Asuka Topps WWE Now

Tonight is a big night in the WWE, with the 30-Man Royal Rumble match along with the first ever 30-Woman Royal Rumble. There have been a few other blog posts discussing the event, and I'll join the crowd of people watching it. So far my military lodging internet connection has been skipping and stopping a lot during the pre-show, but we'll see how it goes.

Among the favorites to win the Women's Rumble is Asuka, the sensation out of Japan. I picked up this Topps WWE Now card of her victory way back in May 2017 at NXT TakeOver: Chicago. There were 74 of these cards printed, which is one of the higher print runs among WWE Now cards.

It will be interesting to see if any Now cards come out of the Royal Rumble. I bet there will be at least two, one for each event's winner. For the men's match, I am not sure who to pull for. Of course, the full list of entrants isn't available yet, so we don't even know who is going to be in it. I'd probably go for some of the old favorites like Cena or Lesnar, or some of the big dudes like Braun Strowman or Big E.

For the women's match, I think my order of preference is something like 1) Nia Jax, 2) Bayley, 3) Ember Moon, and 4) Naomi. We may not even see all of them in the match, but that's who I'll root for if they show up.

WWE Topps Now Connor's Cure

I don't buy a lot of WWE Topps Now cards, but I get one here and there. One thing I do try to do is pick up a copy of any Topps Now card that has some kind of charitable component to it. Every so often Topps will release a card with the announcement that proceeds are going to a particular cause. There was one a while back for hurricane recovery in Houston, and another one that donated to veterans' organizations on Memorial Day.

This particular card celebrated a meet & greet benefit that the WWE held in order to raise funds for the Connor's Cure organization, which supports research on pediatric cancer. I'm not much of a cancer fan, and pediatric cancer is one harsh sonofagun. That made this card an easy purchase for me.

One of my coworkers is currently fighting melanoma, and it's a pretty dire diagnosis. It went into remission once, but it's come back stronger and in more places. He's been having a rough go of it recently. We deployed to Iraq together in the same Army National Guard unit in 2004, and we've worked at our day jobs in the same building since 2008. Currently we are in the same work area as Contract Specialists. He's been like a big brother to me in many ways, and we've been through a lot of crazy stuff. If you're feeling generous, I'd invite you to click the link above and make a donation to the GoFundMe account on his behalf. He's got a list of things that he wants to do with his family along with all of the medical costs and uncertainties that go along with the disease, so every little bit is appreciated. He's a genuinely good guy.

Topps WWE Now Chris Jericho Payback

I haven't posted in a few days, which probably has my legions of readers wondering what I'm up to. Well, I'm currently in San Diego, California for a training course. I haven't had a chance to do much in the way of sight-seeing yet. I flew in on Sunday evening, and pulled a bit of an all-nighter on a paper that was due Monday morning (RAZ, wasn't that assignment available for three weeks prior to the due date?). So after class on Monday I slept a lot, and did a bit of the same this evening. I do have tickets to a Padres game this weekend, and I have a couple of other things planned. I was here in San Diego from 2000-2002 as a missionary, so there are a couple of places I remember from that time that I'd like to see. So that's the update on me.

I am pretty inconsistent when it comes to picking up Topps WWE Now cards. I pick one up here and there when I feel like it. This card comes from way back in April, when I was fresh off of attending a WWE Live event in Cincinnati, Ohio that featured Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens. Chris Jericho is so entertaining that I had to pick up this card featuring him in the middle of an aerobatic maneuver.

The print run on this one was 56 cards. The WWE Now cards don't get a lot of orders, but I guess they get enough to keep the line going. I really considered buying a couple from the last batch they did for WWE Battleground, but I didn't watch the event and didn't really need any of them.

2017 Topps WWE Now WrestleMania

In spite of my complaints about the cost of the WrestleMania card sets that Topps put out in their Now program, I ordered one for my collection. I guess the official name of this set is Topps Now Countdown to WWE WrestleMania. There were 11 cards in the set, previewing the various matches that were planned for WrestleMania 33. 

