it's episode eleven yes it is adam how we doing today listen we've got it's not just adam today it's not just adam no it is not we have my my good friend steve our good friend steve our good friend sorry yes our good friend steve one of my co contributors at main event wrestling cards very excited to have him join the podcast finally i've been planning this for a while and it's finally worked out with everybody's schedule steve from the book to last great to have you gotten for the first time yeah i'm glad to be here i don't even think we've really ever even talked honestly adam we just chat i know it's crazy we we we talk all the time and like right so yeah and i finally got ryan's cell number so now i got a direct line so i i text him every you know every every every other day or so cut off the middleman on instagram the people that run my instagram that sometimes if i'm not on it you you know but no steve and i miss you in chicago buddy i know you said something came up and yeah the answer is probably for the best i know the weather was pretty bad it got really bad around that area so so but it would be good to see you however i will see you definitely in july unless you come down here right then we've got smackdown and stand and deliver the same weekend i saw that i saw that it's very tempting but yeah i'm definitely trying to hit one of those card shows in the card shop for sure well you let me know we'll get you a table man we'd love to have you set up but yeah i'm glad to be here thanks for having me on it's it's very humbling that i get to be with two of you guys' stature in the in the industry and i wouldn't go that far i'm excited to be here steve the check's in the mail i appreciate but i i already sent them venmo i'm ahead of you well you're you're ahead of me i usually just send the paper checks these days because i'm old school but anyways steve just because i i i wanna make sure people know who you are and and sort of what you what you're all about talk talk talk to us a little bit about kind of how you got started in card collecting like what brought you to the hobby your take on sort of like what you collect and things like that obviously you you helped me out so much on main event i can't thank you enough and i'm really excited to to finally get to talk to you face to face this way it's crazy how we go through these relationships where everybody we we sort of spend all this time with online and we never actually get to speak face to face now we get the joy of actually doing that so steve take it away man introduce everybody to sort of to your background in that respect yeah yeah well it is steve also sam is my initials if you're wondering why the you got two names and then i don't know i made a whatnot sam wwe and i was just kinda incognito i didn't know what i was doing but let's go to the start i was in walmart and i've always collected cards growing up there was a big break there from when i was younger to you know my late twenties and i'd always been a wrestling fan and i saw the card section and i was like you know what i think they're making wrestling cards it was two thousand twenty two and i hadn't collected a card in years and i saw a prism box and a select box and i went wow these are pretty cool and i bought both a blaster obviously and yeah i opened them up and i was like i like these select ones so i looked around online and oh okay there's different kind i had no idea no idea what i was doing i bought a couple boxes here and there and that led to cases and hobby cases and retail cases lot from us over the years yes and that's what led me to this r b i crew seven dot com website it had all these blaster cases and that's where i met ryan and yeah so i was just ripping oh my gosh the thrill of just ripping packs and that got me into it and then that led to just trying grading out and then selling some stuff and building sets i love building sets i probably have from two thousand twenty two select i have all the unnumbered sets i have probably three or four numbered sets as well but yeah just building those sets selling extras and so that it was a blaster box from ryan i had a dana brooke black mezzanine got it graded gend and i was like let's build this rainbow found out what that was didn't really know you know at the start just learning along the way meeting people just such a great community and yeah i started building off her then that that's kinda where whatnot you know came in and made the sam wwe alias and so just kinda started buying her brakes and just kinda sitting back and still kinda buying you know different boxes and just love to rip them and yeah and then long story short my wife is a rhea ripley fan i never really paid attention to her we were at two thousand nineteen survivor series the war games no was it war they don't think they call it war games but it was raw smackdown nxt yeah i remember that that was a big one and she kept my wife kept saying look at that look at that rhea ripley man she is she's so young she's she's she's jacked she's great and i was just looking at toni storm standing on the the ring apron there kinda distracting at the time and i was like oh cool you know and yeah well we see how that turned out ria ria is one of the top the top women's wrestler and yeah so didn't really collect you know i was starting a pc learned learned about that and that was dana brooke and it was like well i don't know i never really had intentions of starting a ria pc and i with twenty four select it was the zebras i bought i don't remember which premier or ringside whatever i was like well let's just chase the zebra ria rainbow is what i like to call it and well here we are today and we'll see how that went so turning into full fledged yeah let's chase ria as what a great decision you know she's the cheapest one in brakes her cards don't go for very much nobody wants perfect perfect you know choice for you exactly so it it turned out financially great i don't have any kids but you know if they needed to go to college you know when i do you know we're it's a good it's a good investment you know let's put it that way that's fair i like that's good that's good and your wife i'm sure your wife being a rhea ripley fan is is probably excited to see your pc grow as well yeah well that and then i could use that as the excuse that it is her pc why i was spending all this money oh there you here and there you know there you go but yeah i i stumbled onto mike livy bell's page and he had two gold select vinyls rias and i just started chatting with him and i was they're just gorgeous you know they were gorgeous mhmm and one thing led to another and he offered me one of them and i was just like blown away like i wasn't even going i wasn't fishing to buy any of them or anything and just you know made the connection and now one thing led to another and he eventually offered me the the rookie card the super fracture rookie which i couldn't pass that piece couldn't pass that up so yeah and then yeah one thing led to another i got addicted to the super factor one on ones and then they they make your way they make their way to me now you know you know how that goes you guys both know how that goes so yeah i think like seeing your collection grow and like just because obviously we connected what about like six seven months ago just sort of getting on content creation for main event and i really appreciated your helpful guides and everything that you were posting all over facebook and and different social media platforms so i i think the the content that you've brought to main event has been absolutely awesome wish there was a ton more of it because you do such a good job but i know life kinda gets in the way for people that aren't me and you know it's great to see that we've been able to build a relationship and i know you have a good relationship with ryan as well so yeah that's that's awesome dude i i i it's always good to hear people's story i love hearing people's story of how they come to wrestling cards yeah i'm i was more intrigued about how the the name sam came about because everybody just calls you sam and i'm like took me a while like is it steve is it sam is it steven you know so you know for for our listeners to put a perspective from where i'm standing and sitting and from adam and when whenever we see you know steve post here he is without a doubt the ria ripley collector he has the yes a doubt the best collection rhea ripley as you could see in one shot yeah we know rhea is very collectible but man steve does a phenomenal job he has some of the best ones are ever gonna surface love seeing your collection girl man it's rhea is was talking to somebody at at chicago i was like there's no question she's the best women's wrestler in the world she she's the top star in wwe right now it's not even women or or anything she's yeah i mean yeah well yeah well i appreciate that yeah so so now that we've got some introductions out of the way let's get into the opening pyro steve's gonna join us for the rest of the podcast really excited that i was able to gird him into joining us here he was very gracious to make his schedule available we're gonna start with i i i thought this was probably one of the better segments of twenty twenty six so far randy orton and cody rhodes contract signing it always goes off the rails but this went off the rails in the best possible way and i i'm sure ryan you've been calling for this for i've gotta be weeks now on this podcast years i've been calling for this man not just weeks that's true years i've been waiting and waiting and waiting so this friday was very very nice to see yeah for sure and and like i i like the gimmicks they did with its stairs i liked all of the way that they flipped randy so quickly and even the even the the potato conversation on raw where it looked like he was broadcasting from bray wyatt's basement like think that was good too but yeah i'm just ryan since you're the you're the guy that i thought of as i was watching this i wanted to hear what your live reaction was as you were seeing randy orton