it's episode eight yes it is i hope everybody's doing well adam how we doing man i i don't know if i can give anything that will eclipse what you have gone through this week like i i think we'll get to it later obviously but like i i've just been living vicariously through you and everything that's been going on for you and and rbi crew seven this week and man what what an absolutely insane experience for you yeah i i'm pitching myself because that am i still dreaming at this point i i have no idea so yeah we'll we'll talk about that but what happened for ripknight across the world a but in o'fallon missouri rbi cruise seven was magical memorable and you couldn't have scripted something as good as what happened here yeah absolutely and i'm i was so excited to see how awesome it went for you guys obviously we'll we're gonna talk about it but like to see how tops was able to execute that across the nation and seeing that this year you guys got to be a part of it was was so cool to see and for those that were listening last week with stephanie she has posted just a ton of content as well so make sure you go on to mama breaks on on instagram she posted a ton of stuff ryan at r b i crew seven he he also posted a ton of stuff facebook too so let's just because we have a special guest coming on here in a few minutes from tops i wanna make sure we have some awesome sort of experience there and but before that i wanna make sure we have time to discuss some of what has been going on as we usually do we'll start with the opening pyro just do a a quick rundown here i i coming into elimination chamber this weekend i was not expecting it to sort of shape up the way that it has and i think that more injuries more problems like it's just snowball effect for wwe right now and i think they've they've made some wrong decisions they've made some right decisions plus we have the box i don't know what's in the box like i don't get it so like there's either gonna be something major that happens at this event or it's gonna completely fall flat on its face and we'll be coming on next week to talk about how the wwe fumbled this but just like even kiana james winning over charlotte flair and joining the elimination chamber roster that wasn't expected just everything that's gone on with bronson reed like that wasn't expected like there's so much happening right now and i feel like the the purpose of this event is getting lost yeah i'm i'm with you on that so obviously i love the keanu james surprise win as you allude to here i think everybody expected cheryl to come out of that and when she didn't it was like okay got a curveball here for once we we obviously kinda it's really predictable and that was a nice curveball plus keanu james has a bright future i think we're seeing that right now but then obviously you alluded to the bronson reed injury which was a freak accident injury off just a basic trying to break up a pen and man is it is if i'm austin theory right now i have to take go to lloyd's of of of london and get the biggest insurance policy that vision the vision is cursed vision is cursed they they are the walking hospital unit yeah and i think i was like oh i i was talking to the shop yesterday i was like yeah bronson reed's gonna win this one there's no question but you gotta pivot in a match when you got a potential serious injury like that you can't have him win and then not be able to perform in five days or six days whatever it was five days yeah so see i think cody runs that was insane and i still that's still i think that's that's somebody pushing their will to the max and that was one of the most memorable matches of his career in my opinion so yes agreed i i am not a keanu james fan i think she's about as interesting as a brock lesnar promo without paul heyman and i think she's a i think she she's just comp her gimmick sucks everything about her is uninteresting personally i really don't see the the bright future that you do but i know a lot of not for me just i think alluding to that this is a step don't take words out of my mouth i may have said that out of context i'm not i'm with you i'm not big on her but she's showing something to somebody to be put in this moment yeah for sure and i i think she's i think she's so uninteresting she's brought down julia who is who is seemingly uninteresting now as well which is so unfortunate because i had such high hopes i think seeing julia and rhea ripley go at it on smackdown a couple weeks ago was absolutely awesome and then they would got blown up by nia jax who should be booed to hell for every for eternity just for depriving us of what happened in that match so let's get into some elimination chamber predictions now that we have all the field filled out do you have a prediction for the men's and women's chamber i think both are probably pretty obvious at this point well i mean the obvious would be probably they're gonna put cody down our throats but do we are we looking at a potential triple threat match at mania with drew cody and randy obviously i'm still sticking by randy more now than ever but are we looking at it with the drew interference this past week against alistair black i mean what what are we looking at here i don't that that win for alistair black just shocked the hell out of me i love alistair black i think i think his skill set is awesome i think his gimmick is awesome but these just book like shit and to see him like come ahead with a win over randy orton is absolutely insane clean or not but yeah i i don't know i i think i think a triple threat match i think running back drew and cody is a bad idea hundred percent and i think adding in jacob fatu or or adding in randy orton or or both of them i hate multi person matches in that respect i think it gets to be a complete train wreck but if there's people that are gonna pull it off it's those people so we can see what happened with the triple threat i had a couple with centimeters punk and roman reigns and seth rollins how awesome that was and the triple threat with bianca and ria nio like there there have been some really good triple threat matches at wrestlemania and they jamie shrew and gunther was that was the best match of year of the year so yeah yeah so i think it can work my i think my pick is is cody i think it's a it's an easy one i don't want that to happen i i would much rather see drew mcintyre randy orton go to battle i think that would be absolutely incredible it's too bad that they're not probably not gonna go that direction but either way i don't know i mean if they if they put keanu james at this moment i mean let's can we can we just get something unpredictable for once we we're and things are just so predictable over the past years i mean the most unpredictable thing was cody rhodes losing the first time to get to roman reigns and maybe i don't think anybody had that one coming on their bingo card so we need something we need to go holy crap didn't see that one coming wow maybe they're pivoting this way i don't know if we're gonna get it obviously we know cody draws names but i don't know why we had drew interfere with orton are we that's why i'm alluding to are we setting this up to be that i don't know because you're not gonna have another ple after this until mania correct i mean they're which yeah which is actually the way injury is already on night's main event there might be a main event but i don't i mean that to me i'm not gonna really count as a legit ple but point being is with injury after injury i think they have to stand to be cautious right now you cannot have more potential wrestlers that are gonna have those wrestlemania moments get hurt leading up to it so i i i like it i think this makes elimination chamber much more enjoyable knowing that this is it before mania unless it's a saturday at my event which i just count as an extra smackdown roll yeah i don't know man like i i i i hear what you're saying we had an unpredictable royal rumble last year with jey u so i think that did not go well i i think like the the idea that the community just wants something new wants someone new every single