I've scanned six of my favorite cards from the set, including a few matches that were rehashed at the live show I attended in Cincinnati in April. I watched most of WrestleMania this year, although I missed a little of the beginning of the show. I found it entertaining. Obviously the big names are going to come out for WrestleMania, so there are plenty of my favorite wrestlers on these cards, like John Cena, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Bayley, and Nia Jax. The print run on these sets was 74 copies.

After WrestleMania, Topps put out a few more cards featuring highlights from the show. I didn't get all of them, but I did grab a couple. Undertaker appeared to retire after his match against Roman Reigns, leaving his gear in the center of the ring before walking out to end the show. I had to get the card for that moment, as Undertaker has been a part of the WWE landscape ever since I can remember. This card did the biggest numbers of the WrestleMania offerings, with 172 cards printed.

The other moments I chose to buy the cards for were John Cena proposing to Nikki Bella, and Bayley winning the Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match to retain the Women's Belt. I guess the proposal was a pretty sappy thing, but this is a big soap opera against a backdrop of competitive violence. The John Cena / Nikki Bella card had 91 copies ordered, while Bayley's card had 97 copies made. In retrospect, I should have ordered the card featuring the Hardy Boyz, but I didn't.

I had a fun time dipping my toe back into the WWE, and I'm glad I picked up these cards. They're a pretty fun way to remember an event that I enjoyed watching.

A Game and a (Big) Show

Sunday was a pretty awesome day for me, aside from spending Easter a couple thousand miles away from home. I already had tickets for the evening's WWE Live event in Cincinnati, but I decided to make a full day of it and attend another baseball game next door at the Great American Ballpark. My sunburn from the day prior left the top of my head a little too sensitive to be sitting out in the open, so after about three innings I retreated into the concourses and watched the rest of the game on screens while charging my phone.

I like to park across the river and walk across the bridge to get to the ballpark. The WWE show was in U.S. Bank Arena, right next door to the ballpark. My nose is pretty big, so it likes to act as a solar panel and absorb plenty of sunshine. I really should have planned better and worn sunscreen or gotten out of the sun a bit on Saturday. I got several compliments on my Macho Man Randy Savage t-shirt, which I appreciated.

The Reds couldn't muster a lot of offense, and wound up losing 4-2 to the Brewers. Luckily for me, some of the guys on my fantasy baseball teams figured into the scoring, Travis Shaw hit a 1-run homer for the Brewers, Adam Duvall scored once for the Reds, and Eugenio Suarez hit a 2-run home run for the Reds. After the game was over, I ate some ice cream and then went back to the parking garage to read a book for around an hour while I waited for the WWE event to begin. I emerged from the garage to find that it was raining heavily, so I made the 15 to 20-minute walk in a downpour. The most exciting part was the lightning, as I saw a bolt of lightning hit the surface of the river not too far from where I was walking on the bridge, as well as others that were further from me. I didn't get struck by any lightning, so that was good.

I was totally soaked by the time I got to the entrance. My ticket was dripping with water. The lady who scanned it looked disgusted and held it by the very corner as she used her device to read the bar code. What are you gonna do? I found my seat pretty quickly, and it was a decent one. I wasn't on the floor, but I was pretty close and my head was right at about ring level. Elbow room was a little hard to come by, but at the intermission the people to the left of me left and I moved over a seat. I took a picture, but with my phone's potato camera and my unsteady hand, it didn't turn out that great.

The show itself was pretty awesome. If you drew up a perfect current-day wrestling show tailored to my interests, this probably would have been it. The show kicked off with a bang, a four-way tag team match between the Hardy Boyz, Luke Gallows / Karl Anderson, Enzo Amore / Big Cass, and Sheamus / Cesaro. The thing about WWE Live shows is that they don't really figure into the storylines for the WWE, so usually belts don't change hands or anything. The Hardy Boyz retained their belts with a Swanton Bomb finish, but everyone got some good moments in and the crowd was into it. Especially fun was when someone smacked the hair clean off the top of Enzo's head. I was happy to see all of those guys wrestle live, especially the Hardys, Enzo and Cass, and Sheamus.

