it's episode twenty six yes it is i am truly fired up to be here today i'm excited lots to talk about a lot went on this weekend in wrestling monday but better yet adam how we doing doing good man a lot of lot of stuff going on last weekend so many different things what before we get started what is up with lebron james we're recording this just as like all this big news is dropping i am like he's probably gonna be a warrior i think with draymond you know you know opting out i think he's gonna take minimal money to stay there i think it's gonna be curry and lebron i'm all for it i think it'd be fun to watch at this point i mean lebron's gotta win it's what he's gotta do i mean who knows we'll see it's the nba man just when you think oh this team's so dominant now then they just fall flat in their face just you know the dominoes don't go as be tough but i know you're a huge lebron fan i'm just following along on twitter so i i i thought that was pretty cool we have troy from wax culture joining us later in the episode here so i wanna get get going so we can cover what we need to cover and then we'll record listeners i beat adam to the podcast today i wanna say that for the record it took me twenty six episodes but i actually got here before you did today that's a record that that is took twenty six but i beat you alright congratulations you did it thank you thank you greatest cup of coffee alright wait where can i add that at no no headed it from i know i know i know it's from i know alright so let's start in with knight of champions and and there's not much card news and there's there's more to discuss here i think than anything else and i was like i i i think we were talking we were both just like please just let this go correctly and for the most part i think it did it did mhmm and i think for the most part collectors are gonna be happy ish you know can't always get what you want in the end but i think we got to where we need to be so let's let's start with the the tournaments king of the ring obafemi thankfully you know ridded us of a potential jay uso king of the ring run we had no idea what was gonna happen if jay uso won there was no hater interference from brock lesnar flying all the way to saudi arabia just to interfere in one match but man i thought for for everything that went down in this tournament they eventually got to the right spot but i think that there's still some other things that we need to sort out afterwards from yesterday from monday night raw as we're recording this and i i mean i i just i was at a tournament most of the day so i didn't get to see it but like until later but you were sort of watching it live as you were coming back from the card show so like i mean you had to have been as happy as i was to see oba win well i went to take my boys to lunch in columbia missouri a place called d rose on the way out we sit down and look up and they had it on the tv and i'm like and we just got there as the match was starting and i was like holy crap we're gonna get to watch this so we get to watch the open match the osky match then we hit the road and then i download the espn app put it on my dashboard for my boys to watch in the back so we watched like the they watched the seth and bron breakker match which was absolutely amazing but back to this match yes we were going on about a month you even have brett on here we were so doomsday on this whole night of champions and the whole king of the ring and and how we thought it was gonna end up differently and at at the end of the day it it kinda correct itself especially after monday night raw we're getting a pivot but fine great no jay uso winning which was great oba wins which again how are you gonna have jay uso beat oba unless he got inter you know interference of brock which probably brock said no f you i'm not flying to saudi arabia probably is what happened so they pivot this now you don't have to worry about the title match at summerslam that's probably later discussed but i i was pretty happy to see that i was pretty excited for oba to win and then obviously io to win and then we know instantly io is fighting liv morgan now but a good good showing by jay it was a good showing for a bit but at the end of the day oba is the ruler he is the king and it's they got it right they got it right they got it right i saw that match and it was literally i think jay did three moves repetitively he did super kick he did a spear and i think he did the uso splash i don't think there were any other moves it was an eight minute match it's always guys like it's like the dice roll it's always guys it's really hard to and like i you know i get and people are always like well look at how over he is i'm like yes that is what wwe is all about catchphrase completely completely agree and this new catchphrase oh my god don't even get me started on the new catchphrase and i like i'm not i'm not a jay uso hater i think like if you're gonna put him in a tag team and he's gonna wrestle as a tag team with the usos as roman's lackeys that is a perfect role for him having him in the main event just does not work and we've seen it multiple times where they try and like shoehorn him in it never works so here at least they've got oba winning king of the ring it's a feather in his cap he didn't have to take another loss and i think we're gonna get to some of the discussion later but i do wanna talk also about liv morgan because i i still have no idea why she was in that match and using danhausen as a vehicle to to make her lose just was i think a weird use of danhausen and like i i don't think it really helped anything like it it spoiled the mat because they've they've put this curse over so much that you knew the second she was cursed it was over wasn't gonna happen now she shouldn't have won anyway she shouldn't have been in the tournament i agree but but like eo winning and then they have to do the same match again at summerslam like why are you doing the same match twice like you should have booked this better put tiffany stratton in there put somebody else in there i mean you just you just flipped lyra like there could have been a million different people chelsea green have chelsea green go to the finals yep in face i was i was all for that i was all for that but yeah why are you not doing something like that it makes no sense to have liv morgan take the spot and you could have purchased the loss without you know putting up the belt but it still makes her look weak in this position now she's gonna go to summerslam down o and one recently it's it's not a good look not a good play they coulda kept that more fresh and had somebody else but it is what it is we don't know what they're doing i know at the end of the day it's it's it's a roller coaster with them it's and and i i do wanna again reinforce this was not the vehicle to have her face raquel rodriguez again again because then you would have the same match twice like having liv morgan in the finals makes no sense because you have to wrestle the same match twice and now like i think what they did on raw with with eo and with liv i think was good like it was a good thing like it was good but it would have been better if they didn't have the match the day before like it's like that was the whole thing and like i think the the stuff that they did with oba and brock on monday night raw we'll get to that as well very very awesome segment i think it was well done but it shouldn't have happened that way and we'll talk about that in a second too but like overall i think bron breakker seth rollins man that match was just absolutely insane really good i love that they started with the cage filled with weapons it made it feel like it was a a like a really big grudge match i think they could have main evented honestly and if sammy didn't win i think it probably should have but i i thought that match was absolutely great yeah it was you know obviously being being a seth guy but just watching it from a wrestling fan standpoint it was the match of the night it was there's no question about that well done long history story of over a year now essentially coming to an end i think it pivoted completely from where they were supposed to go with this but now we're on to something else we can go past this vision and seth rollins i like it but way to go out and i i had a feeling was like there's no way seth's gonna lose this like they had to lose the match before i think this is the way to end this move forward did not make breaker look weak at all he took a beating took a just busted open all around fun match to watch and then you get the trick williams ricky saints match another really good match that was fun to watch as well i mean i i watched a little of the jade tiffy i i didn't get too much assault i was i was legitimately like screaming at my screen over the tiffy and jade match i thought it was the one of the stupidest booking decisions i've ever seen like i i like i don't understand how they book smackdown so poorly and like the charlotte flair the the b fab mishen catering superstars crew that goes along with jade like none of that should have happened it made like like why like charlotte flair like why are you having charlotte flair hit her with the bell like it just it like it's interesting people doing horribly uninteresting things and like smackdown's a wasteland of bad booking and it just continued with that match but the trick and ricky match unshockingly awesome good match trick is amazing yep i thought the the finish he laid that knee in it was great i think ricky saints is proving that he's a good hand like i mean can't argue with any of that i think that was a great match but yeah that tiffany and jade match i thought she was getting a good match out of her like tiffany was doing well with jade until that they were they were working well together until the chaos broke out with all the women involved and then it was a botched fest jay missed a few things and it was just like ugh here we go again yeah here we go speaking of hey and chelsea green's involved in that too like why is chelsea green helping tiffany stratton like there's no storyline basis for this yet and even if we get to a point where it's like oh chelsea's just gonna turn on tiffany and they're gonna be you know in a feud for this title that chelsea's held a a number of times like do it a different way tell a different story like you could have easily had just had chelsea say like hey i was the originator of this title i blah blah blah like why you have to go through this overbooked mess that makes makes me upset just i i can't stand it i didn't anticipate us talking this much about that match i did not see that one on my bingo card today so yeah no i wanna talk about sammy more than anything so i think you you are like undefeated in your predictions like like you you like all ego all ego ryan i predict with this slide i told you listen this is a pivot to go i was right except i thought he would win and then drop it at summerslam i don't think that's gonna happen now because i assumed oba i i just again that i got right i just assumed it was short but overall well deserved long time overdue really it was a good match it was and i'm glad i out of all the three if i wanted to see one win it was sami zayn i can't i'm not a big going through guy i'm over the cody give it to somebody else let him win in saudi which he he's origin of that and it was awesome the the promo at the end he cut that was great you know give sammy his flowers twenty years in the making he's put the time in he's put on great matches you love him or you hate him but at the end of the day his cards are so affordable his autographs are dirt cheap this has got to do somewhat of a push for his cards i