2017 Topps Then Now Forever Ember Moon Kiss Card

For a few years at the end of the 2010's, Topps regularly included kiss cards as inserts in their WWE products. For the uninitiated, kiss cards are pretty much what they sound like, a lipstick print on a trading card. I've got a couple of them in my collection.

This Ember Moon kiss card from 2017 Topps WWE Then Now Forever is the latest one to show up in my collection. Prices on most kiss cards these days are pretty high, so I was lucky to find this one from a wrestler I collect at a reasonable price. It's an interesting collectible and a concept we may not see on cards again in the near future. 

This example is /99. Ember Moon now wrestles for WWE rival AEW under the name Athena.

A Blaster Box of 2022 Upper Deck AEW Allure

I found myself at Walmart this afternoon, and decided to check out the card aisle. There wasn't much there outside of some Prizm football. I guess I could have bought that and chased a C.J. Stroud card like everyone else on social media, but I just can't get into football. They also had some 2023 Topps Series 1 Baseball that was discounted, and some 2022 Upper Deck AEW Allure wrestling cards. Since I hadn't opened Allure before I decided to go with that, even though historically Upper Deck products have been low bang/buck for me.

I knew absolutely nothing about Allure going into this and very little about AEW, so I guess we'll learn as we go along. I recognize two of the three wrestlers on the packaging, MJF and Toni Storm. Apparently the guy in the middle is called Powerhouse Hobbs.

The base cards are kinda Chromey/Prizmy. Interestingly enough, I think the only person in this group that I follow on social media is the referee, Aubrey Edwards. I recognize everyone else, though.

I think the horizontal cards are short-printed slightly. I got one per pack. Bryan Danielson and MJF were the biggest names of the bunch.

One of the common parallels is called "Tables" and features a woodgrain background. I recognize Skye Blue's name, but I couldn't say much beyond that about her. Athena is someone whose cards I collect already, although I know her better as Ember Moon from her time with the WWE.

This Ricky Starks card is a Red Rainbow parallel, which apparently falls 1:12 packs. I don't think I've ever heard of Ricky Starks. The card is pretty shiny, though.

This Jade Cargill Horizontal Black Rainbow parallel is probably the hit of the break, combining a big name with 1:24 pack odds on the parallel. She recently switched from AEW to WWE, and apparently is married to former MLB player Brandon Phillips.

For inserts I got a couple of die-cut cards, including this wavy Title Ambitions card of Jamie Hayter, another name I recognize but don't know a whole lot about. I could regurgitate her Wikipedia page here, but I will not.

The other die-cut insert in the blaster was this My Squad card featuring faction The Firm. They look like a serious bunch of dudes. I don't really follow AEW outside of headlines and the occasional wrestler whose name I recognize, so I can't tell you much about The Firm.

The final card I'll show is yet another appearance by Bryan Danielson, this time on a Color Flow Red-Orange insert. The Red-Orange cards are the most common Color Flow variation, falling 1:8 packs. It's a nice shiny card, and I reckon it's the 2nd-best pull of the break.

So that's 2022 Upper Deck Allure AEW. I pulled more recognizable names than I thought I would, and got a decent parallel and insert card. I don't know that I'd bust another box of this at the $30 price, but it was fun to do it once.

2019 WWE Undisputed

I've been toying with the idea of resurrecting this blog lately, although I've also been contemplating quitting the card collecting hobby altogether. Thus far I haven't been able to stop collecting, as I like cards too much to give them up for good. This post is just an old draft from 2019, and I don't really remember the particulars about these cards. It's kind of like revisiting your hometown and finding that it isn't very familiar to you anymore.

Which is something I am familiar with, as a couple of years ago I bought the house of my teen years from my dad, which we mostly built together when I was in high school, but it wasn't complete by the time I left home and doesn't really feel like the same house I left. Sometimes I see old girlfriends or other people I recognize at the grocery store, but everyone's older now, and everything has changed. Most of the land on the family farm got sold off, so there are houses now where before there was just pasture.