It would be hard for anyone to follow that opener, but Sami Zayn and Curtis Axel did their best to keep the show rolling. Their matchup was pretty good, and there seemed to be a number of people in the crowd near me who were really excited about Zayn's appearance.

Next up was a Cruiserweight battle between Neville and Austin Aries. Their match was kind of a comedy match, with both wrestlers evading contact, then hitting with cheap strikes and hiding when the tables turned again. It was entertaining enough, and Neville eventually won, retaining his belt. The crowd got into this one pretty well, with battling chants for both wrestlers being thrown back and forth.

After that, some footage rolled of Roman Reigns getting beat up by Braun Strowman at a previous show. The ring announcer, JoJo, got up to say that sadly, Reigns would not be able to appear at the event due to his injuries. Then Braun Strowman's music came up, and he came out and took the microphone and challenged anyone in the back to come and fight him. No one came out, so he dropped the microphone and started heading back up the ramp. Of course, Roman's entrance music hit and he came out all wrapped in bandages and fought Strowman, eventually defeating him in spite of his extensive injuries. The crowd went totally nuts for this one.

After the intermission, there was a 4-way match for the Women's Championship between Bayley, Nia Jax, Sasha Banks, and Charlotte. I was pretty happy that I got to see Bayley and Nia Jax live at an event. The match followed the same basic blueprint as the Wrestlemania 4-way. Nia Jax beat everyone up until they teamed up on her, then the other three took turns doing their signature moves until Bayley hit a Bayley-to-Belly Suplex on Charlotte for the win. Nia Jax and Bayley both got big moments in this one, so I was pretty excited for this one. The token trading card in this post is the Topps WWE Now card of Bayley beating Charlotte at Fastlane 2017, with help from Sasha Banks. This one sold 153 copies.

The next fight pitted The Big Show against two opponents, Jinder Mahal and Titus O'Neil. I was really excited about getting to see Big Show live, and in that respect this match was awesome. The wrestlers also did a good job of making it entertaining, with Big Show eventually choke-slamming both opponents at the same time and pinning them each for the three-count with one hand. I don't know if I am reading into this too much, but it seemed a little awkward to me that a huge white guy was beating up the two darkest-skinned guys on the card, and Mahal and O'Neil were kind of playing bumbling roles, accidentally hitting each other or getting in the way. Mahal was getting a lot of guff from the crowd about giving a concussion (I think it was a real-life concussion, not a played-up injury) to Finn Balor a little while ago, so maybe the crowd atmosphere played into my impression of it. There were a couple of other incidents in the crowd, both good and bad, that had the topic on my mind anyway. Maybe I shouldn't even bring it up, but there was kind of a weird feel to the whole thing that might not have been there if Mahal or O'Neil had been paired with someone else against Big Show, or if they had won the match or presented as more of a legitimate threat to him. It could all be in my head, too. Either way, I was really excited to see The Big Show wrestle in a live event.

The Main Event was a tag team match. Kevin Owens came out and talked for a while about how the people in the crowd were bad parents, and that as the United States Champion, he would be the role model the kids in attendance needed. Then Samoa Joe was announced as his partner for a tag team match. After that, Chris Jericho and Seth Rollins came out as the opposing team. The crowd went absolutely bonkers for Jericho, probably about as nuts as they went for The Hardys and Roman Reigns. There were a bunch of tag-ins as Owens made it a point to avoid Jericho, but eventually the wrestlers got to fighting and they put on a pretty good show. Chris Jericho put the Walls of Jericho on Kevin Owens to close things out, then he addressed the crowd and thanked everyone for coming out, and after that he went ahead and put us all on The List. The guy really knows how to work a crowd, which is probably why they still pay him to wrestle.

I had a pretty good time all around, and a baseball game followed by the WWE event made for a great day. It didn't even rain much while I headed back to my car, although it was really coming down at points during the drive back to my hotel.

Topps WWE Now

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.