would have to think just putting as you know in the spotlight at this point but you would think i i'm not as enthusiastic about it i like i didn't want any like i wish they would have just vacated the title honestly just like rather than having any of the three of them win i think gunther winning would have been bad cody winning would have been bad sami at least gets a good moment in saudi he does good like that was good the match was good promos he cuts great promos he just doesn't do anything for me as a champion like he's he's the quintessential us champion or intercontinental champion or whatever like that's where i see him and there's this whole thing among like internet wrestling fans it's like longevity in the business makes you like in line for a title at some point you need to have a title and i don't i don't subscribe to that i think it's something like you have to build somebody up to to have them in the main event and though i think like as long as this is a short run and it's transitional like i have no problem with it like i don't think it'll do anything for smackdown but i'm not like angry that sami zayn is champion i'm just like there's a lot of people who are but i'm like you know he's like he's just a guy like it it doesn't really like serve my interest to have sami as champion would i rather have cody as champion probably not would i rather have gunther as champion probably not as much as i like watching gunther beat the shit out of people it's just it's it's just most of what smackdown is for me is just okay on the next thing obviously it's not working with cody right now the ratings are all crap i mean what what's it why not just throw throw a dart against the board and see if it sticks i mean at this point obviously i'm sure saudi's probably been calling this for a while as well he came out the attire i mean i per personally i wish what he would've won in canada in his hometown you know that would have been to me more important i mean just the crowd would and not that he was gonna be at rome of that crowd that match you just felt watching that it was like watching a wrestlemania type match and he was so over at that point but the way that we got here rasimi the the way the good guy not good guy i don't i don't know where they go with this i don't know if this is just a play or if they're just trying to see if this works but long overdue do we do we ever see another title on him again i probably not at this point in his career but have it now i think there was different plans with orton to win i think there was supposed to be a different path to this at summerslam we've had a lot of injuries across the board men and women sure let's see how it plays out but at this point i'm just happy i'm just happy that this happened at night of champions and not at wrestle mania i like oh yeah for sure like i i just don't wanna like i really hope this reign is quick i really hope they find a a new person that can carry things besides cody or i can't give it back to drew mcintyre even i don't even care yeah he's gonna be gone for while what he doing in movie yeah but i mean like i didn't wanna see sami zayn take up one of the world title matches at wrestlemania i didn't wanna see him win the royal rumble i didn't wanna see any of that stuff like i don't think your longevity in the business entitles you to those things and i would much rather have somebody like oba femi win the win the title at wrestlemania or somebody have their crowning moment that isn't somebody like sami zayn make a new star in that respect like you did you know you tried a number of times and have failed i think oba is just white hot and i would love to see him get a title i don't and here's where let me look before we get to like where do we go from here i wanna talk about some real time card reactions because i went and i looked since saturday obafemi since winning king of the ring and people thought he was gonna be like challenging roman potentially headlining two nights of of summerslam he's had a hundred and one card sales total which is pretty high given the weeks before it was like in the fifty forty range mhmm his highest sale was eight hundred and seventy dollars of those hundred and one followed by a second sale that was seven hundred and fifty so he's had two big cards sell one was a red refractor or both were red refractor autographs one was from twenty twenty five chrome one was from sapphire eos sky has had sixty seven sales so significantly less her two sales were three hundred and twenty and three hundred just run of the mill stuff like nice autographs from one of the sets i can't even remember sammy believe it or not has had a hundred and four sales since since saturday people were cashing in most of the sales were under a hundred dollars so to your point from before he's not selling for a ton of money he did have his one zero one star fracture sell for five hundred and thirty eight dollars that was a top sale where you have obafemi selling eight seventy through seven fifty sami zayn's at five thirty eight for a one of one that's probably one of his top cards in the cosmic and then he has next sale was a hundred and twenty five bucks so you're right he's very affordable and i think if you're looking to get in on this it's not gonna cost you a lot no and i mean i think that should be listing some wrestling cards on the website and it was pricing obviously before the championship was an elite it was at the elite signatures on cardano for fifteen bucks i mean that should sell quick you know but i don't know whatever jay stuff whenever he first went on that run with rumble he was at forty a hundred bucks yeah his stuff but his autographs used to be fifteen twenty bucks obviously he was much over with the fans we had the yeet we had everything going on so we saw his trajectory go up significantly i don't think we'll see a significant jump with sammy just at this point in his career do i see an uptick of twenty percent sure twenty twenty five percent yeah it will deserve it it should i think more people are like oh he's world champ right now but i don't think it's gonna be to the level of three four x of what like jay uso's stuff was starting to do when he was on that run from rumble to mania so again very affordable if you wanna get on some same designs cheap i don't know i think you might honestly be at the peak of his career at this point i mean it's been a long career yeah this is mean love to see you know obviously you know we're who knows how many years left for them but wanna see him and ko have a good rivalry again that would be fun to watch that would be i i don't think it's gonna happen i think ko's neck is is probably in a rough spot for a while oh i'm just saying at some point not anytime soon yeah yeah yeah i think that's the closing feud probably for both of them i think that would be awesome and that's the type of stuff i love seeing sami zayn in and i think to your point like jay uso when he went on his run and he was super popular and all those he's still super popular his cards went from like yeah like you said like ten fifteen bucks like a hundred bucks like really quickly during that royal rumble time frame when people actually like oh my god jay uso won the royal rumble i was digging i was digging in my all my boxes are ripped because jay was one guy i never really pulled to put out and i was going to the chicago show in march after he won the rumble leading into mania and i took like thirty autos and they i think the cheapest was like fifty bucks and we sold every single one of them yeah and i was like cash out see you later same thing sami zayn like jay uso sami zayn and jay uso have signed for literally every set for the last ten fifteen years and like they are their autographs are literally everywhere they're worse than john cena and like i think it's it's it's something where that really does have an effect i don't think sami zayn i really hope topps doesn't take this as like oh we need to put more sami zayn and stuff because he's champion now like i really hope that doesn't happen i don't think he's gonna be a valuable autograph even with the title run like i said i hope it's quick and i hope they find a new path forward for smackdown it's not looking great right now especially if ria is injured i do wanna finish this segment with one thing let me play this out this is the way i would have booked obafemi versus brock lesnar which are now doing hell in a cell at summerslam which i think is gonna be a war number one i would have ended it at wrestlemania that's been said we've said it a million times we're not even gonna there let's say we're forced to have brock come back here is the way i would have booked this you put obafemi in the tournament round one before the match before the match he's laid out and then you don't even have to have brock come in if he can't make it if he can even better you lay obafemi out before the tournament starts and he has to be replaced in the tournament he's replaced with somebody whatever all of that goes to the way that it that it should and instead of obafemi being in the tournament and winning king of the ring and having to do this whole hullabaloo with the title match that is now not gonna happen like that's the whole point of the tournament these days like for the last three years like that's been the tournament now you have a specific thing that you can call back to brock comes back claims the ownership of the attack they do hell in a cell brock retires everything is back on track okay oba then goes on to win the royal rumble and faces roman reigns at wrestlemania we don't have to have this thing hanging over i'm like when is he gonna use this title shot or whatever that's that side you had seth rollins in the tournament and he lost in the first round not the second round the first round so instead of obafemi going through this tournament and beating everybody now you have seth rollins going through the tournament winning the tournament and facing roman reigns in a match and a promo that i thought was absolutely awesome i loved the segment they did with those two on monday night raw i love the callbacks i love the messaging it should have happened when he's the king king of the ring like why is he not king of the ring i think the reason why is because they had to close the book on him and break her in the vision i think that's what drove it out again could have been done sooner whatever but yes i at the end of it yes amazing promo done on monday night loved it i you know i'm here for anytime seth is in and made of its spotlight i gotta assume you know they're made of winning one of the nights i gotta assume oba and brock the other night at this point gonna be in a great match do i expect roman to win absolutely mean this is the the way they're setting this up is you need to beat me in order to go on really not a heel or face in this match we're both kind of on the same e even keel level where i'm a good guy a bad guy i don't give a damn you don't give a damn we're just roman is a bad guy who is a good guy yeah he's a bad guy who's a good guy but hey it's it's just funny so both are way over with the fans the crowd you know you just heard did not did i expect seth to come out last night no not at all that was just awesome that we're setting it up for summerslam but yes i'm gonna agree with you on all that as well i don't know what the whole thing was lesnar coming back why we had to have this didn't even need the second match but i guess you had to even it up this is where oba can end it lesnar can now officially i'm gonna assume retire which was so well done just poetic the way he retired at wrestlemania so i'm all i'm like looking forward to it we'll see it's gonna shape