time i think like there's a reason why rhea ripley is always in the main event there's a reason why roman reigns and randy orton and all those guys are always in the main event because they can be trusted to handle their business and do it well and this and they can't fuck this up like they can't they can't deal with wrestlemania being messed up from the women's chamber side i i gotta go with tiffany stratton i think if bianca belair actually had surgery on her finger and it really looks like she did she had a video posted with stitches in her finger she's obviously not gonna make it back if it's a work then then that's a pretty elaborate one maybe she comes out of the box i don't know but i i think that would be that tiffany stratton versus jade cargill i think it's time to move on from jade if they can't bring bianca back in time yeah i think they're having a pivot to tiffy on this one because of the bianca injury unless like you said we're getting psyched out or whatever but i i would think bianca's storyline has a lot more to go with it to build up but if that is a true surgery injury then yes tiffy makes the most sense that would be my pick i don't know but i think it was are we gonna have bianca win back to back years of chamber but that's that was a really good point yeah that was just like that doesn't really happen but then she could say i was the first girl ever to do that whatever but i'm with you on that one if she can't be in there tiffy just makes the most sense to go on and face jade so becky versus aj lee is next i i don't know how you book this match i really don't either either you unveil like somebody for becky that can tip the scales in her favor and win in a heelish way or because i you can't beat aj lee in chicago and not have people riot so like how does this go down where somebody walks out of this match and becky's still the champion and aj doesn't lose like you've booked yourself into a shitty corner mhmm and i don't get it like why why are they doing this match at in an elimination chamber versus at wrestlemania maybe they maybe that's the reason why they run it back at wrestlemania but additionally if aj lee's gonna stay part time which it seems like she is are now you're gonna have roman and aj both be part time champions i think that's that's unrealistic for the show yeah i don't really know how they're gonna play this one out i think there's like a fork in the road and flip a coin and they're just gonna go down one way or the other i don't i i think ideally yes becky getting some type of interference who could that be i don't know hard to let aj lose clean becky's not gonna beat her clean no matter what no no absolutely you know so yeah it's a problem like is maybe aj's gonna wrestle a lot more leading up but let's be honest a lot of these champions don't wrestle until the main ples anymore so unless you're seeing punk or yeah it's true wanna be a fighting champion so i could see that i just again i think we're in agreement here that this should have been held for wrestlemania maybe there's a bigger purpose why but we've been building this story lineup for a long time to just get it at a lemonade chamber get it to chicago but that's home of centimeters punk you know i guess it's his wife but i don't really know man that one that one just throws me that baffles me yeah centimeters punk versus ballard i don't think we have any questions here it's just a matter of what they're gonna throw at this is this something where the box comes into play maybe this is i i don't even know man like the i why you booked this match either like i i think it's i think because you wanna see if centimeters punk fight in his hometown hey they had they had a very great match in ballard's hometown i think this is gonna be a turning point where ballard finally leaves the judgment day and we we get the next version of ballard which hopefully we get to see the demon come back so i think this is gonna be an all around great match to watch it will be for sure it's a great it's gonna be an awesome gosh neil just heard me in the window talking about ballard he goes i hear you talking about ballard he talking about ballard that's funny oh that's great so i i we don't see a pucks walking out there's no question about that alright cool let's get into some high spots here for the card market and we're gonna start with the with the main with the main story from last week rip knight last saturday i i just watching the video i i'm just gonna tell you from my perspective outside looking in that you give your perspective actually being there like when you put somebody in a in a position like this they either sink or swim and we've seen you know we saw athletes go all over the countries but the difference between a basketball player and football player like you can be the best football player in the world and have no personality you can be the best basketball player in the world and have no personality you cannot be the best wrestler in the world and have no personality so they know what to do they know how to act they know how to be on stage and randy orton at rbi crew seven was an epic experience it looked amazing people were going nuts he looks like he was having fun gave you that video at the end with the shout out saying he wants to run it back i mean i you can't ask for more yeah so i mean i'm a tell a story about it but first off dude they say don't meet your heroes unless your hero's randy orton that's what i'll say like and it's weird saying here i'm only like three years younger so ideally here's how it goes down these athletes are only required to be at a store or wherever they go for twenty minutes that's in their contract a lot of it's like time minutes everything it's up to the athlete at that point or wrestler or whatever if they want what they wanna do so orton comes in we all get the introduction we're in the in my side of my warehouse by the way orton has no idea what's waiting for him behind the door at this point does not know how many people are here what's outside the door so we're talking and i'm introduced myself and you know i introduced my family and they're like the guys from tops are talking i'm like hey you don't have to do any autographs he goes i'll sign so i was like okay that's that's good you know and i and i said i'll introduce you out you know you come out whenever you want so we cue the music he comes out and the video that you see and i have another one from tops that didn't get posted was his genuine reaction to going looking at the crowd of people i mean there literally was a person from the the front all the kids were up front we made sure all the kids were in front that was awesome thing we strategically did we roped off and then we said once we knew every kid was in we'd funnel them off to get all the adults in from that point to our door there were so many people orton sees this and you could see his reaction he goes wow yeah okay and he was high fiving kids he was just awesome so then we get started and i entered you know i said well one thing is randy this may be randy's first time in our shop but randy's here every day he's over on that wall over there he's been here for years we're just glad to finally have him in here and i said you know this is my goat and he literally looks at the picture my buddy watches eyes he scopes the whole shop and there's not one other athlete on the wall he shakes it in terms of he goes i'm signing that before i leave like quietly i'm like okay so then we get to ask him a question the question i asked was do you collect he got a little bit into white he collects his own stuff a lot of it was he keeps everything that he can because his dad didn't keep anything so i think his dad regretted that so but then i was supposed to ask him one more question that question was gonna be if you could collect the next up and coming star who would it be however kids started raising their hand can i ask you a question i can ask a question and randy looks at me and i'm like go for it you know yeah so then we dive into pack wars and so kids are going crazy we made sure all the