel of Dash Wilder, numbered # 22 / 99.

The hit in this pack was a Silver Autograph Relic of Simon Gotch, numbered # 42 / 50. He is no longer with WWE, having been released from the company in April. That's probably why a Silver Autograph Relic fell so far in the draft. Still, I had this pack listed barely inside the top half of packs at 39th, and I got it with pick 62.

Pack 8 - Pick 66

This pack was a pretty good pull at 66, even though it held my first non-autographed hit of the break. Part of the reason was the Bronze Alexa Bliss parallel shown here, numbered # 98 / 99. Apparently she is one of the big draws in this product, and a couple of her hits went inside the top few picks in the draft, alongside a Goldberg autograph and a Charlotte Flair Autograph Relic.

The hit in the pack was a base Relic of Asuka, numbered # 023 / 199. I missed out on an Autograph Relic and an Autograph of Asuka earlier in the break, but at least I got a relic. Because of the parallel and the relic of Asuka, I had this pack ranked 48th, and I got it with my last pick at position 66.

This draft went pretty well for me. My position in the break meant that I missed out on a few of the top cards, but it also kept me from getting most of the real duds in the break. I really would have liked to get one of the Bayley or Asuka autographed cards that came out of the case, but they went too quickly. I still wound up with some of my top picks, and I think I did better than I would have just buying a box of my own. Obviously I could have bought my own box and hit it big, but I also could have opened a dud. This format kind of averaged those odds out.