literally beat the shit out of cody rhodes so my live reaction was i was in chicago with the show i was set up for eleven hours at dinner with like eight other people and i'm getting a message randy just turned heel so then i'm going to my phone instantly i'm at this dinner and i'm just like sorry guys i'm gonna be consumed for the next ten minutes watching everything that happened so i didn't get to see it real time but i caught up pretty dang quick amazing to see i actually texted my wife and i was like finally randy orton turned heel it's been long overdue she sent me like a laughing emoji or whatever she's like oh my god my husband you know but i was like this is big this almost makes us ever so closer to make this mania trip happen to go see randy win fifteen and do it in a randy orton heel style we have not seen in a very long time so yes this was long overdue i'm glad they went this route i know people are like oh they should have flipped cody guys they need the next cena to to be that face guy it's gonna be a while for cody flips but when he does it'll be it'll be legendary when he finally does go heel but this was this is perfect you got the pivot now you got a heel versus face everything is right on track my guy goes back to being arguably one of the greatest heels in wrestling history in my opinion a lot of people will agree this is the best randy orton we're gonna see and the vicious i hope we see somebody get punt i was gonna say it was so it's so natural for him as a heel you know it's it it doesn't need any convincing he's just he's that's him you know it was great to see yeah he's back they they gave us they gave us signs at elimination chamber when the ref raised his hand when he immediately pulled it down and then whenever he was doing an interview he's like did i regret doing that to taking advantage of the opportunity no i did not you know there were signs leading up to this was gonna happen plus we have the segment with alistair black that was leading up to this about him hearing the voices we knew this was coming if you saw the signs and you pay attention if you're a dorky wrestling guy like all of us you kinda saw the trend that this was gonna happen and thank god it finally freaking did so who is on the phone then who is he talking to i have two guesses okay you you've been hold on before before ryan gives his guesses ryan's guesses have been as spot on as anybody on the internet i not even just from wrestling cards ryan speaks the truth so pay attention go ahead two guys could be kevin owens or triple h two guys i'm thinking it could be interesting i like it okay steve any predictions i'm so i'm so bad at fantasy booking this stuff yeah i it because i i just it's like who do i want it to be who is it who are they gonna swerve me on who are they gonna you know i don't know i don't know i thought about it really hard and i just i like that triple h i like that triple h somebody that's been so important to him as well we're under his wing everything obviously the authority years ago i mean right triple h is not really in the scene right now so again it could be and that's what i was gonna say do you think we haven't seen triple a an on screen triple h character yeah wouldn't that be sung that would be so i those are my guesses i think there's two pivots the other one that i shot in the dark would have been like ric flair but i just don't think they're gonna go with that route i think he's so far to touch so instantly when i saw that two people popped in because of what kevin and and cody went through i mean hell i saw the the you were weren't you at mania and indy as well you were did you guys go to indy mania last year or no steve no uh-uh okay no i can remember but that was the match where i saw that crazy kevin owens cody rhodes match you know cody and kevin had a great rivalry there for a while and somebody that's been out of the picture because the you know the surgery and everything so two guys i think i think it could be pivot to go either way and i think they can do great angles with either of them if that's the case so i'm excited to see who is on the phone and when we're gonna find out like it's somebody posted on social media like the the lead up to wrestlemania each of the last three years has ended up with cody rhodes bloody in some way yes yeah thought that was really good there was one thing i saw that said death taxes and cody rhodes going to get his ass beat before mania or something like that in life it's like the three things in life i think i texted you that he needs to have a weight belt with mama rhodes yes yes he does so hopefully hopefully they they pay this off you know adam pierce has been on the phone with people like i i like i feel like there's this higher power angle coming and i can't put my finger on it i i don't know what is driving it because there's been like all of these situations where adam pierce is talking to somebody now randy orson is talking to somebody like there's all roman reigns has had a thing too like it's kinda weird but either way like that's that's where i see that happening but i thought that whole thing was done really well like we've needed something different for cody like i was just not looking forward to him just being that guy throughout this whole run up to wrestlemania i'm glad that they're not going that direction i'm glad they're giving something for randy to chew on because he's obviously amazing at what he does and i think we'll have to see how it does for his cards because i think like his cards as ryan has become accustomed to over the last few years have become very expensive as people are sort of starting to recognize that he's coming to the tail end of his career and they see what happened with the retirement stuff for john cena so as the the storyline develops and potentially as he wins his fifteenth championship like i think that there's gonna be sorry ryan more money you'll have to spend on some of these cards i'm fully aware i hey i got what i asked for this is what i wanted i wanted a heel i wanted a fifteenth championship i wanted a mania i got what i asked for and i know it's gonna cost me more money but it's all worth it to see this come down toward the end of his career i mean this is what i've been waiting for for a long time and i think a lot of wrestling fans have too you know he's been such an important part of wwe the past twenty five years he is the most loyal in my opinion of any wrestler they've had and he has just been devout to him the whole time so i think this is long overdue and again yeah it's gonna cost you more in breaks gonna cost you more in in general and there's more people out there trying to get his stuff now but hey more eyes on him is better and also like you say adam when you pay more you're also driving up your collection to be worth more the ones that you bought so yeah let's sort of take a look at raw listen that opening segment like i i walked away from that just absolutely in awe of what the fan reaction to obafemi was coming out to be brock lesnar's opponent obviously the payoff with seth rollins is gonna come at some point i think they're they're likely pivoting away from logan paul giving him more of target of the usos but like that does that mean that he's gonna face bron breakker yeah whatever is happening doesn't seem like we got anywhere closer to rollins' opponent but steve like i don't know if you saw this last night or i i keep saying last night but you know it's like on monday well because you guys are listening to this on friday and i just warned steve ahead of this podcast to talk about time like he's the first one that screwed up he's the first one that screwed up so steve you could would be me to screw it up definitely me it's definitely me so i don't know steve if you saw this live on monday but man what a reaction for obafemi i i was a few minutes behind but yeah just watching i i i think my jaw dropped like i just like i said i hate predictive predicting everything right and you know it's gonna oh well here comes so and so you know and just i didn't wasn't even thinking about oba coming out wasn't even thinking really about brock coming out and it was perfect and does paul heyman when he gets beat down he gets into character like no one else oh good i just see him backstage like dumping rubbing alcohol in his eyes before he comes out he doesn't he didn't shave since last week like i love it he plays the the battered victim but yeah then awesome bringing brock out and it's like oh okay here we go here we go and then oba's music hits and it's like like cole said oh shit yeah yes exactly it was that was amazingly played out like just perfect so i was a little behind because i got home a little late my kid had baseball batting cages and neil texted me he's like have you watched raw yet i was like not yet i'm about i'm like fifteen minutes fine he's like i'm not gonna lie the opening segment gave me chills and i was like okay he goes your boy's in it but watch so then i immediately get my phone out i'm like i'm just going to twitter i'm going wherever i can to to catch up because i don't have the tv on and just watching that segment was incredible something like the whole thing was done right this is the thing is people like oh mania mania mania it's like this is the time where things that they're on the train tracks right now they're they're every week just building amazing storylines and what a storyline right there oba i don't know if you guys saw it's gone viral now you could see his tears coming down his face after he's on the ropes when lesnar's out don't know if you guys have seen that yet just kind of a just a real moment for him to have that you know think about the the you know the legacy that is brock lesnar and what he just did to him holy crap i i stopped but i was like shannon you gotta watch this you just gotta watch what the hell just happened this is incredible and the crowd reaction made it that much better like i think like they're getting into him as a as this monster he looks like a monster he acts like a monster he is the