kids got a pack of cactus jack and we gave out like sixty packs only kids got it wow and kids started handing them stuff will you sign will you sign will you sign he starts signing and i'm sitting next to him he leans back to me he goes i'm not leaving until everybody in this building gets an autograph and i'm like i go but hey you have liv morgan charlotte flair all these other wrestling cards kids are handing you would you prefer to sign your own cards he goes do you have some i go do i have some give me five minutes so i run back to my office i'm like crack guru in that box there's a ton of cac to check i've done so many randy orton breaks find me every randy orton card you can and bring it to me so i had a few on my desk already i run it back and he's signing man and he signs for everybody and he's signing potentially multiple times adding the viper inscription at times signing at this point we start seeing people bring in chairs and belts and all this stuff but he then answered every question if somebody asked a question he answered it somebody can i get a selfie he did i'm not kidding when he said every person here it was every person got that opportunity with him that's so cool i don't know how many hundreds of people were in our store i'm surprised the fire department didn't show up so that was amazing do you have a question because i got a second part to tell you well no i was gonna say like and he got to see your collection too which was even more impressive so yeah so after it all dissipated we we said hey at the end you know can you come back here we have a private room set up for this we need you to do a little ripping content so then i've got that opportunity i have a video it's a personal video that i don't i'll probably share with adam but was him looking at my collection and me and him talking for five minutes him genuinely seemed impressed with it started showing up some stuff what it meant i talked about my two impeccable autographs that have five inscriptions on each and he said man this is these are rare like i don't think i've signed more than three or four of these in my life and i said oh i know i it's been a toll on teeth to get these but then he started asking one of the tops guys what's some of this worth five six hundred bucks and the guy goes i think a little bit more and i said i'm gonna intervene here i paid six thousand for this one sixty five hundred he goes what i go buddy you're you're not cheap on me randy and he calls his wife over and he's like kim come over here you gotta listen to this but i think he was genuinely enjoyed it he never once felt like he had to rush out he's like what do i need to do next what do i need to do i had his wife and daughter with him they were amazing the whole time man he was here for over two hours we had to start our trade night later we had we were like thirty minutes late because we're like we're just gonna tell people that line's gonna have to wait we need to make sure this is opportunity that everybody got right and i just i don't i don't have any i don't know what else amazing things to say about him i can't thank tops enough for making this happen this was truly a dream come true not just for me but so many people this is memories for these kids to last for life these adults i mean so many smiles on people's face we had people coming back the next day saying how amazing that was and we were told to advertise no autographs no autographs so i had some people like reach out like well you told me he wasn't signing i'm like i was told he wasn't he said otherwise so ho hopefully we can get it back in the store one day he did sign the thing out there it says two rba crew seven thanks for everything randy opened with a viper inscription that was the only thing that i got autographed for myself and i wasn't gonna ask one for me i actually i got like all my kids here my nephews got them and then i made sure the two police officers on duty got some autographs and he was great man he dude i i pinched me let's let's put it that way you're you're listening to two people that have had opportunities to spend extend extended periods of time with their collected pc and both of our experiences are were were so absolutely incredible wwe knows how to train their people and i think they kinda train themselves and they're they're told by you know the the guys like randy orton like you gotta be like the fans are the reason we're here and i think it's different for a lot of the athletes although i've met a ton of athletes too and it's rare that they're you know jerks or whatever but i've never met a wrestler that hasn't been absolutely incredible and i think the time that both of us have spent with the different people we collect i mean i i can't say enough good things it's it's a life changing experience it really is and you guys are thinking like oh this is the stupidest thing i've ever heard like how could that actually be true and you know i'm just telling you like it is and like this is they make it memorable yeah and and to go with that real quick life changing for us is it i i know after you met becky and now that i've met orton you walked out of that opportunity and go i'm glad i invest into them and i collect them you know you're you makes you feel like so much appreciative that how they were and how you got that you know experience to where i'm like i'm i'm still all in you know i'm all in more now than ever you know more than ever yeah exactly than ever like in doesn't mean i'm paying x amount but yeah but it's man it just was and the best part is i got to experience this with my my initial family my other family my friends my staff man he it just again i i still can't i i'm trying to find the right words to say here man i'm just so blown away by it yeah it it feels like that and i i wanna just highlight like tops may have had some struggles with getting product out on time or whatever you know there's a lot of different things that the community wants to say but the power of this partnership and the ability for wwe's to collectors to travel like they do like this was a wild success across the entire nation topps did an incredible job of getting people excited i can't say enough good things about rib knight and just the program in general we have a guest coming on in about fifteen minutes so i wanna make sure we can get through the rest of the stuff so maybe after we'll we'll come back and and do some more talking about this because it's worth it but man what an incredible experience for you i wanna talk quickly about tops universe because it is happening we are getting universe it's coming i wanna thanks tops today for sending over all the images of the becky lynch cards for me i i'm so excited for this like i didn't expect to be excited for this you never do the fomo always takes over it's gonna be awesome and like you know people in the community really don't understand sort of like if you're not a wrestling collector you don't understand what we've been going through the last probably year or so as as there hasn't been much product but when something new comes out and it looks the way that this does like we're gonna get really excited checklist you know it was built a while ago right so we saw this being signed at wrestlemania forty one almost a year ago product lead times are six to nine months before that so you have a lot of people in this that are no longer with wwe or they've moved on or they've changed gimmicks that happens and i think we're gonna have some growing pains but i don't think it takes away from how awesome this product looks and you know when i saw this being signed at wrestlemania forty one i was like okay and then now that i've seen the images like color full bleed whatever like i feel like it's it's really really well done and it that's the way tops usually works like when you see these cards at first you're kind of like okay i gotta reserve judgment until i see this in hand and then once you actually get the opportunity to do that it just it becomes something completely different yeah i'm i'm with adam on this one like i've been excited for