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. 

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.

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.