out to be pretty good summerslam i know they got a month of work but they'll they'll get on track pretty quick they're already it's gonna be great i think they i think it'll be great all of this stuff will be forgotten we will forget it it'll be a great match it'll be a great show i'm not like summerslam is gonna be great in my hometown i'm i'm hoping to go maybe sunday night we'll see how the national plays out but fanatics fest is gonna be fun too like i think that they'll start i think there's some stuff they have planned to like bring wrestlers to fanatics fest in a in a vocal capacity not just for signings and photos so maybe fanatics fest will will set some of the stage here which is gonna be interesting but let just in the interest of time because we have our guest is coming on let's let's talk about the minor amounts of card news before i get into things tops now they have four autographs from this weekend sammy oba io obviously both of those sammy is in script they they've added a description back to a topps now card which they've they really haven't done in a while because i think they had some some rough experiences there with the wrestlers not fulfilling that sami says prove them all wrong on the one zero one foil fracture we also have kendall gray who won the nxt women's title over the weekend if you haven't gone and watched that match i hadn't really seen her wrestle very much i'd i'd i wanna watch nxt more that match with lola weiss was absolutely one of the best women's matches i've seen in a while go see why everybody is so hyped on her you can watch it on youtube great great match they have her card with an autograph i think that'll be popular the obafemi sp which is him with the crown is great i love that card so yeah i think these are pretty solid i know your your relationship with tops now has been defiled for a on this adam i'm not buying any more tops now if i do kick me in the balls because i'm done that's what it feels like anytime i do a tops now i know you have a long track record of it but no really cool just for one person yeah just for one person just out i'm out done yep alright i wanna talk about something really quick here because i i i've been thinking about this a lot and if you go back to the and and i i've seen this on the tcg side and and i the only reason i'm bringing this up is because i think it's so interesting to look at wrestling market personas and why each of these types of people that we're gonna discuss and i'm gonna align them with the current champions of the brands like why these people function the way that they do why they collect the way that they do in tcg there was like things like spike timmy and johnny or something like that yeah go ahead where where's liv morgan at on here oh i'm gonna get just give me a second you're gonna ruin i had to do it i had to do it so anyways like so i think like when you go back if you look up the the tcg market personas when they built magic cards for the first time they they created these personas about how they're gonna market the game and i think like that's irrelevant here it's not gonna apply i've aligned similar understandings to the wrestling market and what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna talk about each of these three personas on the screen if you're following along with us on patreon i've got roman i've got ria and i've got sammy and they represent three different personas and i chose these three because they're the original personas for the tcg side were three and it'll add in a fourth and a snide comment at the end the i'm gonna start with roman the collector that roman represents and and roman as a as a champion we know what he's like but the as a collector the roman collector is a big budget buyer wants the best cards doesn't matter who it is sees the overall trends tries to stay ahead all of those things buys and sells to hits target but this person the the drawback to this type of collector they're very susceptible to fomo they're gonna buy in on the hot thing and they just wanna have the best collection of the best cards i'm i'm this is probably my minor if my major is probably gonna be ria if i'm if looking at this like a college education i'm probably a ria when i get to that but roman's probably one of my minors you're more kinda straddling both of those as well but we all know a roman collector out there not somebody who collects roman reigns but functions like this persona do you agree oh yeah i agree kinda based on the what you're saying here and everything like that yeah i agree with this just knowing these people knowing the industry and just i i'm thinking of a roman person in my head right now and it's just like yep that's him that's him to a t so yes yeah so i think like if i had to align a card that this person would probably focus on they would look at this rock super factor i'm showing the twenty twenty five super factor gen min ten everything is graded it's the top card of the set you know those types of things like that's the type of card a roman collector under this persona type i think would be really interested to to own things like the wrestlemania patch autographs things like you know the big one of one super factor with the inscriptions like all of that stuff really aligns to this persona now the second persona i wanna talk about is on the roman i wanna say to go with that i feel like the roman is a lot of people who don't just do wrestling cards who are in the other sports diving in to the wrestling so i feel like we're seeing a lot of these new big sales from people that are traditional wrestling guys or girls collectors but they're buying the best of the best i want it makes you wonder that rock black select that went for what was it seventeen k yeah did that go to a wrestling person or did that go to somebody who's i don't know like i'm curious if steve pach might have bought it the diamond card collector on ig somebody like that a roman collector right like yeah if you look at like from a perspective steve buys the top cards in the market because he wants the top cards he does that for brady he does that for michael jordan he does that for other people like he has an insane collection probably one of the most valuable collections that exist and he's this persona type the roman persona type i think aligns to somebody like that somebody like who who would buy this rock super factor because it's the rock and because it's a super fracture and because it's a psa ten like of those things right yep yep checks the boxes but to your point like they they're in other sports too like that's a really big sort of like call out there i'm glad you brought that up alright for rhea so rhea ripley is the next one this is my major wants to be on top focuses on a very specific niche to ensure that they can reach the goals that they have chooses the path based on their desired outcomes rarely sells their pc but makes certain plays to fund that pc makes plays for money to to do it so not necessarily buying and selling and flipping and doing all those things like some of the roman collectors might be they are holding their pc we see a lot of player collectors in wrestling you and i definitely fit that mold this is where i think that persona type fits in and they're they're very focused on the specific niche and they want the best cards in those niche but they're not going out and spending like hey i'm gonna go buy stone cold i'm gonna go buy hulk hogan i'm gonna go buy the rock i'm focusing on this very specific area for me it's becky lynch for you it's randy orton and yeah it it's been like this for me in other sports too where i collected adrian peterson or joe mauer or other minnesota sports figures but this is a very specific type of persona that exists within wrestling because they they are so prominent within our space and they they hold like look at behind me you can see all the cards that i've held and i wanna show them off i wanna display it i wanna be on instagram because mommy's always on top i wanna be on top of my niche and my focus as well we we could've just said adam and put a picture of you and then we just would've known it would've been there everything is just like oh that's adam that's me for the most part yes but you are more into your i mean you're one that's like just knowing adam and knowing talking to him every day it's he's gotta have it he's gotta have it now and he doesn't wanna wait for six weeks or six months he wants it doesn't care it's number to five number to ten i'll pay whatever it takes i'm in i'm done i don't have to track one down i'm more of like i'll wait like if it's number to two or one zero one like a five i'm like i i've had success doing that on my trade but adam is one that he is locked in he's ready to go he knows that hey i'm gonna be on to the next product that comes out the next potential rainbow to build so yes i i agree i this is steve you know sam wbc mach two as well perfect example on this one as a collector yeah there's a lot of people out there who a lot of people a lot of people in this wrestling more in wrestling than we see in any other sports of the true like collector of that wrestler and that's why i think it's the best overall hobby group to be a part of the best community to be a part of because they're just so devout they're so they love it they collect it they wanna they don't wanna sell any of it you may pivot some dupes or whatever you may move some things that aren't becky to get mb all you're doing ultimately is to get another big becky that's all you're trying to do correct yep no nothing stays in my pc if it's not becky and i think like a lot of people are like this you know whether it's tim in his bron breakker collection or you mentioned steve you mentioned like you know there's guys out there that that collect very similar zeppey collects alexa bliss and like all these other things like there's just tons of people that function in this persona type and that's why be but they wanna be on top they wanna be the guy of whatever they collect whether it's a set or a person or a type of card like that's what the ria collector really is and i think from like a a a a card that i would use to represent this like it's the black finite alexa bliss it sold a a while ago but it's like these are the types of cards that these type of ria collectors are gravitating towards right it's not the rock it's not stone cold but it's still alexa bliss it's still black finite right so like those are the types of cards that i think these people live for that's what i live for that's what steve collects like you named all of those people i think this is the perfect card alright third persona type is is sammy and i used a very specific render because it it i wanted them to if you're following along it's the nxt render where he's got kinda like the kangal hat on and whatever but these are these there there are a lot of these people too and these are kind of the older school guys they wanna be different they wanna stay below the radar they wanna collect their guys old vets in the space works against the traditional market trends so they're buying stuff that people normally aren't focusing on because they like it they've lived it they have the nostalgic tendencies to it their pc is very niche in terms of like the way that they focus their collecting so it's not necessarily we're gonna keep things in one area they're gonna spread out but it's gonna be the the sort of lower stuff that i think the market really has forgotten or has moved on from and they're focusing on the brand new shiny toy these guys are sticking back older top stuff the flir stuff like older stuff like that really aligns to these guys they have a huge collection but it's very hard