this one for a while once they start issuing some especially the randy orton autograph that's you know match one relic and stuff like that for me but again this has a revolution feel but i feel like you're gonna get more bang for your buck out of this you're gonna get more packs a you get three hits a box two autos one relic where revolution wasn't guaranteed we're getting ongoing autos anything yeah you won't guarantee anything and i love revolution but this feels like a step up from revolution i get we're not gonna have galactics or kabooms but i think they're adding a lot of other elements we've already seen some insert surface on ebay already i'm assuming coming from blasters cards look great the more and more we're seeing this but again what adam alluded to you're probably gonna get the braun strowman autos and a lot of these people that are no longer with the company as some of these autographs again when you have to deliver so many hits you get a lot of not the top tier wrestlers there or not with them anymore but overall when you're paying for kakashak two fifty three hundred dollars a box you're not guaranteed you pay three right now these are trending about three hundred dollars a box is what they're doing on the secondary level not initial tops website to me it seems like an absolute no brainer to rip three hundred dollars especially that we've waited this long to finally get a product i'm excited i can't wait i'm already buying spots and breaks i know this man as well yeah and we'll have tops on here in a couple of minutes and we'll go into this a little bit more deep so i don't wanna go spend a ton of time here but and we'll talk about it with tim and and the tops team i think one thing i wanna mention is like i'm a little concerned that the community won't understand the importance of the relics that are in these cards each of these relics are event worn match worn gear like we're talking about we're not talking about shirts that are worn for a couple of seconds at a signing these are worn on tv they're collected from wwe they're caught up and embedded in these cards we've seen gear from bron breakker we've seen gear from johnny gargano and tom tommaso ciampa like there's there's a lot of different relic types in here i've seen the becky one she has multiple things from gear and shirts and stuff like that it looks awesome i'm i'm like there's gonna be a lot more single colors there's gonna be a lot more you know dual colored stuff instead of these bright giant logos like panini was able to to cultivate because they could choose the shirts that they were gonna have the wrestlers wear it doesn't take away from those cards because those cards are awesome too but i think like it adds a level of connection that collectors will get in this versus what they would see in in another set from panini or even from the previous era of tops where we had no idea where these were coming from so i think like that element of this should be sort of noted by the community and stuff and and i wanna i wanna get on to the sales real fast because we'll talk about this a little bit more with tops but you know do do you agree like we we need to i think the education level is maybe a little low here so the value may not respond right away yeah i think it's gonna take a little bit i think a lot of the tops they used to do was a lot of matt warren stuff and i think this is definitely stepping up in a tremendous way that we could see more potential two three colors in these patches versus something again i think it's gonna take a lot of educating on that front but i think that those relics should gear more than just a basic relic yes yep i wanna start here just because i know randy orton is close to ryan's heart but more importantly right now i'm wearing a shirt actually yeah so it's actually really close yes so i'm i'm highlighting here a flawless star swatch signature sold for randy orton out of fifteen sold for almost eleven hundred dollars like the reason i'm highlighting the sale is not because it's some revolutionary number or whatever like some crazy huge sale it is a big sale but i wanna highlight the importance of like how much these flawless cards have skyrocketed in value and really i i posted an article on main event wrestling cards talking about the the importance of like some of these rare and desirable hits and man like there is there is a there's like anything that just has any correlation to a big name wrestler a big name you know anything huge huge spike in value recently and this one just caught my eye because it's the card out of fifteen not exactly the most crazy relic but it's like holy shit like this is insane i'm happy i got all mine from breaks and started hoarding them in the first year of release good lord yeah we also had a a hulk hogan super fracture autograph or not autograph sorry not autograph just the variations one of the variations correct four thousand dollars that's offered on ebay these cards just continue to go up we've seen huge sales on a lot of the super factors even though there's like twelve different hulk hogan ones there's like fourteen different randy orton ones like the rock has a bunch of them becky has a bunch of them so i mean like i know we've all collected our fair share but these like again you have these rare and desirable cards these huge hits from topps from panini from everybody and you just start to see these these prices just jump and jump and jump and i don't think that and i i believe it or not this isn't even the the the only one there was another one that sold for thirty two hundred was so i mean was the four thousand hour one is that the one that he came out when brett hart was fighting yokozuna and then he beat yokozuna is that one so yeah that was looks like in the background stuff yes it does yes so they they made a variation for every every different wrestlemania that they or every championship that they won yeah and so yeah this is just again we're just seeing massive ones another one sold thirty two hundred dollars on alt just i mean it's just insane and oh by the way even like wrestlers like lola weiss who have a mid nine superfactor autograph sell via best offer on ebay for thirty five hundred dollars like there's just it's it's just constant you know amazing numbers applied to these major hits the super factors especially panini black one of ones the game is changing man the game is changing big money is here and i know people are are getting upset but and like stuff like that but oh it's not even the only one there was another lola vice that sold for twelve hundred and fifty dollars as well from cactus jack so i mean like lola vice is an up and coming wrestler she's young she's gonna probably have a a pretty extended future and you know people are want her cards because she's a rookie and because you know she's she's coming up she's you can prospect on these things but man to see like you know you have a cactus jack superfractor auto sell for twelve fifty you have the superfractor from top sell for for thirty five hundred dollars like there's probably a collector chasing these and that's awesome to see like i love seeing collectors you know or or even just big numbers for this because it just provides that validation right absolute no absolutely and i think it's one of those things where there's only so much out there and this is her first year of tops that people are just trying to if you believe in her or there's a couple of people that do you're you're in bidding and you're just trying to swoop it up as fast as you can yeah so before our guest joins us i i wanna highlight sort of how we arrange this like topps it it has told us they're they're listening to the podcast they are following the content they've been huge supporters of ryan and i for a very long time i i mentioned a couple of things that they have sent our way cannot thank them enough for their support thank you they were they were you know very very cooperative with us to send tim trout who's gonna join us here in a minute as soon as they they join on we'll add them and man i'm so excited to have tops' support here they they've done such a great job supporting the community in that respect so as soon as we have tim join us we're gonna switch over to that interview we'll have him for a few minutes ask some questions and then we'll come back and close it up.