guy that i think they were hoping keith lee was gonna be way back in the day and good lord like i so to be fair i went on ebay immediately after this and tried to start sniping cards and it is not easy because everybody's been clued in for many weeks that he's you know since the rumble that he's gonna be the next big thing i did that on purpose and like i think like like collectors are even thinking about this from the perspective of like how do i start investing in obafemi because not only do i see what he's doing on tv but it speaks to me as a wrestling fan listen it's hard for me to collect anybody that's not my main pc they always get sold i just send a huge package to ryan and like it's it's something that today yeah so i mean like it's really hard for me to keep cards in stock that are not becky lynch because she's expensive enough on her own and as as steve was saying earlier like my kids probably are gonna have a tough time paying for college but i think it's like yeah i think when we're in this perspective of like i like this got me off the couch i was like yelling like holy shit like i cannot believe this then immediately after it's done to my phone to start buying cards like that's exactly what this hobby is all about spot on hundred percent nailed it that's kind of the way i was going with solruka when i'm just in saying forever i should be buying her and finally i just pulled the trigger after watching her in rumble and i'm like she's gotta be special for a long time and obafemi hundred percent i think they're looking for that next monster after brock lesnar that can carry himself so i think his future is very very bright and i think he's gonna be extremely dominant i i somebody was saying like oh now they're gonna have lesnar you know beat him and i was like there's not a chance like lesnar's gonna put this kid over and i think he's gonna last night either that's what i'm saying i think they're talking about at the side yeah on you know like oh i think you know now they're just setting up for lesnar to be a mania i'm like no i think lesnar's gonna have that scared look in his eyes that we haven't seen since like the goldberg type match when goldberg beat him so quick we haven't seen lesnar ever get holy crap i gotta face somebody bigger so i think this is gonna be fun leading up to and i think we're gonna see a i don't know if it's gonna be a squash match but i think lesnar will get his ass kicked so they close they close out the show well first of all as predicted becky lynch aj lee still seem to be on a collision course i still have no idea why they did the match in chicago i think now it's even more so even more of a question mark do a tag match like we said instead of the way they did it that's clearly going back to mania then they close out the show with punk and roman going at it again another banger segment mhmm i i thought everything they've done with this feud has been good so far punk hitting him with a microphone roman kinda laughing like i i i steve i don't like are are you i don't know if you're a big punk or roman fan i know ryan's thoughts so i i but i'm i like roman i i like roman and punk but i'm curious like are you a fan of either of these guys like what's been your take on this yeah i mean i never thought i would see punk wrestle in wwe again you know going to chicago shows that being the city that we're closest to and it was always like centimeters punk chants it didn't matter you know and i just i always liked him we you know and but now that he's back i he's definitely a favorite of mine and roman's grown on me the big dog you know like how can you not throw the ones up and this is just incredible the way they've done this it it's funny that it's like every other week you know but they're playing off on the the part timers yeah and it's been great and he got them with that old line you know you don't wanna yeah you're gonna get beat by the old guy now i liked it i thought it was good we've got a lot of hobby news to cover a lot so let's let's start it off here i think like the main thing that coming out of last week and just going through the high spots here i saw rita what was that that was that was my cover page for our segments here if you're following along with us on patreon but this was so first day issue last friday i know steve and i were talking quite a bit ryan and i were talking quite a bit this was probably the most action in terms of like back and forth messaging i've had with people and since twenty twenty two prism and and the f o t l release back then i remember just like you know back then everybody was like okay what's it gonna sell out at what's it gonna sell out at how are gonna get this it's starting high it ended it ended high like very much the same feeling as i got yesterday this being the second year of chrome i mean they didn't do first day issue last year but like it feels like they did it feels like there's just a ton of hype coming into this sells out seven hundred and twenty five dollars a box which is only three steps below the ceiling at eight hundred dollars internet reaction has been not pretty obviously there's a lot of people who were hurt that they didn't get access to this but i think overall like it just says a lot about where wwe cards are at this point it's just like there's just there's tons of it going around and there's a ton of demand and i think the like i right i like we were talking about this i think we both thought the ceiling was way too low yeah we we predict you predicted twelve hundred i predicted a thousand when you said eight hundred i'm like holy crap that's where i went in and bought the first one and i'm at the show while this is going down on friday and i just got caught up and i was like ah i'll let her drop a little bit more i bought one i should've just kept buying at every every interval how many cases did we find out that they produced so i yeah i got asked by this i i got asked this a lot so if the parallels match the basketball parallels which are out of twelve and out of eight that gives us about four thousand inserts to put into the boxes and at two per box that means you have two thousand boxes or about a hundred and sixty to a hundred and seventy five cases total there is just not a lot of this out there no and i'm mad at myself for not getting more because i wanted to rip some but since i'm a novice i like to keep cases sealed when i get you know one i'm gonna keep this one sealed however i'm probably gonna go on the market and buy one sooner than later just to get one because i really wanna rip one i was disappointed myself so i we thought i think we predicted last week we thought it'd get down like six hundred but wouldn't fall below that boy were we wrong and i think the lack thereof it out there adding in the demand by so many people that are breaking wrestling right now counteracting with the fact that it's hard to get good allocation on wrestling there's just not enough to go around i think a lot of thing a lot of factors went into play here and being that's the first one ever like you said of their kind first day issue ever for wwe you know i think this has long term sustainability and hold value in it so i could see why it did that what are your thoughts steve well so i was looking back and i bought a first off the line select case for for thirty nine hundred and that was crazy to me yeah that was three twenty five a box and i was only going into that to get one or two boxes to rip and i came out with the whole case but it this is where it's at everybody wants it and if you want it you're gonna have to pay for it you had your shot with this with the dutch auction and you said first day issue first first one ever it's gonna be pricey and that's where where we're at in this this game now and i couldn't pull i didn't pull the trigger because i've i've been pulling a lot of eric autographs and we good point yeah we pulled some good stuff don't get me wrong but i i couldn't all i could see was an eric maybe an ibar you know my two autos but i'm probably gonna and then see this is my problem as bad as i wanna rip i just want one box i'll probably buy one now for double so yeah and like so here's so there's a couple of things i wanted to call attention to number one as of my tweet i think yesterday the day before there was only one resale box on ebay which never happens like there are people who professionally flip this stuff yes and none of them are are up and listed the the idea that this will be available to the public at high scale is is probably not the case i would guess there's a lot of complaining that breakers sold this out yes they did and i would guess some nontraditional wrestling breakers so people that aren't typically breaking wrestling cards probably bought a lot of this as well you could a lot of asukas and yeah when they're when they're breaking yeah so i mean like you could see like a backyard breaks or somebody like that potentially getting in but this went high enough that maybe that's not what happened but it went very fast and you know i get like people are pissed like people are like well why aren't regular collectors getting all this blah blah blah like that's not the target for these cases like this is not meant to be an affordable sku it it was never designed that but i will say there is no universe in which a chromebox at seven hundred and twenty five dollars is profitable on a regular basis for any regular hobby collector the only people that can really turn a profit on a regular basis with boxes like this are the breakers and there's gonna be people like me and people like steve and people like ryan who are gonna buy slots in these cases because we want the cards and we wanna collect the cards and they look awesome if you've seen the silver parallels that were in basketball they look really clean the autographs are really clean i mean like everything about this looks awesome and i got three boxes i took the plunge i i got three boxes and i really am excited to rip those and you know i'm not a regular collector though like i have the funds to do this