to move and sell so they're trying to like hey i wanna make moves that make sense for my pc you know the older legends ryan shear collects brutus beefcake very similar type of stuff yep you know all those guys that that that that i love to to interact with because they have such a historical knowledge of all the older tops products but i also think that they're they're unlike ryan who i know does follow along with modern stuff like a lot of these guys maybe don't have a good understanding of the outsized sports cards market so they're looking at the wrestlemania patch autographs and are like these shouldn't be these are overhyped you know they're looking at royalty and they're like no this is crap like why would i ever go spend you know this kind of money on on a card like that like those are the types of guys that sort of are part of this persona they're not all of this persona but i think the the sammy type collector is the guys that really focus on something that is you know below the the rate or maybe they're buying a lot of the leaf stuff they're buying a lot of the aew stuff like stuff like that agree yeah i agree with that i can i think of nathan bsg who works for me he's he he loves his rey mysterio his masked men wrestlers his dragon lee his all that stuff but yeah it's kind of doesn't wanna really sell it you know that kinda puts you in a hand yeah i agree they're just they're they're i like this breakdown i'm just excited for number four yeah so i don't have a slide for it but i'm gonna make a snide comment so the the type of card that i think this guy these guys love are like the old legend set from tops the one of one bret hart is what i've got pulled up here it's an expensive card so it's not like it's a cheap card but like this is the type of set that these guys love corey bastian like guys like that who collect this type of a set because it's awesome it's on card it's it it features great photos a great design like those are what those guys really gravitate towards even stuff like the the older top stuff from from twenty eighteen twenty seventeen twenty sixteen the heritage stuff like this is where i was trying to go for i just couldn't find the right card this is that really spoke to me as like a perfect example of something that the sammy persona would buy so i don't know like it's just it's cool to like think about from a collecting standpoint jeremy lee talked about on his things like how there's a spectrum of collecting i don't really align to that i'm i'm not a huge fan of like categorizing people like that but i think these persona types are a little bit different it's sort of like an archetype for how people are engaging with the market so anyways the fourth one is liv morgan i don't there was only three collector types but the fourth one is liv morgan those are the people who just collect the women because they're but i was just waiting i was waiting i'm not gonna go into it but yeah so i well you don't wanna talk about liv morgan come on man that's your girl she's she's the champion so i think like i think that like from an archetype perspective and like from a market perspective like the the way the wrestling card market is sort of aligned like these types of personas really feed different areas in the market and it's one of the reasons why we're sort of entering this flywheel stage where things just keep getting more and more and more and more because you have the ria collectors trying to get their stuff you have the roman collectors trying to get their stuff and then there there's a sammy guys who maybe are buying in at the brake levels that need to fill those brakes those lower slots but they're still getting a ton of good stuff and they're moving stuff so everybody's sort of swirling around the market and we're seeing such huge growth because these three persona types and the fourth if you wanna talk about it we'll talk to you about two alexa sales that i think are sort of fueled by this but like i think like it's it's a really cool thing to to showcase here like hey how are people actually engaging and collecting within this new market right yeah the market's changing every day it's it's how you wanna collect and how you are as a collector i think it's key to to kinda be you know kind of on a train that's not derailing that's staying focused on what you wanna do and if you wanna dive into this next level of type of collector it's there for the ticket if you wanna cut back it's there as well i think this is very key in any type of collecting in this hobby because i mean most people let's be honest a lot of people nowadays are oh i wanna flip wanna make money or whatnot or a show get it respect it done this for years but i i really resonate more with collectors that's why i love setting up in the national with true collector type cards i wanna talk to those people i want to engage to just get to know them better and i've built lifelong relationships with collectors that's why adam and i are so close is because of his collecting of becky lynch that brought us really closer together than we were before versus him just ripping so i i think the biggest thing is collecting is the biggest thing and i know nowadays we're seeing more people dive into this hobby that aren't really collectors they're gamblers and i and that's why they're not on this persona list no exactly and i and i think it's what's great about this persona list it's from a collecting standpoint which is what i love yeah and like you got you think about a guy like brian or a guy like jameson you know stuff like that who who probably represent more of the roman collectors even though they also have tendencies to be ria collectors because roman jameson collects roman brian collects solaruca but they still have amazing cars in their collection like you're not you know sort of bound by walls within these personas people mix across the the thing if you exist in one of these but not the other like go reach out and find other people that represent the other parts of the persona because you can learn so much from a sammy collector if you're a roman collector right like being able to understand the history of why we are where we are is so important and the sammy collectors are gonna have a lot more of that in their in their mindset not saying roman collectors don't but maybe there's some persona mixing there that can really help round out your collection diversify get things into better states of of existence so that you can feel happier with what you have and maybe not be as susceptible to that fomo right yep well said alright i wanna talk about this sale we're gonna get on to some big sales we had our first five figure sale from twenty twenty five finest awesome card and there's been private sales around this mark but this is the first public five figure sale it's the triple h cerebral assassin inscribed the finest which is my favorite set of all of twenty twenty five one of them i i think someone i know got this card for eleven thousand one hundred dollars on the fanatics weekly auction do you wanna say a few words here wait who got it who do you know that got it yes i was bidding on this card i i remember the guy who auctioned it risley put it pulled it put it on facebook i've dealt with him before i think he was wanting around twenty at the time thought this car was so awesome i just couldn't pull the trigger i threw some bids in early and that's what drove it up quick i was like hey i'm one of those guys who was explaining this to maybe adam or somebody we're like when it comes to these these fanatics bidding or golden i like to throw my bidding quick and just get it in so then it reminds me oh oh wait you gotta bid you need to go back and bid it kinda keeps me going with it so i can actually do it i actually won this and something else not wrestling related that i woke up to in the morning i i was saying i can't stay up for extended bidding i can't stay up for extended bidding i know so i i assumed i was like i'm probably gonna lose this card but if i wake up and i want them to happy because it's under what i was maxed out at not much it was pretty close but i just love this i don't have a really great triple h in my collection i have like a transcendent auto this is the best triple h this inscription i love it he does sign the game and other stuff but this is the first time i've ever seen him sign the trivial assassin i love it triple h is from the attitude era for when i used to watch too great photo dx i was such a big dx fan so i now i could say i have a triple h in my collection that i'm proud to own won it when adam did not realize this until when he posted that you were posting the sale i think i didn't text you until monday was it like mid afternoon busy yeah i was busy it was like oh by the way i sent you and brad text i won this last night guys so you know that i won this so was it like i was like i probably should tell him before we get on the the podcast and talk about it because a great card all around i i think that's about what it's worth i i'm not in it to sell it i'm in it because i love the hobby and i like to i guess this is my inner roman buy i guess you would say my roman my roman characters is fine i love finest i'm such a i'm such a a fiend for finest and like i i bought as many of the finest cards as i could because they're so good looking so many great cards in that set i mean i wish i know you were in on the rocks know your role and shut your mouth card as well and i think i wish his finest autograph had that inscription because i think this is a better rock photo i think it's just so awesome but this triple h card he's he's the father of the modern era in a lot of ways with the way that he came up as a wrestler and now he is the guy who runs the show like he's gonna be the modern day vince mcmahon and i think hopefully avoid all of the the scandal and controversy but he's yeah he's he this is an amazing card there was another big sale the superstar autograph nineteen eighty six card from twenty twenty six chrome originally sold for like twelve hundred bucks because heller must have canceled the sale think of course he canceled it because he probably got blown up by everybody saying i would have paid three grand four grand like to put their nose in other's businesses and i think this one this is the the it's inscribed ring general it's like the the super factor pattern transferred onto the column in the back of card that column looks badass which looks so cool it looks awesome so this is a great this is one of the better gunther cards i've seen in a long time and it went for four thousand forty nine dollars the second time around on ebay it did go to a legit bidder unfortunately chad didn't get it but like the man i i don't know what to say about this because i don't support canceling sales that's horrifically bad don't do that bad bad juju all around bad hobby karma are cursed are cursed that is dan hausenworthy but he he had a nice come up here with a three almost a four x sale yeah i saw literally people on facebook groups just like going crazy how this went so under the radar so cheap literally getting chad messaged me brandon like so mad that they missed i'm like well anybody with a brain that knows wrestling cards is gonna hit that for twelve thirteen hundred hours without even thinking twice if i would've i would've hit it i would've hit it and said chad by the way i just won this you can have it for this like you know the brand whatever so but again i think now it yeah i did a lot of people today just went like the next i was getting blown up from like chad and people saying i'm so mad that i missed this me too yeah but yeah beautiful car it looks awesome it right where it should be what it went