welcome back to book to last we have a special guest with us tim trout who is the lead for the combat team and product director for tops wwe as well tim thank you so much for joining us it's it's awesome to have you here and have tops on the broadcast we were talking earlier about how much we appreciate the support and and thank you for coming on well thanks for having me guys love to talk about our products we'd love to hear about it i'm excited yeah it's i think for for everybody that that's been listening for the last eight episodes like you know we we've had tops reach out to us and tell us that you know they're obviously monitoring a a lot of the stuff that's going on in the community and and just love to have these types of conversations to to be able to to sell the the the importance of of what they're doing with wwe tim do you wanna just give a quick background on kind of like how you came to topps and sort of what your connection is to wwe just from your background sure so i've been i've been in the industry for well i mean since i was about six years old collecting but professionally it's pretty much the only industry i've really ever worked in i started at beckett years and years ago and then moved over to panini was there for quite a while and came over here to tops recently about three years ago and i've been working on kind of these same sports for a long time so it's kind of old hat to just kinda slide right back into what i was doing yeah that's good to hear man and have you enjoyed it so far like what's what's been your impression of sort of like be becoming a part of the wwe community because we we tend to have some rabid fans we kinda have a very passionate community what are you talking about for sure i've actually you know going back i mean i i've i've been watching wwe or back when it was wwf for years so i i go back to again when i started collecting at six i was probably about eight or ten when i started watching wrestling so i've been one of those fans for quite some time so to actually be involved in it it's really cool because you get to actually work and your your day job is something that you're passionate about and it's something that you love i mean the hobby the cards i've been into this forever and it's really the only thing i know so i'm just blessed that i get the opportunity to work in it and be a part of it so it's it's not really a job if you do if you love what you do as much as you do that's what i was told at a young age find something you love and you'll never work a day in your life exactly exactly but you work more hours than you wanna admit right that's always helping that's fair yeah that's fair yes so do you are you a collector yourself have you have you been collecting stuff yeah i've yeah i've been collecting and and my primary sport was baseball growing up and i love baseball you know i basketball popped up for me and i grew up kind of in the midwest so i was a big cubs fan a big chicago bulls fan so you could probably guess where my allegiance is there or what i've collected but jordan was a big player for me yeah and then with wwe i started collecting wwe probably early man it would be mid i guess mid eighties when i saw some of the first tops cards come out you know the the eighty five it was iconic eighty five yeah exactly and and you know i was growing up i was a big hulk hogan fan love the hulkster love junkyard dog for whatever reason those were my guys when i was first going and then you know over time and and i find and and some of the guys here give me a hard time because i do find that i tend to lean into you know the guys that are promoting and pushing the hardest those are the guys that are really kinda collected you know the the john cenas of the world the rock those are the guys that i loved and i was like gosh i love this but you know growing up where i did seth rollins is from my hometown oh you have a you have a a kindred seth rollins fan in ryan here as well i do i super collect him too yeah those are two guys i collect man that's that's awesome yeah it's great to hear man and i i love talking to people about their connection with wwe just because it's it's always like a a fun story because everybody has that like connection at some point in their past and i think that's a lot of the reason why we collect too is because of like the passion and the nostalgia so it must be cool to be able to sort of inject that into the products then from your role oh absolutely and and you know you get you you watch the shows every week and and for somebody like myself i've been watching for a long time and i go way back i remember i actually remember the very first show that my dad took me to i was probably eight or nine years old and i got to see ricky the dragon and i got to see jake the snake and i got to see i don't know if you remember back then but ricky the dragon had a little kimono dragon that he would bring out when jake the snake and they were some rivals the snake would come out and i was you know a a terrified eight year old seeing all this going what has you know but i couldn't stop watching and it just has carried with me ever since that's awesome so i wanted i i know we don't have a a ton of time here just i wanna make sure we have an opportunity to talk about tops universe talk about some of the things that are coming out as previewed on on tops social media man i universe is is out at today if as you're listening here so if you're if you're joining us on patreon or if you're joining us on spotify or apple or where you get your podcast you're probably working through your own sort of experience first boxes with universe like in terms of your looking at this product it's the first one to have sort of the event use relics ryan and i were talking about that earlier in the podcast like talk to me about sort of your experience with universe and building the product and sort of how that how that all came together sure so the the idea for universe was you know the wwe universe right it it's everything it's it's the fans it's the superstars it's everything about it and that was kind of the idea behind it you know we want to have the deepest checklist we want to include as many you know active retired as many legends everything we could but then when you you go to that next level it's like well what else is part of the universe well they do tables ladders and chairs they have you know all the different relics that you could come up with whether it's ladders turnbuckles everything possible canvas you know and then of course their gear you know that that's part of it you know and that's actually a really big part of it and and we're really excited because we were able to acquire some real gear which is something that if you're a wwe collector you probably haven't seen a whole lot of over the last it's tough years mhmm right you you get one or two things and canvas is canvas was always a little bit easier and and working on this in the past it was you know something we get and every once in a while you might get something but you just don't always and and we've actually worked with the wwe quite a bit and their talent reps to to acquire the stuff from the superstars themselves whether it's you know a robe from cody that he may have used and one of the ples or a pair of boots from the rock or something like that which things like that you're gonna be seeing in the future as well but for us to get stuff direct from like kevin owens we got some of his some of his shorts from one of his first matches in nxt that you will see in this program but you know we have things like ring ropes we have that from wrestlemania thirty two for for aj styles trash can we have one of those from alexa bliss from extreme rules just kinda looking through just the list i mean there's there's so many really cool relics that we've not seen in