and i think it's something that chrome is my jam like i've since i've been a little kid chrome is my product you can see behind me and on my wall it's super fracture after super fracture after super fracture this is my product and so for somebody like me it's not necessarily about the money but for others it definitely is and i completely understand the frustration i completely understand the vitriol but i think at the same time like this is the market in in all honesty it it could have sold out at the ceiling i know multiple people including ryan who bought cases at the ceiling because they knew that eight hundred dollars was just too well put in perspective and now granted this is being recorded on tuesday there's only one box on ebay right now and it's sitting at buy it now but no best offer just sitting for fourteen ninety nine right now yeah so the thing is if you bought a eight hundred you're paying taxes on top of that so you're paying more than eight hundred whatever that you bought at unless you have your tax exempt you paid more when you factor in the taxes and everything so i don't know if these are gonna fall under twelve hundred i really don't considering what it went for and somebody would you know like you said most what are the offers on dealermet i haven't even looked i don't even know if they're out there yet i could check that later i don't have i don't bring my phone in here adam i keep it away this is you know i keep my phone and my watch away because after the first episode i got yelled at because you could hear the buzzing of my watch so i don't know i i don't i don't think they're out there yet this is the only way to get this yes like ryan wasn't offered it you know shops aren't offered this everyone's going in on this and they're buying they're buying it so they add it you know i think a lot of people were complaining that we didn't know what the parallels were numbered to we didn't know this we didn't know that like guys we have a precedent here of fotl doing very well in sealed like it just does like i've ryan and i were talking about this with chad last week about like going and sitting on these cases or ripping these cases it's fun because you know you're getting something awesome in every box it could be ivar but it also could be the rock so i think like there's a lot of variants there the autograph checklist i've been told is awesome for tops chrome there's a lot of surprises we haven't heard about yet we haven't gotten any information on some of the inserts in cosmic and this and that and the other thing which we've seen the wrestlers sign so we know it's coming but i think like a lot of people are gonna see what's in chrome and they're gonna be like oh shit i should have bought this and that fomo really does have an impact on people's buying patterns and you know as we get into like sort of our next topic which is the hobby preorder like that sold out more quickly than i think it like the demand for hobby went up because people were striking out on first day issue and it sold out i mean like steve you were you were in the queue the second it dropped and got and you got shut out from the hobby business correct yeah same story refreshing you know waiting for it to hit noon refreshing it lagged a little bit on me again and then the listings were up but they weren't like live yet and i'm refreshing got a hobby box in my cart got all the way there and then three two one you know wait and then it bounced me back out so i added one of each got back in did the same thing bounced me back out i just closed my eyes and started clicking blaster value boxes and yeah i ended up with quite a few so but sounds good yeah i don't know i got to where i thought i was gonna be able to check out and then it did that dress thing and it did the it just yeah you just click it and it just cycles and cycles and then eventually it'll tell you that it's out of stock well i kept trying because people are like well you know i got one because i kept clicking and i just i tried for forty five minutes and it still was saying add to cart and then it would put you in the the countdown and then you get there and you could still click checkout and no nothing it was sold out obviously but yeah yeah to go with that i i had no luck as well and granted today we're getting solicited our allocation out from top so at least i'll be getting some there i got no hobby i did get megas and blasters but it was capped out on both i maxed out and it wasn't i think it was like twenty megas and a hundred blasters which we need that stuff in our shop like right for me like we need more affordability i did just do a little research while we were on here just looking at ebay you can buy boxes as low as three fifty with free shipping right now and cases the cheapest case out there right now is five thousand best offer obviously we know you're gonna get more in a case form so at three fifty a box concerning a total of two seventy two seventy not bad because that person paid two seventy plus tax what are they paying almost three hundred dollars there's not much margin so if you're listen to this again this is recorded earlier in the week i see these boxes trending closer to the i might guess they're gonna be in the four to five range out of the gate probably closer to four fifty is about where the market i think is gonna hold out you just i mean my thoughts right now again it could just depends on how much they allocate out to shops and breakers that's another thing if it's very light boom it's gonna drive up if it's very you know very heavy then it may not it's gonna take a little while but what are we looking at last year's what six hundred and fifty dollars a box six seventy five yeah i even know where we are right now that's a good what's already at cruise seven i don't even know right now seventy five yes okay gotcha so yeah i mean it's i haven't checked this week i haven't checked yeah at least adam did no i'm six twenty five i'm six twenty five okay a little cheaper than everyone so i i think like what most people don't understand is that there's a there's a a dolphin here that happens when preorder goes live so you have preorder starts at a price the price goes up so you include tax and shipping and then they post start people start listing high the list double the price quadruple the price whatever the fuck they wanna do and then as other people start posting their confirmed orders those prices eventually trend down until we get just above the cost to recoup what you would get if you don't have tax exemption on tops by the time we get to the date which is april tenth for hobby april eighth for fdi the idea that that number stays where it is goes completely out the window because people start getting fomo cases are being ripped out whatnot in fanatics live they wanna get in on it breakers and shops have their allocations at that point maybe even a wave two offer so i think like there's a cycle here and if you are hurting right now because you didn't get your box you didn't get fdi completely understand i did not get any hobbies steve didn't get any hobby ryan now didn't get any hobby he's getting his solicitation through the shop and whatever but i think at the same time that price is going to change you do have an opportunity right this second likely to get it at its lowest point there is not a reality in the future i think once everything comes to light that this is gonna stay anywhere close to three fifty i think we've sort of covered that but like do you do you feel like the education and the necessary understanding that exists within collectors has enough legs here to help people understand why topps chrome is trending the way that it does i would like to think so i mean obviously i i think it's funny people are like oh topps chrome last year was the first year they've had wwe top screen like no we gotta educate you here it's the first time they've had it since twenty twenty one so but i already know just from being on the inside and you knowing as well they're adding so much more element this year so much more value to it a lot more inscriptions of key people we got the ria inscription we got the ort inscription here unfortunately we don't have a becky which is fortunate for adam's wallet that's about the only fortunate part of that but they we had our tops thing today and more come out but they've added some extra case hits that are in other sports products that gear really good value that we're gonna get to find out i think there's just so much more added value this year versus last the biggest one would be yes we're not gonna have hogan autos we would think we're not having those obviously these are they might have stickers they might have stickers but rock i don't know if we'll have as much as we did last year because obviously he's not around as much but you're gonna get some key names that they mentioned today on the call that are getting their first cars their first autos i think there's just a lot of potential here plus a little something i think this one could end up sell outselling twenty five tops chrome with all the added elements they're putting in so people should be more educated with this i think last year was good but i think this year is gonna be even better and i don't know i i like to think more people are understanding we don't live in a different time anymore what people don't realize we've talked about this what twenty two prism w came out and then we know it tanked and blah blah blah but we don't live in the twenty twenty one days when you can rip tops chromeboxes for less than a hundred bucks we're in a different time now different element there's more eyes on this stuff there's more people in this scope here breakers are breaking the stuff left and right it's drying up so get it now this the this product at three fifty a box you should be sucking it up right now i don't see tops offering this out cheaper than four hundred bucks on a release day on their website three ninety nine ninety nine is my guess right now just throwing a guess out there you'd be lucky to see three