for four thousand which is the number i thought was thirty five hundred to four grand so i'm with you don't if you sell something stand by your sale don't do that i get you're making more money and you underprice it but man like you you can't back out on that stuff it's just yeah it's bad bad juju bad juju you're cursed i there's a guy on facebook like in that thread that chad posted and and chad was messaging me i was at the dmv when this got sold and because i had to register my son's new car and like what what's that what's it like having your kids driving cars now oh my god it's it's a it's a nightmare which i'm not gonna get into because i have so many feelings about this but we have this life three sixty app that at least makes it a little bit less nerve wracking anyways the guys do like there's a guy in the facebook thread who's like i can't believe gunther went for the even twelve hundred fifty dollars this is such a stupid card i'm just like are you kidding me like really are you living under a rock this card is absolutely a banger and like you're saying gunther doesn't deserve to have a twelve hundred dollar card let alone a four thousand dollar card what an idiot okay anyways two big alexa sales that happened one yesterday speaking of zeppey and his alexa collection this one specifically was the select black one of one logo autograph from twenty twenty three select these cards probably one of my favorite autorelic designs that are features a sticker auto but it has a wwe logo it's a graded psa eight went on ebay for forty one hundred dollars so around the same amount as what gunther did and i love this card i love the all the select black autorelic i have both the becky ones they're so cool huge price on this because i think it originally sold when zeppey sold it for like twenty three or twenty four hundred dollars so almost two x what it originally sold for just to show you how much growth there is in the market and then before that right before that the gold vinyl select throwback one of one psa eight sold for thirty five hundred dollars for alexa bliss i this is my favorite set that panini one of my favorite sets that panini did i i love love love the throwback set from the retail version of twenty twenty four select the gold vinyl looks amazing huge alexa sales let me ask you this we see the select i i for some reason have like four or five alexa plus one zero ones i don't know how i just do and they'll be at the national i have the immaculate w w b logo auto patch i think it's psa nine that's gotta be worth well more than the select now i mean i think i i'm very happy to see this sale makes me go okay i didn't know you had that car i've had it for a while i bought it at chicago show wasn't a national i put out the national last year for honestly probably around forty five hundred nobody bit i'm a tell you right now it ain't going back from forty five hundred we kept receiving this sale that makes it way better that's a way better card in my opinion yes this is black it's like a big ten thousand dollar card at this point i mean i i'm not complaining after seeing this but again you gotta find the right person but sometimes maybe taking a gamble and auction something like that may end up being the course of it but i like alexa i've always liked alexa's career my my tyson loves alexa works for me my son liked alexa because her tied with bray wyatt so i always root for alexa and her cards she has she has a really good following she really does following she does huge following i don't know how many liv collectors the the liv personas i knew how do i know liv's gonna get tied into this some anyways i think i think these select blacks are highly underrated cards we talked about this on the hot takes last week so maybe maybe that immaculate logo i it changed hands a little bit more frequently you know maybe it goes up i think that's a humongous card i haven't seen i i would love to see a picture of it i can't even remember what it matches the becky i bet we pulled for you the same day same twenty two immaculate i'll have to get in the safe afterwards and find it and i'll send you a picture it's fun i love that card i love those cards i love that set it's an twenty two immaculate yes absolutely pristine alright penta speaking of of somebody that brent was talking about a few weeks ago had a i think this is from tops chrome it might be from logofractor i think it is yeah it's the one of one it's the image variation regardless so if it's from chrome it's the image variation if it's from logofractor it's just the regular one can't remember tons of inscriptions on this card one zero one superfractor sold on ebay best offer for twenty six seventy seven one of the bigger penta sales i think we've seen but this is an amazing photo i love the zero miedo photo and like just really cool with the inscriptions i can't read his writing zero miedo is part of it and then cabronas maybe i'm trying to read as well yeah it's tough to read but it's really cool card a huge sale yeah i i saw this pop up i thought about making a plan on it but i i like pintage just now i was like yeah but i think this went for it's a good price i mean he's gonna have more stuff but this car does look awesome the super fracture imaging everything like that so i think this is about spot on now i want to bring this i wanted to bring this one up this is the brock lesnar cosmic chrome base super factor that went for twenty five fifty this sold for more than roman reigns that's what i was about to say didn't roman do less than this this is yes so that's why we were i better get rid of anything i have rare brock lesnar needs to go out right now because it's like all literally right now yep that i just wanted to bring that up i only am showing the sale because it's more than roman range which i think is ridiculous insane last one we'll talk about before our guest joins us here but huge huge huge card here and this is the one out of twenty five this is ten out of twenty five obafemi flawless went for twelve seventy five a multicolor relic from from twenty twenty four flawless best offer right after king of the ring i want one of these cards so badly but i cannot afford i have one and i had of the national last year and it didn't sell and it's not going back out i think i have the red version seventy five yeah crazy crazy price i probably had that for like two fifty yeah and i this is just a a massive sale i can't believe how much this went for we have our guests joining us so i'm gonna i'm gonna pause the recording here troy from wax culture is gonna join us they're one of the top breakers on fanatics live another platforms does a ton of wrestling so i'm excited to have him here so we'll be right back after this i'm gonna run the restroom real quick so don't think i can make it

alright we are back with troy from wax culture i like i it was funny we were just off camera talking about what's gonna be happening at wrestling card trade my god wrestling card takeover troy is one of and wax culture is one of our illustrious sponsors acknowledge our sponsors and i think i can't thank you enough for your support in that respect great to have wax culture on board welcome to the podcast it's great to have you on i've i've done a ton of breaks with you guys i'm sure ryan has as well but thank you for that guys welcome yeah always yeah so how how so i i gotta hear the story of this photo so if you're following along on patreon with us troy has a picture of him with stephanie vecaires she's wearing the women's world championship which is awesome i know you guys did some stuff with wwe so tell me about how this came to be it's surreal first off we're i'm fortunate enough to have a great relationship with the the team over at carvault by tom brady timmy bonito and i another one of our sponsors yes yep love timmy huge part of the wrestling community in my opinion he you know we started off doing breaker mania together and did a couple of couple shows where we ran dollar auctions and not only doing cards but signed memorabilia and making it a big deal and then of course you know card vault stature and you know one upping it they would add in you know w w w superstars into the scenarios where you know they're on camera with us and not just ripping packs with us but just talking about their upcoming matches and just you know just having the having that talk and i gotta say that day i mean we had that was a i don't know if you guys know this but like that entire lineup we we had what becky lynch was there yep i i know drew mcintyre was there it was crazy and then stephanie if i care she is a sweetheart but and and liv was there too right so i mean it was oh adam you would have been so thrilled that liv would there on the same street nike stole the show in my opinion though that game is great unbelievable but long story short had the opportunity after all that you know timmy's like hey troy why don't you come with me brings me back to the back room where you know they're doing signings and stuff like that for for whatever they're having them sign and stephanie was back there and got to introduce myself to her talk a little bit briefly and that picture right there was taken it was just big fan of stephanie vaccare so being able to do that that was surreal so amazing opportunity yeah tim tim's great i'm also good friends with chris costa they're great guys all the guys at cardvault are just awesome they love the hobby they're all about growing it so congratulations on the opportunity you've gotten with this and i know many more are coming your way as well because you're just what you guys do at wax culture is great you bring the energy you guys are one of the better breakers for wrestling out there i put you guys up there with stephanie mama breaks is one of my two favorite people to break with on the fanatics awesome people so you know thank you again for coming on today i'm excited to chat with you more i know we've got to talk when we were at arizona for the tops conference got to follow and meet and we've kinda kept the connection since then so thanks again for making the time for us today man yeah and we'll we'll catch up i'm sure a lot more at the actual event but we wanted to have you on and and sort of get some some background here and get a a good idea of sort of where where your where your start in the in the business and in the hobby really came from give us a little bit of the origin story here and and we can we can start there and hear about sort of your your sort of foray into breaking and and wrestling cards and how you got all that started it's it's a it's a very unique one i gotta say alright so i i started out as a buyer on fanatics live and it was during towards the end of the pandemic and i was just you know i i left my job i was a director of operations at a call center and i you know we had our second son we have three boys now and we had our second son and we were just i was just like i wanna be home with them you know and i i admit i wanted i wanna be there as much as possible so my wife and i figured out a way to make it work i left my job they weren't happy with it i was excited but so i'm home you know and then started buying the leap on fanatics live you know i'm like what is going on here the brakes you know this is pretty fun and i me i like to take that extra step so i'm a big fan of checklists and all that and i highly recommend anybody that ever been i'm sure you guys advocate this a lot galen i know you do like checklists you gotta know the products before you buy into a break it's very important very crucial to have to help yourself have a a long lasting enjoyment with the hobby but i would take the checklist break it down by every single spot and