this industry before seen in in in at least wwe and we're super excited about it yeah i i remember when you were previewing some of the stuff at wrestlemania you had like the undertaker's hats like you had a a lily doll from alexa bliss you had bray wyatt's mask which i know ryan is gonna be chasing to the ends of the earth like so many awesome son not for me for my nine year old son the legend the legend that kid cost me so much money but i love him now i got the other two wanting to get into it so i i just i don't know if college is gonna be in the future so that is so cool it's so cool to get kids involved too especially you know it's as we get a little bit older and we have kids and when you can share some passions like that with the kids especially if if they're into the wwe and they sit there and watch it with you and then you can kinda share your experience because i'm assuming both of you guys collected growing up as well which is kinda fueled your passion so it's really cool when you get to share that and then it gives you some other stuff to go chase absolutely my kids have not shown the interest quite yet they like pokemon a lot but they're gonna be they're gonna they're they're exposed to this every day i wanna cover real quickly some of these inscriptions that tops has sort of made their hallmark for chrome and for finest and cactus jack and now universe like was that something like you guys set out from the beginning like hey we wanna add this unique sort of element to the autographs which tend to be pretty common these days right every product has them so adding these levels of inscription i mean we see that saw the ethan page one like don't bother me at the airport or whatever so i mean like so many of these things are awesome and they're huge they they translate so well on the market like people just absolutely go nuts for these absolutely so so with universe we wanted again we wanted to bring this one this is one where you the universe is the fan as well and we wanted to bring this as close to the fans as we can right and and when we had the designs created we said give a little bit more space because hopefully we'll get nice signatures we'll get some big signatures maybe we'll get some inscriptions love it and when we when we start and that's the cool part is we get to sit with a lot of these guys and gals and just we sit there we do the signing we talk about whatever they wanna chat about and every once in while we're like they're like you know they'll see something unique on a card they'll see an image and they'll be like oh that's cool and they're like you know what you can write something about it on there you can add something you know and then you get somebody like kevin owens who's gonna write nonsense right you guys are taking out kate are not really brothers or whatever he wrote down in yeah so it's it's really cool to sit with him and then and sometimes we'll ask him hey you might this is a one zero one or do you mind adding something here and and they're all so personable they they love to do this stuff so so they will and and you just sometimes you just kinda say you kinda go on your own and you let them have the floor like kofi kingston correct yeah goes a little i love it he goes a little label it's great so as as you sort of are building out your your roster of products and we've seen royalty come to ufc we saw how successful it was there we saw it in tennis as well and basketball and and everything now it's coming to wwe it's gonna be one of the hallmark products of the entire release calendar and oh by the way you have these wrestlemania one zero one auto relics worn at the event for historic matches right you have john cena's seventeenth title you have jay uso's first title you know all of these different things are captured in these relics and for the first time like collectors are gonna get to experience this unlike anything else like what when you saw this come to to fruition and you're like we're gonna do this and it's gonna be awesome like what was your reaction so well number one i'm blown away that we were able the team did an amazing job top to bottom everywhere to pull this off so i i gotta give big kudos to those guys but i will tell you the kind of the idea behind doing the wrestlemania patches you know we were kinda looking you know we we we a lot of us collect all the other sports whether it's nfl or nba the you know you get the shields you get the bat knobs you get all this really cool stuff and we were thinking we need to have something like that and our idea was you know this is like an nba logo man or a shield we could do something at wrestlemania have them all wear them and that's kinda how it took off and it's you know they're obviously one on ones they're unique and then working with wwe to pull this off has been just truly amazing and i will tell you it's so cool that you might see more of this in the future yes we did we did see them wearing more patches on tv so that is something that you're not gonna be able to hide for long okay but i'm excited i mean like these types of things you don't get like you don't get shohei ohtani's like you know relics as much like you had the fifty fifty products you had some of those other things that are tied to specific events but this is a little bit different for wrestling because we've never had that before and i think being able to experience this alongside you know every one of the people in the community that just live for this stuff like it's really cool so ryan i i know that you wanted to to ask a couple of questions as well just in terms of like kind of your own experience with ripknight and everything like that anything that you wanted to cover here just as we get into some of the the fan experience parts of of of topps and fanatics relationship with wwe first off i wanna second these wrestlemania patches what i love most about these obviously cards look beautiful and you guys love you know an area for inscriptions but you can look at that and it tells a story because wrestlemania is the super bowl of wrestling we know that and we know exactly what match this was tied to and we remember that because obviously we know oh that was wrestlemania forty one that was this and i think you're gonna see record breaking numbers for these types of cards that we've never seen before wrestling i think we're gonna see massive jumps from like the highest selling ever card of the superstar i i think it's gonna change the game i really do and i think it's gonna really open up the eyes to a lot of people like wait why did this bring this much and then you can educate people on it so kudos to you guys for bringing this over to wrestling this is something that wrestling card collectors needed for a long time so again i love it i'm excited i'm gonna go broke by an orton and rollins i hope but i i'm all about these and i i hope this continues and again royalty is gonna be amazing i cannot wait we can't wait either and and just the patches alone are going to be huge but we have some other really cool stuff coming in there and i i'm sure you guys previewed some of this and seen some of this all ready relics and everything with yeah the casket relics and such so what cool story about that is we we were able to actually go up to meet with wwe when we first got started we got to go meet with them and a couple of the guys on my team our first meeting was with a gentleman named paul and they called us and i'm like paul paul leveck yeah that's you know and my team and i when we go up there we're like dude we're gonna meet with triple h so it was really cool and then he was telling me he's like you know we have kind of a warehouse of just as he put it a bunch of old crap i'm probably cleaning it up a little bit for you but he said we have all this old stuff that you can do whatever you want with and we're like wait really well not a hundred percent because when we when we got a chance to go visit this warehouse they have a gentleman that's kind of i i would consider him like a historian for them and he's been going out and acquiring old relics old you know