fifty again we're just here to give you the the facts education me being on the inside also i can give you some of that so just put a perspective then time to buy is now this product is only gonna continue to go up as it continues to dry up and really really depends on how much everybody's allocated out so i think you're gonna hear a lot of people on social media on facebook on reddit on every fringe hobby hangout that exists talking about how everything is ruined nothing is ruined okay guys wax right now is the most liquid asset in the entire hobby there is nothing that you can buy singles wise that will ever outperform what we're seeing with wax right now because there are three hundred fifty channels on whatnot in fanatics live running twenty four seven doing nothing but ripping packs and i think like when you look at wrestling in the history of what we've gone through through twenty seventeen twenty eighteen twenty nineteen this was never a situation that we've been in and i don't think it will ever really reach a fever pitch like this again for a while like there's a cyclical nature to it but you're gonna hear people complaining breakers have ruined the hobby this that we'll get to some of that which will confirm some of those biases but i think like overall like this is a reflection of traffic more than anything if you go to a card show you see how packed it is with people it's not that the breakers are buying this and keeping it for themselves it's that they are have an audience that will churn through these boxes so quickly that it doesn't even matter like it's a reality is it a positive reality i don't think anybody is excited about paying seven hundred and twenty five dollars for a first day issue box i wasn't but i understand the how as well as the why and i think that's what i challenge people on our site and with steve and what we've been talking about is like understanding that there are certain circumstances that just play a certain way and it as frustrating as that is there are multiple factors whether it's tops distribution methodology whether it's the breakers whether it's this that or the other thing everything plays a part and the quicker that you can recognize how to operate within that reality and just not get frustrated and bitter the more exciting and fun this will be i said on my site i've had more fun in the last five to six years than i've had in the previous twenty combined this is a blast and if you're just angry and you're upset because things are expensive then that's a choice you've made there are ways to engage you don't have to collect rhea ripley you don't have to collect the rock or roman reigns you can there's a lot of things that you can do that are speaking to you and it's it is what it is at this point i think that's where where things are gonna change the second you said you don't have collect ray ripley steve left the damn rip he's like i'm out of here no yeah i think his phone might have died that is hilarious the second he said that he he just vanished with john cena yeah for sure but but what people don't realize is i don't wanna go back to the sticker days i don't wanna deal with stickers this is bringing collectors closer to wwe than it ever has been the relationship that tops fanatics has with wwe is incredible and what they're able to accomplish now is revolutionary we're getting the event stuff we're getting all these inscriptions we're getting the things that collectors have been itching for with that comes a cost they are probably paying more to do this with wwe therefore the products are coming out higher than ever we're we're never gonna see the days where you could buy tops chrome wwe in twenty fourteen for thirty five forty bucks and be charged fifty you know and you're not gonna get the quality i mean back then oh my god i would love to find some of that right now but that's another thing people have to consider is how we're getting all this on card stuff you know this is incredible it's always gonna it's now they're besides like vape or whatever they're focusing on on card less redemptions they're doing everything to make this more entertaining and a better moment moment when you're ripping the product and not getting a redemption i get some of the people are a little harder but i don't wanna pull redemption of the guy and then wait a year to get or a girl you know we all wanna have it right then and there or if you're getting that redemption you're getting it fairly quick by then so i think that's some things people need to consider and think about is the overall the relationship they have and what they're bringing to the element to the hobby right now with wwe and i loved everything panini did don't get me wrong but the relationship was not there since day one and they had to work their butt to get this stuff fulfilled and make these products happen but we all love panini and we're all gonna miss panini but again i'm anti sticker i but i love select so i don't rip it for the sticker autos and i think steve can relate and add them but again i i love the other elements of the product and that's why i enjoyed select steve any final thoughts on on this before we move on i mean they could've went ahead and started this at four ninety nine you know hobby box they didn't could've you know it's two sixty nine every everything is the prices of everything in the world are up right now when i was a kid i don't think i ever opened any rome packs i had base sets and i had right you know flagship is is that the base you know i had like every baseball set that was what probably fifteen bucks the hundred card set from when i was one to i think he stopped buying them when i was ten but i don't have anything that's worth anything because everything was too expensive back then now i can afford it and i can buy hobby boxes and i can and and it and does it suck for your standard you know family who wants to rip some cards with their kids and yeah i mean but maybe splurge won't you know on a box or two there's retail has the value boxes always started at twenty nine ninety nine yeah straight from tops twenty twenty or twenty five dollars twenty nine ninety nine i mean they've they've gone up with inflation i think over the last few years panini started charging thirty bucks a blaster a number right and then when they're in the retail stores they charge thirty four in well things gonna change a little bit on that front they're doing top and some stuff to give more of this out and jobs are required to be at srp and not above it and not under it so yeah you know they're saying hey we're gonna do more things to get you more of this we need you to be at this for at least thirty days so people can come in and rip at the price point i absolutely love that i think it's amazing and it just takes people getting greedy and the market driving up yeah so that means there should be more out there and that's huge for people that can't keep wrestling on their shelves if it's a thirty or thirty five dollar plaster you're required to be at that i don't know what per you know what they're doing if people are not following that i absolutely think that's amazing and they're doing more of that not just wrestling but other things when they told us that today that is key that is getting people into this this is an important thing to get people into the wrestling people need a price point to get in into their shops online this is it will this go up yes but it's they're gonna they're trying to control it for the first thirty days and ryan you mentioned this is how people get involved steve literally just said at the beginning of this podcast this is how he joined the hobby so yes we all support affordable entry points but i think we're also very realistic to steve's point that this that things have changed it could have been foreign and that was the other thing i think we steve and i were talking about on twitter like going back and forth was like this easily could have sold out in seconds at four ninety nine topps didn't do that they put it at two sixty nine for the hobby box preorder so yeah that's good somebody actually like blasted me he's like it's only two sixty nine like i could have been you know one ninety nine like yeah and then we would have a pokemon situation where people are sitting outside their hobby stores waiting for stuff to land so like anyways we've we've beaten the chrome horse to death a little bit let's let's move on to gem right here one more yes please one more go ahead please i did a just a little you know research preview two thousand twenty five tops royalty ufc preorder was four ninety nine ninety nine selling online right now for one thousand one seventy four ninety five a hobby box we've talked about that for a while like those royalty boxes if you think it's bad for chrome just wait until royalty a little under a month ago that it came out two six can i get you guys as quick follow-up on so i know we gotta jump into this little over a month do you think exalted's gonna get like under the carpet because everybody now is just so excited for tops chrome okay we're on the same page then i think exalt is gonna be like a week or two thing and then everybody's like give me tops chrome so i mean we're gonna go from universe exalted tops chrome money's gonna drive quick we're this is gonna be really interesting we went for so long without getting anything so but i mean we are on the road to wrestlemania we're excited i'm excited for new product and how big of a release is exalted so it's a premium product yeah the right which means only that it's a one pack box which means there'll be a much more limited run that's right i i had topps chrome at like twenty five hundred to three thousand cases i had cactus jack about that i think exalted is probably gonna be significantly under but okay i i've i've heard a lot of shops in the chatter saying guys like i can't support exalted and then go right into chrome with the buyback and everything like that like it's just gonna get completely overshadowed and i think it's flat autographs i think it looks like