I assume most of these cards are ones I purchased on eBay back in 2019. There's some good stuff here, but similar to the theme of this post there have been a lot of changes to WWE since 2019. Big E has been on hiatus from wrestling due to a neck injury. Dolph Ziggler wrestled most recently for NJPW after being released from WWE, and Ember Moon works for competitor AEW as Athena currently.

Here's a look at the base card design from 2019 Topps WWE Undisputed. I believe the Orange parallels like the Ember Moon card are #/99, and these cards all feature a selection of wrestlers I have been a fan of at one time or another. Another change related to wrestling cards and collecting is that Panini acquired the license for WWE cards a couple of years ago. There has been some legal wrangling recently, though, with the result being no WWE sets announced for the near future while the legal issues get hammered out.

I think I may have grabbed these two packs of Undisputed from the local card shop at some point during 2019. I also could have purchased them on eBay. It's hard to say nearly 4 years later. Pretty sure I posted some of the pulls on Twitter/X, which is where I've continued to post about cards and collecting over the last few years.

This pack gave me a Cesaro autograph, which is a decent card. I always enjoyed watching him and Sheamus wrestle together in tag team matches. I think he is another guy who switched over to AEW after a release from WWE.

This pack featured a little more hit-wise and with star power. I pulled a 1/1 printing plate of Jinder Mahal, who I enjoy as a wrestler and saw live once. I also pulled an /99 Undertaker parallel, which would probably be a decent seller if I decided to go that route. Wrestling cards, and really most cards, have exploded in recent years after the big Covid boom. That's part of the reason I've contemplated leaving the hobby. It seems that prices have gone up and content has gone down to the point where I can't justify busting packs like I used to. There have been some signs of a retraction recently, though, with clearance blasters showing back up at Walmart.

I'm not sure how I'm going to fill out several more paragraphs about cards that I only vaguely recall details about. These Xavier Woods relic autos are pretty neat. I enjoy the iterations of The New Day and the fun that they bring to the ring. With Big E's injury and Kofi Kingston wrestling outside of The New Day recently, I'm not sure if they're going to stick around as The New Day anymore.

It seems that I was pretty active about picking up singles from this set, as I've got a ton of photos in this post. The Kurt Angle autograph is a particularly good pickup for me, although I like all of these cards. I obviously gravitate to certain wrestlers more than others. I'm out of the blogging habit, so this post hasn't been super great, but it's been nice to type out a few paragraphs and stretch out the old writing muscles. 

Cards from A Cracked Bat and Some Other Stuff

If I am going to maintain my 2 posts per month pace this year, I need to get a second post published before March ends. I'll start off by offering my belated thanks to Julie from A Cracked Bat for sending me a large batch of cards featuring famous Astros, notably Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio.

There are a lot of cards in the pile, most from a time when I was either collecting basketball cards or not collecting cards at all. In addition to Bagwell and Biggio, other star Astros players made appearances.

Julie was quite persistent in tracking me down to mail these out after I won her Dupe, Dump, or Dwindle contest in October. I haven't been feeling all that sociable lately, but I do appreciate that she took the time to send these my way.

Although I haven't felt like blogging much over the last year or so, my collection keeps growing. I sometimes post my maildays on Twitter, and sometimes I just let cards pile up on my desk. I've got a sorting project that goes in fits and starts, and I am slowly getting the sorted cards entered into my Trading Card Database profile.

For the most part I am just trying to stay afloat. I am burnt out and tired most of the time. I've been trying to do a better job at work. I don't think I am in imminent danger of getting fired or disciplined or anything, but I know I could do better and I can feel that I've been pushed to the fringes of my work group.

On Friday I get to go to the doctor to see how much surgery a hernia that popped up recently will need. Or I will see the doctor, who will order some imaging, which will eventually lead to an analysis of how much surgery I need to get my insides back where they go. It hurts when I do things like move or stay still or cough. This is all complicated by the fact that I have a big trip scheduled this summer that will require some amount of exertion. I also need a clean bill of health to maintain my part-time job, because if I can hold on for three more years I will be able to retire and access a very good healthcare program.