some old gear and stuff that he's like no we wanna have this for display and if we ever do like a hall of fame or something like that but we can probably get some of the stuff for you so we have some really cool stuff queued up for you guys and for all the fans out there and i i i can't believe the access and some of the cool stuff number one that i've gotten to see up there but then also that we're actually going to be able to put into product i have to tell you one of the coolest things that i saw was i don't know if you remember when i'm sure you do when when they blew up vince's limo yes yeah yeah they have that limo in there oh my gosh busted up and wow they have all of this and it was the coolest thing to see and then you know one one of the guys on our team noticed the masks that you might be chasing oh okay i'm very excited yeah we have those is this like was this like going in the raiders of lost ark just watching all this right here i mean like right exactly oh man it was massive and you just go from one area to the next and every time you turn it's like oh my gosh look at that oh my gosh look at that it was so many cool things and being a person who's been in this industry for a long time and working with all the different sports you know you get like the babe ruth jersey that you wanna cut up or you don't wanna cut up you know you kinda go on that but you see all these really cool relics that that have not been out there for the public and then you're getting access to some of them it it is so exciting and you know i'm already passionate about the cards i'm already passionate about the industry and i just can't wait to share all this cool stuff with y'all man that's awesome one thing on randy orton he was telling the crowd how he collects and one of the things he has if everybody remembers the mick foley cactus jack randy orton match with all the thumbtacks and he said that he has a jar full of them still where they were taken out his boots well then his wife was telling me that we have some with blood on him because they were pulling out of his back and they're in this jar and i'm like that is incredible that's insane and he shared that story i was like this is just awesome to hear you know mhmm and that was a revolutionary match for him and his career that changed everything everybody looked at him so not to i didn't bring randy back in this but that was kind of like kinda going to you it's just to hear that like randy yeah those are awesome so i wanted to talk quickly because ryan obviously had an epic experience at rib night we were just complimenting like how well that was put together mean tell me a little bit about like fanatics fest and sort of some of the things that wwe has enabled topps to sort of participate in wwe world like providing that unforgettable experience for the collectors and we travel well as we've said so like it it becomes such an awesome experience to see all the wwe representation at those events and how topps is sort of integrating into that well wwe is they're awesome with their marketing they're they do an amazing job and for example fanatics fest the first one we did when we we gave you know the heads up to all the different leagues and said here's what we're doing put something together that you think would be really cool for fans and wwe was clearly the one who got probably the best memo i mean they understood the mission and they had the entrance they had the walkout and they i mean they stole the show no pun intended i mean they absolutely stole it and they're they're just amazing at what they do and it and it's so much it makes it so much easier to work with them and just because they provide the access and they wanna be a part of it they want everything we wanna promote for our trading cards they wanna promote for the trading cards they wanna promote it they wanna be involved in providing some of their some of their talent some of the superstars to show up at these rick nights and just be involved it's well as ryan had the amazing experience and i'd only heard about it and then i'm like i'm blown away i'm blown away by this but the superstars and just sitting with some of them they're they're amazing and they're so engaging and they wanna be a part of this it's it's different than some sports you might run into where they're you know they're time and they're moving but these guys are very down to earth and very they wanna they wanna interact right may maybe not at the airport but everybody here yep and and they wanna connect with their fans because their fans are what feeds them and keeps them you know on tv yep that makes sense that makes sense and i think like you know obviously maybe twenty twenty five didn't work out the way that you guys had hoped just with a number of things in the hopper but twenty twenty six looks primed man like it looks like this is gonna pop off and i think we've covered quite a bit here of just some of the things that you're excited about we recently just saw the first images from exalted the official previews like i i'm beyond excited for this i think as you guys continue to get ramped up this year it's only gonna get crazier and crazier i have a feeling absolutely yeah we're we're super excited about everything and twenty five we still have a couple to go but we'll get them out the door soon and then twenty six is jam packed we have some really cool stuff coming in twenty six too awesome if you're listening to them right now save your money for all your breaks and ripping because it's gonna be an impactful year for wrestling cards absolutely tim thank you so much for for joining us i i don't wanna hold you up too much longer i know how busy things are these days we appreciate you coming on and hopefully we can have you back on at some point in the future as well once more of this is is out and everybody gets to celebrate with you absolutely i i had a pleasure being on with y'all thank you tim thank you so much i appreciate it tim trout everybody from tops wwe we're gonna be right back here in a minute

alright so great interview with tim from tops wwe so happy that he was able to join us we're gonna probably do that hopefully as a regular thing here that would be great i will have more surprise guests and unlock new characters as brett always likes to say hopefully as we get going anything else that you wanted to just sort of end with i know it's been such a a whirlwind week for you ryan i mean man like this is you can't really beat having all of this universe releasing elimination shaver you get the knee randy orton like can you nail out like a a a better experience in that respect i i just i don't know if this will ever be top like it's one of those things my wife even said to me she's like you've literally probably gotten everything you've ever dreamed about getting in life and this is probably the last thing she's like there's probably only one other athlete you'd wanna meet that's lebron james i'm like be cool but like i don't think i need to meet him i think meet orton i do wanna meet rollins i think that i i just feel like in the future that's gonna happen i think we've actually got some connections with some people that we know so i hope that one day i can get to meet him and but nobody tops orton to me you know orton is my goat he is the number one on my list i mean he has been my focal point of collecting and wrestling cards when i got back in seth rollins is kinda like the secondary but just to to again to have that opportunity in our store for him to use the words rbi crew seven in his you know in his voice recording and for him to just really he made a lot of comments he's a really nice store here he he really like i think everything was done well we even had the police officers was telling me like we've run events like because they're off duty cops this was one of the best ran events we've ever seen you guys did a kiddo's job tops has definitely reached out and praised us and i'm i i don't wanna take any credit like this to me like i have an amazing team and they're all awesome and we all stressed out to make sure this went perfectly