there might be some player worn stuff instead of event worn stuff like it's i think exalted is gonna be a tough sell in this in this middle period between universe and chrome but i'm glad we're getting product because maybe it will be more affordable maybe exalted will come down a little bit and you can get it for cheaper and have that access that everybody wants that's gonna be a crazy week i i did did a little graphic potentially the john cena commemorative shipping the twenty seventh of march exalted the first fdi the eighth chrome hobby the tenth that's gonna be crazy if that was it crazy so let's let's get into the everybody wanted cards yeah everybody wanted cards indeed yes the generate data was published for february i love looking at this because it shows a representation of the people that they track and some of the sales volumes and stuff like that i think the top end of the market is trending a little bit lower than i expected only because we had no cards this doesn't really reflect universe coming in and i think march you'll see a humongous spike in sales but we did see hulk hogan top the list again alexa bliss surprisingly number two ahead of roman reigns and liv morgan and then john cena austin rock ripley tiffany undertaker really were like the top ten other names on the list included solruca at number eleven obafemi at thirteen aj styles of all people at fifteen he's never been anywhere close to this like his retirement obviously fueling some things quick thoughts on this just because we're running kind of behind because we've been blabbing about chrome and running our mouths like we should but any feedback just on what you're seeing in this list just from the top twenty five in terms of sales data how the hell is alexa too i that's the first thing in mind no disrespect to alexa bliss alexa bliss collectors but wow okay other than that everything everything seems seems how it should be honestly i mean given that rhea ripley's cards probably aren't reflecting that she's the winner of the elimination chamber that didn't happen until most of the way through the month if not all the way what is she at nine she's at she's at nine she's at eight eight yeah she's still cleared six figures for for the year already which is great so we do have seven or or eight wrestlers already in six figures for for the start of twenty twenty six we're only three months in that is a trend upwards considerably but you have people like you know obafemi who doesn't have as many cards as somebody like alexa bliss quickly climbing that rank as quickly as as you would expect for somebody of his nature so ruka big jump big jump obviously given her performance it probably had something to do with those numbers by the way just look at that i haven't posted them but that might be might be my doing sorry guys my bad put them in the box yeah they are in the box yeah stephanie vacair falls all the way to number twenty did not see that i thought she would continue to trend up but i think she's probably gonna fall even further once liv morgan probably takes the title off of her like i think vaquere overall was you know has very few cards universe she has a lot more so maybe the volume goes up a lot of this is reflective of the fact that we just don't have a lot of things on the market i feel like i see a stephanie of a care auto in every universe break there's a lot of them yeah i'm almost bought a spot not in my cases no yeah i will we only did one i got another case we ever ripped yeah we've been we've been busy but yeah there's a star wars release this week we're probably gonna dive in but i gotta get on the next case of universal behind so just to finish out with probably the most controversial news in a while there was a legal action filed against whatnot some complaints of by specific individuals opting for arbitration which is the requirement of the whatnot's platform which basically says we can't bring this to public court because of terms of service but we can basically bring a complaint that we were mistreated or misrepresented and what and and really i don't wanna spend time talking about you know gambling and stuff like that i think that's obvious we're all very much involved in these platforms fanatics live whatnot blez you know all those things with the sort of the repacks and everything like we're we're very familiar with that this is likely gambling i don't think that that's as big a news as people are making it out to be where i saw a lot of interesting things is the way that the breakers are sub circumventing a lot of the rules on the platform like tipping repack hits shill bidding you know enabling the gambling without oversight from the platform despite complaints from the individuals who are named in the complaint that whatnot did not step in we've seen them completely avoid you know sublimating any of their problems with the breakers by taking action against their top guys backyard breaks seemingly has a bulletproof vest everybody who does any money on whatnot has a bulletproof vest it's really unfortunate that these allegations continue to come out against this platform because there are people on whatnot who i like very much and they are getting completely looped in with a lot of this you know drama and it's and it sucks because for them it's their business and stuff and they're doing it the right way i do a lot of breaks with cardshop live i do a lot of breaks with alex i do a lot of breaks breaker mayfield and i do a lot of breaks on the platform on fanatics live with mama breaks and stephanie and everybody like there are breakers who are good at what they do and you know there are ones that are doing it the wrong way and now they're gonna face a lot of that criticism regardless of which way they do it yeah and i'm not gonna touch much on this too obviously this is not a positive conversation positive talk topic but it is bringing awareness to people in the hobby and people in general again i made a decision a while ago to just keep all my breaking off of whatnot not just there's people in there like you said great names but i'm breaking off and acts live with people a lot of the people i have relationships with i'm breaking on bless's website i'm breaking on facebook groups but i'm breaking i'm selectively picking who i wanna break with and i said look i i'm not gonna enjoy every break under the sun because it is expensive when you again expensive for ria expensive for becky expensive randy seth ray howdy quiet six to get my drift i i have to pick and choose and not to mention i've taken the adam approach hey adam how'd you do the break i have no idea i'll find out when the mail comes in that's been my approach because of how much universe i join i'm still getting in breaks from you all getting the mail in so i i'm not anti whatnot the platform obviously is incredible with the technology they have it's it's so easy to get hooked on everything but it's just i made a personal decision and even though i have friends on there i'm like look if you wanna break on any other platform i'll do it but i cannot justify because it's a rabbit hole there's so many people on there breaking so i've elected to then support stephanie other other names i'm not gonna get here and drop names but but jen i've stepped away from it several months ago and i diva took when all this wwe has come out i stepped away so it had nothing to do with everything that's going on here because i wasn't dealing with this stuff but yes there there has to be there has to be something for the actions that have happened and it's unfortunate that they're not getting in front of this but they've also have not gotten in front of a lot of things in the past and they just stay away and as the hobby does well once little people forget about it i love the people that don't forget about it like tyler sports guy who always reminds you of yeah hey remember when this person did this shout out tyler great friend of mine by the way i love him he's awesome hopefully i get to see him at the national yeah you you well he's got a baby coming and he it's very soon he said he was gonna be there so i think he'll still be there i wonder if they bring him the baby or not so but point being is a lot of people don't they forget but a lot of the people who don't let us forget and again we'll see how this plays out this is still early stages but i know you're you're very much behind this adam and and i don't know what are your thoughts steve what are your thoughts i know that it's gambling i know that i partake in it i admit i tried to buy every single cj and finest ria brake for the last since they both were released chasing those autos and i made a conscious effort to step back and stop whatnot now some people were like is it a whatnot thing is it you know and i was just like no fomo is real i was addicted to those spots you know and was it a problem you know yeah i mean was it like a real buddy you don't have you're you're speaking to kindred spirits here unfortunately i'm just like you know i knew to step back now are there people out there that really don't know what they're doing and can't stop you know yeah and this is what they're and this is their their lawsuit so you know and let yeah and i have stepped back from whatnot i've never personally really had like a super problem with anybody on there you know and i know there is is bad people on there i got scammed once with a fake card that i showed some people and they were like really you bought that so that was my own fault and we bought but yeah i it overall yes it needs some sort of regulation or more regulation safeguards now what that is i have no idea and everybody mentioned mama breaks so shout out to stephanie nice and she's wearing wearing the shirt for those of you who are following along with us and and steve you you nailed it man i'll end this let's let's sort of move on just because we this is one of those more controversial issues i know people are gonna hear every which way from every hon hobby content creator i've dealt with addiction i know a lot of people in our lives have