School is going moderately well. I am pursuing my M.B.A. at a local university, and I am doing enough to stay in the program. My first couple of classes were pretty rough, but I have dropped down to taking one course at a time and it is at least manageable. I don't know what I will do with the degree, but I figure the time is going to pass whether I get more education or not and my job is paying for it, so I might as well get the fancy piece of paper.

All things considered, life is pretty good, even though I don't feel good. I try to maintain some kind of positivity, though, because I want to be a good example for my kids. Odds are that they will struggle with mental illness since it runs in both sides of our family, but I want them to see that you can still have an okay life even if you are miserable.

All of the cards after the pictures of Julie's cards are eBay pickups from the last couple of months. I especially like the Dikembe Mutombo shoe card, the Ember Moon autograph, the Jake Butt autograph, the Jeff Bagwell AuthenTix relic, and the dual bat relic of Jeff Kent and Roberto Alomar.

No Bowman, and Spring Cleaning

Today was my scheduled off day from work, so I took some time to look for 2018 Bowman cards at the local retail stores. I hit three different stores, and wasn't able to find any of the product. There weren't display boxes out or anything, so it probably hasn't been stocked locally yet. I finally decided on a hanger box of 2018 Heritage and a bag of Skittles, and I headed for home, picking up an order of Super Nachos from the local taqueria. They taste so good, but the serving size is huge and I am paying the price now for eating them all. I don't have the iron stomach I did fifteen years ago. After I got home, I decided to clear out the center console of my car. That's where a lot of my retail breaks end up if I don't pull anything particularly noteworthy.

There was a variety of stuff in there from three different sports. I decided that I wouldn't let these pack breaks go to waste, so let's take a look and see if I pulled anything of note.

Here are the most interesting (to me) cards from the Heritage stuff. Marwin Gonzalez was the only short print. It's surprising that I am showing off two Brewers, but I like Eric Sogard and Josh Hader is on three of my fantasy baseball teams this year. He's got 31 strikeouts in 15.1 innings so far this year, and 3 saves to boot! The Stanton and Lindor inserts are pretty cool, too. Gerrit Cole is an Astro now.

You know the Donruss Optic break was bad if the only card I have to show is a base card from one of my team's Divisional rivals. The Broncos were a train wreck last year. I hope they can find a few more wins in the coming season.

The WWE Women's Division packs are always fun, although I probably have about ten base sets by now. I've busted a lot of this product.

What I don't have a full set of is these rivalry inserts, which are exclusive to the rack packs. I picked a couple of the better ones I pulled to show off.

Road to WrestleMania isn't one of my favorite products, although I should like it more. The WWE is all about the story, and Road to WrestleMania tells the story of the promotion for each year. Maybe I should give the set another try. That Macho Man card is pretty sweet, with cameos by Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat. 

Most of my favorite cards from the Rookies & Stars pack were inserts featuring retired players. In this case, it was Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. I pulled a punter card, so I had to show that off, too. Kickers and punters don't get enough cardboard love.

I didn't find any new Bowman today, so I'll have to show off some old Bowman. Alex Bregman is manning 3rd base for the Astros, and Daz Cameron went to the Tigers in the Justin Verlander trade. Max Kepler is playing every day for the Twins. Half of his 20 hits on the year have gone for extra bases. Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the value pack-exclusive parallels. He's only 19 years old right now, and is featured on most Top 10 Prospect lists.

There was also a value pack of Topps Chrome among the packs in my car. The Youth Impact insert of Blake Snell was the most colorful thing in the break. Carlos Gomez isn't my favorite player, but he was the only Astro among the cards. The other Pink value pack parallel of note was Wade Davis.

There were basketball cards in there, too. I tried a rack pack of 2017-18 Panini Status. It's a shiny and colorful product that picks up fingerprints easily. This pack should have gone to Cards on Cards, as both the inserts I pulled feature Trail Blazers. I guess I'll have to set them aside for the next package that goes his way.

That does it for the packs in my car's center console. There wasn't anything world-shattering in them, but I guess they weren't too awful. Hopefully I'll be able to find some 2018 Bowman in the next couple of weeks.