as it did and it exceeded every expectation anybody had so again i wanna thank you again randy orton who will not listen to this and topps who will probably listen to this for making this happen for not just me for so many people because you in a one week span i get orton in my shop i get wwe universe and i get elimination chamber actually now today i'm having elimination chamber party at my house that night we'll we'll have nice weather so i'll have my outdoor tv going we'll be playing bags i'll have the tv on inside so what what a great week what a great weather sixty nine to seven degree weather on saturday yeah i'm i'm in so again just a memory and a moment that i won't forget i'm glad i got to experience this with my kids and my wife that was the most important part because i could've got a one on one picture with randy and i was like nope i want my family in this moment like this is why i'm here i wouldn't be who i am today without my wife without my kids and i wanna share this special moment with them that was the most important thing to me than anything and just the amount of people who reached out and said like there's nobody that was more deserving and needed you know it was awesome to have people still do that and reach out today i saw people reach out saying i couldn't think of anybody who deserve having randy orton in their store more than anybody like you and and that means a lot to me you know and i'm not yeah i'm i wanted to come out like you know this this past weekend was just so difficult i get it with with everything but i mean to see that you guys were able to to connect with stephanie and and everything there awesome yeah stephanie and and eddie came out sorry forgot obviously to mention them they were amazing by the way eddie is a master of his own craft he we have a lot of content coming from that in the future a lot of it you'll get to see a lot of my randy orton cards but thank you again to them for for making the trip out i they documented so much for me to to so i could just enjoy the moment which was awesome yeah and so next week i think we're probably gonna do a normal show i don't think we'll have a guest next week just because we wanna spend a lot of time going through sort of what we're seeing for universe correct man like just hearing tim talk about everything i think was great he's clearly passionate about it like i know like wrestling products built by wrestling fans tend to resonate a lot better with the community and clearly tim has a history with this and he's worked with panini and topps now like there's there's a there's a good person at the helm and i i really liked sort of the way that he was categorizing that obviously royalty is gonna be insane i think there's no way shape or form that that's not gonna be just gangbusters in so many different ways i think even exalted you know there's there's a lot to yet to be sort of understood for a lot of these products because we don't know like we haven't seen them but like we're seeing chrome we're seeing exalted we're seeing all these signed it shows like topps is really doing their part to to at least inform that hey we know things may have not gone the way that we were hoping for in twenty twenty five but we are gonna come with all guns blazing on in twenty twenty six cannot wait for that fanatics fest is gonna be crazy i think wrestlemania is gonna be crazy in a month or two here like i wish i could make it out for these events i i think that's one of the challenges of having so many kids like i do is like you you just you just can't break away you have a shop and everything too so it's even more difficult for you but you know i'm excited i think like this this week proved like hey the excitement still exists like i there was some concern like oh people have given up on this oh people you know whatever i've seen the the the commentary on social media sort of fluctuate back and forth but i think the reaction at least today from the images that top sent me and like all the things that they've been previewing is like people are raring to go they are chomping at the bit and they want this to be awesome just like we do so yeah that's that's good to see i mean i think topps despite the challenges that they had last year still manages to cultivate this experience for the collector that is really tough to to to to deny and especially from a passionate wrestling space like this yeah and i'll to second that one thing is people gotta remember as a collector do you want a sticker auto or do you want it on car with the potential chance of that big inscription and also one thing that tops us best is limiting redemptions out there you know there those are things that they wanna get tied down i mean who wants to pull redemption of one of their favorite superstars and then have to wait for them to sign i get it does happen but on card autos to me are massive and they're huge and with now we're talking match worn relics and we heard tim say what some of this stuff was from just makes it more enjoyable as a collector and the excitement around it i think there's just gonna be more and more hype around this product because again not only itching but we're getting i think gonna be a really good product in my opinion yeah i mean like ryan and i are realistic people i mean like we're we're we're not blind to sort of what's been going on i don't think tops is either i think they've made that very clear in the conversations that i've had with them and i think their team is is great at listening to feedback if you if you have the avenues to provide it i know there's a lot of people that do and i i think like from a from a perspective of like whether or not this is going to improve or continue down a path that i think people have been upset about i don't think that there's any doubt that it's gonna get better it's just whether people will give them that time to ramp up and do it knowing that they've just launched two of the largest license changes in the history of the sport all at once because if you remember back in yep two thousand nine and two thousand ten panini did basketball and then five years later they did football this is all rapid fire one after the other wwe in january the nba in october of last year then april this year you're you're switching over football like and there's only so many people you can hire man there's only so many resources that are available at the to be able to be brought on the team i think tim was mentioning that he came over from panini and i think that there's other people that obviously wanna come and be a part of this experience at fanatics and listen you can have your pitchforks and torches out all you want but i think the the general consensus around the community is like when stuff goes right we're gonna be there we're gonna be excited yep absolutely and and they're being one thing i like about is they're being very transparent to the collector like you said if you listen they're they're being as transparent as they can and they're giving a lot more insight than we were than we've probably ever seen before awesome well don't forget to subscribe to the stacking slabs patreon group you can find it w w w dot patreon dot com slash stacking slabs you can find ryan at rbi crew seven literally everywhere make sure to go check out all the amazing content he had with randy orton this week you can find me at wwe gellman on instagram at sc uncensored on twitter and of course w w w dot patreon dot com slash main event wrestling cards for all the coverage that steve and i are gonna do on universe can't thank steve enough for all the the publicity that he's been pushing out content there and man this is gonna be a fun couple of months i have a feeling no the road to wrestlemania man we're just getting started we're gonna get some product and some fun stuff so i'm fired up i'm ready to join a ton of breaks on friday and hopefully get to dive in and rip some of this with my family this weekend alright we will be back next week with all the universe coverage don't forget to check it out and we'll see you next week big gulps see you later