probably dealt with addiction it is a very you're sober here two years plus congratulations man congratulations so i mean like i mean i i've like you you've seen me on these these films like or on videos for the last two years you've seen how i look you've seen my addiction with cards you've seen all this other stuff it is a real problem you do not have to go through it alone get the help that's available for you through your health insurance or through your employer or through whatever this is not there's been a lot of really bad stuff said on social media about the people that have filed this lawsuit i just wanna make sure that that my voice is out there saying listen addiction is a problem and i know how it consumes people's lives and i really hope that there are people out there who can get the help they need or offer the help if they have that available through resources like collectormd or other things like that that have been established for this specific situation altogether it's just so important that you don't listen to this the haters and everything online talking about degenerate gamblers or whatever that's not the point here and i put that in my article this morning on main event i i encourage you to read that in its fullest because it really was my whole take on this i don't really wanna spend a whole lot more time on this but this is not a good phase for whatnot it's been covered by the new york times it's been picked up by cnn there's a lot of different news organizations that will get this hopefully the idea is not to completely tear down this platform hopefully the idea is we can get better police we can get better better oversight i don't think paul wants to end breaking paul lesko who's the lawyer for this i don't think he wants to end breaking he just wants more safeguards and more safety for the community which i completely see alright let's get into some sales here really fast because we are running really far with three people it it does run a lot behind which i love this conversation has been awesome and this is for chad because chad mentioned this card last week on the the the podcast this is the gunther one of one super fractor from cactus jack with a ring general inscription it did sell via auction to an account that actually has a lot of feedback so i think it's real and it's sold for five thousand dollars don't think wow jed if you're listen i want my flawless ring general inscription one one back for like half the price you got from me at national last year walked into my booth you fleece me buddy you took me in the cleaners this is an insane price i i'm sorry this is like i i can't imagine how many times a card like this is gonna come up it's not gonna be many there's definitely somebody who wanted this because of the inscription and because it's gunther the focus that wwe is putting on it it's an awesome card i think the astro knights parallels are great i i know steve you have been hunting for the for so long i'm so sorry about that shit all the cactus the cactus jack stuff has been going really high it has huge you know especially with the inscription on that's a sick card but yeah a lot of the cactus have you see it it goes it goes yeah that ryan ryan's got that ria he's like he said in the warehouse sitting back there waiting for for steve to come down and rip it someone will pull it and somebody will reach out to you i hope steve we we call you out on this podcast all the time oh i know we're trying to encourage you and enable your gambling sometimes when i'm listening to this segment and my my wife's in the room i'm like please don't say what i bought this week my god i'm like cooking dinner listening to the podcast and then this thing is coming on notes maybe i'll make notes alright adam's pretty good at time stamps he'd be like at this time steve turn the volume down for ten seconds exactly that that baby milo one she looked at me and i was like no that's not what i paid yeah it's it's my biggest fear is that when i die my wife will sell the cards that i have in my collection for the price that i told her i had paid for them so anyways this one surprised me yeah so going on to the next sale another really big one this is the top sale out of top's universe so far public wise at least i have one that's maybe around this amount and i have one that jameson i know got we mentioned last week got the roman reigns i'm sure it's about this amount as well john's rio rio one sold to the yeah one zero one oh it did yeah maybe i i haven't updated this in in a it private oh it was private that's true yeah very very very fair so this john cena turnbuckle one of one foil fracture it has the wwe logo on it sold for thirty eight hundred sixty eight dollars via auction on ebay i now steve you actually clued me into this card that it was pulled and posted yeah and i saw this and it was part of the preview for the entire product this is one of those quote unquote product hits yeah sold for almost four thousand dollars i am curious what your reaction is knowing how much you were following this auction because you had let me know as well i thought about paying i would have paid five for it yeah it's a huge card it's awesome card yeah the turnbuckle's even kinda dirty so you know it was yeah it was used like this is a piece of history i i asked the relic guys in for who worked for topps and see if we can get an event that this turnbuckle was used at there isn't one indicated on the card so i'll have to i'm pretty sure i'll have to look it up i thought they mentioned it when they previewed it maybe they did maybe they did remember though one of the older wrestlemanias i can't remember i wanna say an older summerslam or something i'll find it yeah we'll have to report back on that because it's a really cool card but this yeah good price think like i think it it was it's for a non autograph jumbo relic card it's it's a really cool piece but i think the price was pretty high like i don't know if you guys thought i know steve you you said you'd pay higher i i was saying probably around the five thousand six thousand dollar mark this ended at a pretty weird time i think it was a little bit it was either overnight or during the morning or something was kinda weird it was like eleven thirty and the the picture was not the best picture to use in this card so i think that also probably went into considerations i'm with you guys i think this is minimum five thousand dollar card and whoever bought this if they're not they're gonna collect it great buy if they're gonna flip it they're gonna make some money in my opinion cool summerslam two thousand seventeen there you go everyone look at that look at that word that's why he's on here that's why we have him on these podcasts last one we'll cover or maybe have one more after this but this was i this was probably the the sale that that shocked me the most this is a one of one bret hart autograph platinum from flawless twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty four sold for twenty three seventy five i have not seen this is bret hart's i think biggest sale of a modern card or an at least an autograph card he has some older cards that have sold for considerably more than this but maybe from a prism black it might be more but i have i was not expecting this card to go for twenty three hundred dollars it went for considerably higher than i thought it would flawless that's the only thing i can really say is flawless is just different yeah and he's he had like three or four different autographs that all had one of one so this was kind of that that bulk of like numbered cards that come out of this product because the signing checklist was so small they had guys like bret hart sign multiple versions of these cards what if this is because the hit man top stone cold what if it's because of the match oh i didn't even think about that yeah look at that look at you smrt right there last one because this one i i love so back in twenty twenty dominic mysterio debuted and he wrestled on you know on tv and at summerslam as a cops now offering pops sold autographed rookie cards in the baseball design this is the only opportunity that you had to buy a card from twenty twenty in a baseball design with dominic mysterio signing on card his red autograph out of ten sold recently in a psa ten ten twenty nine hundred dollars via auction people are loving dominic mysterio and rightfully so this is his rookie card this is everything that it's cracked up to be there's so few of these out there there's maybe sixty or seventy total cards in the entire parallel run this was offered through very unique circumstances great price on this card yeah this is i didn't know this card existed till today no wow that that thing's awesome yeah that is great looking guys guess who seen his match at summerslam two thousand seventeen was against he's not in wwe anymore aj styles nope i have no idea baron corbin pinderman i am baron corbin dumbass alright that's why it went so low that explains it yes there you go so just to close out this podcast and steve again thank you for for joining us we'll end with our title match topic of the week we'll do this pretty quickly because we're already a little bit over what are some of the lessons that you've learned over the last year that you feel most collectors are not going to understand why is that particular lesson so hard to grasp for the average show collector steve i'm putting you on the spot so i'll let ryan go first but ryan do you have like a a lesson that you think you have learned as a shop owner as a collector as a you know participant in this hobby that you feel collectors are are gonna have a struggle to understand well i think mine goes with you with you adam it's you know you're always like i have to get that rainbow done first i have to buy the tune i have to hit all these quick and you're just wanting to jump the gun and you're like whatever i gotta pay to get it done and over with i think if it's a higher number if you're trying to build rainbows and stuff you need to be patient and wait i get if you're