i would be able to and i still could still do and we offer this to all of our buyers now but i could sit here and tell you how many total possible number cards there were on autos inserts whatever the category is for any superstar any disney character i don't care what it is if i ever was buying in i knew that and that's awesome i compare that up to the average of everybody else so i knew kind of like your probability if you were will of you know what are my chances of getting a card of that and what's the cost of what's the cost with that too and that's where i would start i'd go buy and i would dominate in breaks and it got to the point where i literally had buyers not asking the breakers they were asking me they were following my username was t b c i would go from stream to stream and i'm going to buy because i'm finding which who was cheaper and all that right and they're like tbc oh tbc's in here which spot which food i get this one or this one and they wouldn't even talk to the break they go right to me and the conversations you know kept picking up and then all of a sudden you know we're having a blast i'm ripping chrome update baseball and what was it bowman draft just the reds were dominant in that product i still remember to this day seventh most numbered cards in the product out of twenty twenty three and i was pulling rhett louder's left and right and ethan mcdonald it was just random prospects they had and i ended filling a monster box full of low numbered cards under fifty autos case hits just out of bowman draft and i'm not talking i've dropped thirty forty thousand dollars or anything like that it's just cycling the money selling as fast as possible and just keeping the self fulfilling hobby going and it got to a point where i got a random email from somebody from fanatics and they asked you know it's a higher up and it wasn't ruben to be clear they're like what do you like we're very interested i'd love to have to talk with you and i was like okay so i had a conversation with them like do wanna do in the hobby and i was like honestly you know i've been in these enough i'm very intrigued with breaking i'd love to give that a try and see if it's something for me and they're like yeah okay well we're not gonna just bring you on fanatics live because that would be kinda crazy a lot of people are trying to get in there and we're not just gonna give you it so like i would like to see what you guys do if you guys can do that build up a company see what you can do with that and so we started up the wax culture we went over to tiktok and gave it a shot did very well over there and they kinda gave us some objectives and some numbers to shoot for it wasn't anything like you know get to this dollar and your end type deal but they were pretty lofty at least they made it like we all thought that at at first three months later we hit i get back to talking to them and one thing led to another i'm on fanatics live i'm getting crushed on fanatics live in basketball and football and i'm just like what am i doing like i this is not gonna sustain so what is nobody doing and this is mind you what seven eight maybe nine months before chrome maybe a year before i i i gotta i don't remember the timelines off the top my head that was right when that's right when fanatics live sort of came into being for wrestling yeah like right as that was happening yeah so i i had a nice little head start i saw nobody on that wwe tab so i was just like okay well that's i love wwe it's my passion i've always loved it and now i get to rip cards and kinda get that nostalgia feel again of doing what i've loved watching as a kid and so we started doing that we started ripping wwe every single day got up eight eight am ripped stayed up late i was just with my wife and i but she was there for the kiddos and stuff and working a full time job too so like we didn't have help outside of that but i i'd be like four am get to bed wake up eight am go all the way till eight four am and just cycle in for seven months because we were the only one showing up on that wb tab and i had that end goal of getting a hopefully a direct account through tops for wwe mainly i i didn't anything else was an afterthought and i wasn't making really a penny i was just trying to build up a a following really and just have the damn blast ripping packs of cards with everybody and talking how how could that be bad yeah yeah so yes ryan's dream dude it was it was ridic like there was times where i go i would get nudged by them think they get like are we selling spots or are talking like what are we doing i was just like oh you know alright let's get back to it guys it had a fault and and still to this day there's some people like alright we what are can we get to the spot was like okay yeah sorry i you know you get heated in a conversation you're passionate about it you know it's you you wanna keep going with it so absolutely yeah the the direct account came in the second day after twenty five chrome dropped and i i almost cried i remember that moment i was just like man i was like eight am four am seven straight months and it was like no days off pretty much it was nonstop you know outside of like holidays and stuff like that but we got that direct account so thankful for that and we just you know it started picking up a little bit for us and we then before you know it ufc came around and i'm like who are like i don't even know how to pronounce a sing i knew like the big names in ufc but by god if you need an exercise with pronunciation and stuff start ripping soccer and ufc yeah yeah soccer and ufc that's right little bit of hockey too occasionally hockey yeah hockey can get in that equation so for sure so that i i was just like alright i'll start ripping ufc and that that was a whole separate thing too and i love the ufc now too but man like the the growth and the ability to rip all these tops products for wwe is just it's still i still can't wrap my head around it and it just keeps keeps growing to that point where you know it it's it's a lot right but at the same time at the end of the day i'm never going to complain i'm ripping packs of cards for a living and i am so thankful for that but i won't ever forgive or forget you know how i got to where i am and you know remember how i that is a unique story i'm not gonna lie yeah i mean most of the breakers most of the breakers that we've talked to you know they they've gone through similar trials and tribulations right where it's like hey we're we're gonna start ripping we're gonna start building this business from the ground up and i think you went through that too but the fact that you were a buyer like on the platform before getting into this and sort of like that role that you played as the the the informer of the spots i think is is a really unique situation it's really cool and i know that level of data and that level of sort of information is rarely delivered in a manner that collectors can access or access very easily so that's just that was a really that's a really cool story to tell what are so when you you you you got your business started everything is good you got your direct account like when you started with wwe and you started really getting into the wrestling like did you sort of get a favorite wrestler did you have like sort of that favorite product like what are your what are your favorites that that you love here to as part of the the hobby before even touching it before touching any cards my even breaking bray wyatt bray wyatt's my oh okay yeah we've talked about this yet and my one b though i mean my attitude eric is so stone cold steve austin you know i have i appreciate both of i'm just starting a stone cold pc but bray wyatt you know it it went from this basically the the origins is nineteen or october twentieth nineteen ninety six and it's not a stone cold match it is wwe in your house buried alive match the day before my birthday mankind versus the undertaker mhmm that got me back in right i i would watch the golden era i'd watch you know ultimate warrior and stuff but wasn't really fully in wrestling at that time but i'm doing well enough and i enjoyed it i watched it no issues with it loved the the the the faces and hated the heels all that but you know that october twenty nineteen ninety six i'm invested and then you know you you get that bret hart's stone cold steve austin after king of the ring i just started watching back starting at king of the ring where stone cold one i'm watching every raw episode again i'm i'm now in nineteen late nineteen ninety eight or early nineteen ninety nine anastasia cool yeah always will have that running in the background just to kind of refresh my memory of how much fun it was watching that stuff rushing home from football practice to go see what kind of hell stone cold's gonna raise or what kind of payback vince is gonna create you know so it's that that was it right so you had the the wrestlemania thirteen bret hart stone cold steve austin the blood down the face you know everybody the respect that everybody get gained from stone cold steve austin from that match that's my guy at that point that's my guy and if i ride or die anybody like i'm now i'm everything wrestling i need every action figure i need i need whatever it is give me the cd you know whatever it is and so we're running through the attitude era absolute blast and then you know i became a teenager and thought girls were better than than cards and and wrestlers and all that stuff so got to that point got away from wrestling it's kinda basically when stone cold stopped getting that main event picture you know and i kinda went away from it and then this guy bray wyatt came along and i'm like what is this and i it's just intrigued by it because it was different you know and just such a like the creativity to be able to spit out the words he was saying and like the the the it was just nothing like it so i would literally just watch bray wyatt segments and turn off the tv i wouldn't watch anything else interesting and then then black and gold we have nxt black and gold right so they got finn balor you got all these names over there triple h is doing his thing down in nxt running that putting a hell of a show and so it would be pretty wide segments and then nxt and then you had i just i couldn't stand the fact i'm a big storyline guy and when a storyline goes one week it's some of them are compelling and it was i'm talking like two thousand ten ish you know twelve you know vince would or i don't know if i'll say the names and stuff but like he would put on these compelling storylines for one week and then where did it go like a week later gone yeah and that would frustrate me so much i was like i can't do this and then triple h came back came over and they i i don't know exactly when triple h started taking over creative because there's all the talks of now he's ahead now he's not i don't even know but i started enjoying it so you know it's mainly you're talking about the idiot son-in-law right that guy yeah dude like i i i was fully invested in wwe now at that point and i'm watching that day in and day out and so my my mount rushmore is really just three heads i don't even want the fourth one just give me bray give me stone cold and give me the goat of managers paul heyman paul heyman okay love it alright paul heyman if i could sit down and talk with that guy i don't care if it's about the weather i just wanna hear what's on his mind did you watch the interview he just did with chris van whatever van pelbio yeah that was that was quite the interview he's he's just so good like i could sit there he could read me a book the best so intrigued i don't care what book it is there there are very few undisputed goats