gonna join breaks and stuff but this has been cars that's been going on forever you're you're gonna pay premium money on day one day two you know it's just the first week you're paying premium to get the stuff if you wanna knock it out i think it's always easier to wait and let things surface if there's ninety nine or more maybe even fifty or more just let it wait you'll pick it up but if it comes to the ones the fives the tens yeah you probably wanna get that out of the way at first so that's one thing i can always tell people not just in wrestling cards and cards in general if you're trying to build a rainbow you're trying to get your team done if it's above a certain number just be patient wait you'll save yourself money in the long run adam this really goes towards you yes it is and i've i've said even on twitter and i've said on this podcast that my approach is wrong but i have fomo and i have and i'm the most impatient person on the planet i will also say that i've adopted a strategy that if it's out of twenty five or higher there will be multiple copies listed within the first week so just wait it out i i don't buy cards at that price especially with all the breaks i joined my and and i think this is a good lesson i think this is something that most people are gonna struggle to understand because they're like me and i struggle to understand it so yes i agree with you ryan my lesson is a little bit different i i i think there's a major disconnect between the goal of the manufacturer and the goal of the collector and here is what i wanna say about this lesson topps is a business topps' sole priority in a being a business is to make money they are not in a business to make friends and so centimeters punk came back to wwe tv and said exactly that most businesses function in that way ryan owns a business in this hobby i am sure that when he can make sure that his customers are taken care of sure he's a little bit different in this circumstance topps is run by fanatics who is run by the street and there's a lot of things that i think topps is going to make choices on that will be unpopular such as things like e q l things like the way they sell their product or push people to a monetized platform in the in in the idea that they can make more money if people break their boxes on phonetics live than if they offer a larger online allocation a lot of these decisions are made because they're a business and i think that's a really hard lesson for a lot of people to learn that tops is not out there to make you happy now that's a dis now again disconnect because everybody's like well i'm a customer i should be made happy i should have the opportunity to buy these boxes at a price that makes sense for me and the opportunities like that will come if this market continues to trend down if it doesn't trend down and it continues to go up those opportunities change and i think that topps is gonna make decisions based on the fanatics overall business strategy that may not align to you as a low budget collector as a mid budget collector as a nonbreaker and i think that a lot of those question marks that people have and that frustration that people have is hard to grasp and so that was something that i've learned over the last year is just how much of a disconnect really exists there that's well said my friend well said alright that's tough to follow i agree with both of you way to go adam jeez i just wanted to give steve more time so i went on a rant a little bit steve just like in terms of like let let's look at this from a different perspective maybe for you unless you have one that you thought of i was just kinda gonna blabble on and agree with both of you and take the easy way out but do you have have you learned it like you've started making a lot of different content you've started yep speaking to a lot more people on different platforms what's some of the lessons that you've learned now as a content creator let's label you that like what are some of the lessons that you've learned there that maybe people are have are tough to understand there i i feel like i don't know you kinda stumped me there putting all this content out people have you don't know how many messages i get thanking me because people are uninformed they just they hear one thing and i mean that's how the internet is and i just love getting trying to get the correct information out there gathering it all together getting it into one place so everybody on does understand that doesn't because there's a lot of misinformation out there and i agree with the with the business side of tops and fanatics and all that but i think that they can whether it be eql or agree limit one one box per person shoot yeah you can go on there and buy ten but at least someone can get one you know what i mean yeah but yeah i don't know if i answered that right no i think you i think you nailed it in like the the idea that that people reach out to us you and me both about the content we create and and sort of the the the reason why we do what we do right because i i have i do it for the same reason steve like you and i are almost identical in that space like i i hate when misinformation is circulated about cards it's been my goal to to to bring education i know you have the same goal and it's and i appreciate what you've done for main event in that respect so yeah i think that's a that's a tough lesson for a lot of people to understand is that there we steve and i do this for the love of the game like we don't get compensated for this like we're not making this podcast and getting paid thousands and thousands of dollars for our takes like we don't like we we have inside information in some cases from tops but they're not they're doing that because they see the passion that we have and so steve i i think your your your take is is well founded for sure you both are doing a great job with everything you're doing to educate people steve you're on it day after day with your story and everything that one zero one traffic yes and adam with yeah on facebook you do which is incredible adam with the articles you do that you both do now so you all are doing a phenomenal job you're you're educating people day in and day out and you're giving them the correct facts you're not giving them something that they read or saw on the internet you guys are doing a great job and that's that's the point of this and you guys are doing like you said you're not getting paid to do it you know you're you're doing out of your own time because you care about the hobby and the industry and you want people to be more aware and i love it keep doing what you're doing because it's very much appreciated by so many people and not just myself but a lot of people you just don't even know thank you people that i don't even know so just think think what you're doing it's making a difference at the end of the day and people don't have to tell you that but it is and trust me it is thank you appreciate it thank you you so much for spending this much time with us i know we originally planned in about fifteen minutes and then kind of pivoted here and i'm so happy we did thank you for joining us like i said i was a little nervous and you guys both gave me some encouragement i text ryan you know and asked him for some some pointers and i was still at work and i was like i can make it home and do the whole show and i'm glad i did this was fun thanks for having me thanks for the kind words once again thanks for the opportunity for letting me be a a content creator i never really thought of that you know like it's just it's just it's us yeah so yeah thank you guys so much yeah ryan you you rvi crew needs to be a little more active on the x there i noticed on the x yeah i'm not the biggest fan this for years i know i'll i'll i'll get i'll get better at it i gotta get somebody on it better than me i don't like the i get a like like every week or so no i'm just i i'm so bad at it i'm so bad i i'll be first admit to it but no thanks again steve it was a lot of fun with you today man well i know this would be one of many times we're gonna have you on the show and from a guy who went for fifteen minutes to an hour and twenty one minutes at this point you did a great job man and i know you were a little nervous but i told you like i said just be yourself we're gonna be shooting the shit there's three guys having a good time so thanks again for coming all man yeah so steve why don't they why don't they why don't you tell everybody where they can find you besides main event which i'll sort of close with that but where's it from social media handles and and facebook i wanna make sure they have access your content because it's really good so the x is sam w w e sam w w e hold on i gotta look it up they're all different because you know i couldn't get them all the same then the instagram is s dot a dot m underscore w w e and then sam w w e on sam w w e steve on facebook awesome so yeah thank you thanks for reading yeah and don't forget to join the yeah exactly don't forget to join the stacking slabs patreon group w w w dot patreon dot com slash stacking slabs you can get our video content there and see what we're presenting in all of our wonderful beautiful faces also visit r b i crew seven dot com see all the stuff that ryan has posted we are gonna be doing some awesome stuff coming up for the national convention i know ryan's got a bunch of stuff planned as well and then steve and i we are main event wrestling cards w w w dot patreon dot com slash main event wrestling cards next week ryan is going to be taking a well deserved vacation we're gonna have brett mcgrath joining us and jameson long of exquisite sports collectibles hopefully joining us as well can't wait to have them on to take ryan's place and finally get a break from this guy but it's gonna be great i hope you guys will tune in steve thanks again man this has been so much fun and finally get to see you face to face after all the talking we've done it's been great so thank you so much yeah and with that we will see you guys next week big gulps see you later