in wwe in their roles that they play and paul heyman i stand by they're they're like as much as bobby the brain heenan and sherry martell and all the other managers have existed no one has done more for their managed superstars than paul heyman and you have all the backstage stuff so i you you're speaking directly to my soul in that respect yeah but yeah i love it i i mean obviously ryan is a big bray wyatt fan right yeah of course well parker's fair wrestler of all time is bray financially yes it seems like i'm a big bray wyatt collector but no my my nine year old is i know that's right so yeah troy troy's like hey make sure you bring some brays for me and try not to buy them up like that's that's fair i picked up a few this past weekend for him but competing with a nine year old yeah and losing yes this nine year old has the best bray wyatt collection yeah i i so cool though man it is it is cool to be able to have that bond with your kid like i gotta say that's one of the coolest sayings that if i could have the same with any of my three boys or all three i'd be on cloud nine i mean i i'll whatever they enjoy doing i'll support them but man hundred percent yeah no true at least ryan ryan at least gets the joy of collecting wrestling i'm chasing down charizard and pikachu pokemon you're doing the pokemon which which they are yeah the the pokemon's kinda tough because i'm like i don't understand it we just stick to wrestling that'd be great yes yes so from a product perspective you guys are on fnatic live still quite a bit i've i've done a ton of breaks with you guys and i'm still waiting for some of these sets to come out that are later in the year that i i assume you guys are just as excited for dynasty and stadium club and and everything and finest again like where where do you see forgot about dynasty was that yeah i forgot about dynasty that's going to be unbelievable yeah i've seen some of the stuff they're putting in it and it's just ridiculous it's literally ridiculous and they have the summerslam stuff i think is gonna be in there too the patches they wore at last year's summerslam which are gonna be awesome but like what's your take on sort of the where things are right now and like product mixes that they're doing right now and sort of where things are headed for next year well i mean it's been a tough you know past month two months three months you know there's a lot of drops at once and we're all feeling it but outside of that i mean i'm i'm a huge fan of cosmic chrome i always was i we were ripping baseball and i fell in love with it we pulled two lunar boxes like what is going on and wow it was like i fell in love ever since like the concept to chase a box as a group not just as an individual right the whole group in the break we're hoping for that lunar box not just one of them you know that's that's cool i like that and so it's just an another layer added to the chase it may be a personal or not i like i i love that about cosmic and you know it was it was definitely a lot to go through but man there were some fun rips along the ways i mean royalty are you kidding me royalty lived up to expectations in my opinion i wish i could rip that all day long all day every day don't think you're alone in that yeah but didn't pull a mania patch but that's okay you know i i i'm how many cases do you guys do how about that safety how many cases do you think you rep over a hundred i i i don't even know i honestly i lost track like because like when we go from product to product like i i'm just sold tunnel vision on the now to look back and think i have to look at spreadsheets at that point i don't even remember what i ate for dinner yesterday so that's a whole another part fair you get older it's like the memory is just shot man did you did you do you think you did more chrome or did you do more royalty oh my god i i think we did more royalty than chrome but i intentionally i intentionally held back on breakers delight because it is such a fun rip and i gotta say when you look at cost to what you get out of a product i will still say that is the greatest w two b product i know i was just talking about that yeah ever like i still will say that and i mean you got gpks to chase the autos like there's always been i i we won like fifteen cases straight and there was a tiffany stratton auto like i was like what is going on here like there's big names coming out of these products nonstop and it's not just like two names you're getting like seven and like it's wild some of those cases that ryan ripped had like just ten fives everything and they weren't junky names either they were like you know the they were stone cold as you were mentioning undertaker like they were just like those god cases were insane ryan you've you've ripped more breakers delight than i think any of us like you you know what that's like i i that's why i've ripped a lot of it because it's just like one isn't enough it's like you pop one you're like give me another one and some of these boxes you're like how are all three of those autos in this box like it is so low it's like it's i i mean i've seen cases multiple cases with stone cold and taker autos in them which is just okay one you're happy two like what am i doing here you know i i've it's it's a beautiful product the black finites or sorry the black geometrics go ahead they look like black finite yes they are they're incredible i was lucky enough to pull up bray wyatt for parker so that saved me a few bucks oh and then i did hit a hogan to two and then i actually have both ortons to two i hit in briggs so at least that one worked out yeah you like that i i love it i mean the delight this year i i like the hobby for the price i really do but it just doesn't have that same like taste that that bang right out of the box i get you're paying like sub three hundred a box for hobby but you're paying six hundred plus for delight give me delight all day give me delight all day just i i normally get two better one auto in my whole delight box better than two hobby boxes of of autos again yeah you can hit the good stuff there but delight was just so loaded and i think the geometrics just look beautiful on some of those parallels i i gotta say though my all time favorite product i don't know if maybe we need to blur this out because it's not tops no well give say whatever you want we talk about i'm an all around cost factor hit ratio all of that i'm going select international twenty twenty four select international oh my god the wave parallels got you i i mean how many golds you get out of those ton they had like six in one case and it's for some of those those international cases can go hard and there's like the cost efficiency on that like you like the cost i i remember they were like low two two grand we were selling oh yeah like i think boxes were a hundred and something bucks i was buying them for back yeah they were cheap they were dirt cheap hundred i think it was yeah they got really cheap i was buying them up when i could because i was like this is a no brainer rip i bought two cases from you ryan i don't even know if you know this i bought two cases from you i was like these are great learn something new every day i didn't know you did so i don't even know what do even if we even have any left to be honest i don't even know at this point the gold autos in that were like out five five yeah that's right yeah like no one on ones that was the only drawback there were no one on one with black waves i i'll take i'll go without the one on ones to get a chance at ten out of tens like i i've had cases where there was ten gold waves like in in let's let's remind like ringsides out of the hobby those were hard to hit color yeah and then select international you're pulling colored ringsides left and right because of white so and you had oba in that one too a lot of people forget about in twenty four that's right rookies yes those are rookies they added in the blue james fattu yep yeah fattu with the ringside vakir with the ringside julia with the ringside yes that was a great product yes it really was and they added in the case it's too the artistic artistic selection beautiful cards by the way very beautiful yeah those are awesome so just let's i wanna do a title match topic here with troy because i think it's it's really an interesting sort of a die dynamic between the collector side and the breaker side and getting all those perspectives on the podcast and we've had stephanie on we've had a lot of different breakers sort of engage with us over the course of the podcast and i think asking questions like this really help collectors to understand sort of why breakers are doing the things the way that they are but more importantly like what are they seeing from their side of things like on the breaker side of the hobby like what is the biggest things that you think have changed from twenty twenty five twenty twenty six you mentioned the the just drop after drop after drop like what do you think is the biggest things that have changed from your side of things and then brian and i can weigh in from dealer and collector perspective as well well first thing i know for a fact is the amount of people that are ripping wwe cards that is a huge difference from twenty twenty five yeah to twenty twenty six especially on fanatics collect it it is night and day different and it it that's where it can be challenging but for a buyer standpoint that's awesome are you kidding me competition that's always good as a buyer so but i i do feel for the people that are you know you buy in a break you wait for it to fill and it it can be it can be a little bit more challenging because there's just so many more people out there with more options and that's okay i i i really don't have an issue with it and i again i came from as a buyer so i always think that way i will even as an a corner of the wax culture i will always think that way and help myself like be in that ground like why is it hard to fill up right now what's going on like oh well i mean here's all these spots right here and there are like twenty different breakers listening out i mean why not i mean i would i would do the same thing i completely understand but being able to like the other aspect of it is like seeing the innovation in cards and seeing like you know we have wrestlemania patches we're chasing now and you know like yeah what are those what are these wrestlemania patches you talk of it's not like you it's not like you don't you don't have one yes exactly dude and congratulations on that thank you thank you but like that is probably like the coolest thing that i in my mind like i love the innovation that we that we have now and we we haven't seen the last of it either there's gonna be new stuff and we what are we we're not even talking about yet and that that's the part that still blows my mind is that like can we see scotchgard soon like i missed those i don't know about you yeah yeah like i i would love to start seeing stuff like that come back and and kinda reinvent itself in product lines like do we see undisputed again i heard i heard through the grapevine like not even a year ago it was on the list at one point but i don't know i think that's what universe became yeah i think that became universe but like it's a great call out i mean like we i remember back gary lawler had sketch cards in some of these products they did so many things with rob schamberger too over the years in the top sets yeah it's a it's a great call out my favorite card's a bray wyatt insert sketch card so cool yeah did you and did you see the have you seen the transcendent ones too that rob schamberger did yes those are really cool i mean they're the the sketch cards are kind of they hit me home i'll always have a soft spot for sketch cards so if that would you know both worlds collide i've been talking up gpks for over a year and we got those me too i'm on cloud nine like that's so cool that we got jpks i bought two unused sketches straight from yeah we did too yeah brian and i got them too yeah alright i i got the ordin and you got the becky yep who did you get i bought the unused roman reigns so i didn't make the cut and i also bought the rocks that didn't make the cut but i also bought on the basketball side i bought and the bands does the ones that they did use oh wow those are cool those are really cool yeah so like it's seeing the innovation and everything that we got it it just blows my mind it really does so like you wanna talk about some of the the bad the rough it's it's right now it's it's seasonal too it's we had a a lot of drops right now really test a lot of people on on the breaker side you know because we we have to manage that inventory we have to you know make sure we're turning through it to stay afloat at the same time we can't sit here with forty cases or whatever ten cases for some you know it it varies by by level what who's going through what so it's it's definitely a a challenge for some and it it may have impacted more than on some breakers than others but i just i hope i hope everybody made it through just fine because that that was a that was a challenge it was a lot yeah yes alright ryan what about you what do you think is the biggest thing that's changed from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six yeah i mean i'm gonna touch on the fact competition there because you get on now and there's just pages almost of who's breaking wrestling i'm gonna go in there and go wwe and and i think that has changed like troy said when he got on it was like him and i by the way love your story it doesn't want the yeah love how you know people are like oh he's a big breaker he's been fed you know fed everything the perception of everybody is you know all great things start small you built something that you're like i believe it i love this i did this i had a career i have a family you took the leap you took the plunge absolutely kudos love hearing stories like this is what brings me closer to people in the hobby as i respect people because we did it a long time ago and it was dark years well before any of this stuff came about so i respect anybody who is willing to sacrifice time energy family time financially everything you you did all that so kudos i wanted to first say that second off you know the competition's key and i think in the wrestling space and this goes to everything is you have to be entertaining you have to be engaged with your room you have to know your product know what you're talking about like you said for sure you study numbers everything like that but you also know wrestling you watch wrestling i don't wanna break with somebody because they're ripping wrestling because we were allocated wrestling guys we have to get rid of wrestling because yeah it happens you're gonna get allocated things that you're not as passionate about but maybe get somebody to break it who is passionate about it when you go into those other aspects so i i enjoy breaking with you guys and other people and i've got to the point where adam and i are both anti whatnot now you know and i don't go there and it's nothing really whatnot it's i like what i'm seeing at fanatics i like the people i'm breaking with at fanatics i i'm building relationships with you all and that is the biggest thing is like you're gonna build relationships with people that you may never meet in person who are just longtime customers and it's just something that there's like no other thing in the in any type of industry is the relationship you can build by you being you on camera and showing your passion to somebody who resonates with you so back to the competition that to me spot on when you said that it was like perfect where my head was again love what they're doing they're they're being so innovative they're getting more cooperation with wwe than we've ever seen panini get and it's unfortunate we didn't get that but we're seeing what this cooperation potentially coulda looked like with panini and it's resonating into topps they've only just scratched the to surface with what they're going to be able to do in the coming years the future the relationship the wwe so i i think we're gonna see more people diving into wrestling cards i see more people coming in you can rip tops chrome wwe blasters for twenty five bucks the the the buyback program's key just people watch wrestling oh there's wrestling cards that's more people diving in and jumping in and then we know you're if you're gonna break live you're gonna go to fanatics you're gonna go to whatnot kind of the two places that people know and and again the consistency that you have with your brand your team on there shows that people wanna see consistency and you're always on there breaking wrestling those are huge factors to continue to build the fan base the collective base the the customer base essentially so those are kind of the things that really stuck out i'm gonna agree with troy and all that because to me he he really understands what he's talking about with the growth with what he's seen in the past year from starting as the only guy when he clicked wwe nobody breaking to where we are now and that's just within what a year and a half roughly yeah because we had topstone release at royal rumble in indianapolis when i was there when i was there i was there for royal rumble that's the week topstone released so we're a year and a half and look how much it's grown in a year and a half from you being you and like probably stephanie were the only people really on there i would have to say to where we are now and i'm like boom well i gotta keep myself in check i don't need to speak on one dot two point o team there had the undertaker like come to the shop exactly yes that's how things have grown and and like you know we saw the picture of troy with stephanie and vicair and and everything like the like this has become a thing now and like it is yep and it's it's really cool to see i think from a even from a collector perspective too like we twenty twenty four whatnot was it like you if you wanted to rip wrestling cards you had to go to whatnot i think fanatics live started really that eight nine month period you were mentioning before troy like about coming in being a part of like there's a buyer and then now if you want like i i've said on a a couple of weeks ago like i don't like paying full price for domino's pizza like you you never buy a domino's pizza at full price and i feel like if you go on whatnot that's the experience you get you're paying more you're you're not getting the experience of the professionals doing it the right way there are people on whatnot who do a great job like of our sponsors card shop live does a great job they're on fanatics live as well because they're pros and like that's one of the things that we really gravitate towards is like the experience the setup everything i think all of that has changed so dramatically from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six just being able to come on and recognize that this is now a thing like this is like top supported like you guys are at fanatics like doing things with fanatics fest like the national like all these other things like there's gonna be so much and i can't say enough good things about how much we've grown and you know the the narrative that breakers have ruined the hobby i don't subscribe to we talked about that last week on the podcast but it's like how do you expand things if you're not putting it out there for people to see and i think that's what what you guys have done such a great job with at wax culture and you mentioned all the other sponsors through the course of this discussion like there's so many different things that i think have changed since since that point where that narrative no longer holds the water at all and i really love to see continued growth continued competition more breakers on those pages and like you said and ryan said you said both like it's just it's it's it's a whole new area of of living here in the hobby and sure things have gotten more expensive because there's more demand there's less supply but you know when topps is putting out product after product that just delivers these humongous cards that we're all loving like it's it's hard to it's hard to look at it in a negative light right yeah and the one thing that i i failed to mention is the card community on fanatics life it is literally like mhmm i remember and it still it still kinda is there's a little bit more people than what it used to be but it was literally like a herd of i feel like there's like twenty maybe thirty people and they would literally go from like the you know like us to staff by the way steph was the first person i think i've ever bought into on fanatics live from oh wow so that's cool so she she probably has no idea about that too so like i don't i don't think i can really you learn something new yeah yeah as ryan was saying but like you would see it and i because i would watch too like i would watch what other people are doing because i just enjoyed watching the breaks so i like they were man who else was there i mean even like philpoms would be on there every once in a while you would see some other some other breakers on there doing their thing and i just you would go and you'd see them go from like one to the other if i'm not live somebody else is and then they're over there i did this it was new you know and like it was just such a like a a good group of people like you could like i would always talk about that that the wrestling card community is the best amongst any of them that i've ever worked with before and and broken with or anything along the lines that is like i've i've never seen so many people like gifting cards to one another because you know somebody chasing a spotter you know they pc one and they got two of them so they're giving one to another and like i've never seen that happen and the to the point where i i was witnessing it happen i was like what do i do how do i make sure that like i don't i i gotta make sure i actually write this down so i'm saying it to the right person so i didn't even have to think about that but like the wrestling community man there is it's always been that way ryan you mentioned and you guys mentioned that of like not even really being able to see these people in person that's one of my main goals is whenever i get out to a card show or anything along the lines of that that's like what my number one thing i want wrestlemania i didn't care as much about going to mania as to like getting people that ripped yep so like when we when we did the instant rips at w two b world i was on cloud nine we had like i think they they told me they had like two thousand instant rips and they were supposed to be from thursday all the way to sunday and we ripped through all of them by end of friday me yeah that's stephanie was doing that too and she said they flew through yeah yeah so like they had to go get blaster packs for everybody else because i was just sitting there grinding through with my guy jaden and we we were just like we had a system down and we're just ripping through it but i was sitting there talking wrestling enough time to be able to engage and actually relate with the the individual because if i'm just sitting here being a robot just having them do it and get out like what's the point yeah yeah exactly you gotta bring something out yeah so like it was so fun i lost my voice i could not speak on friday and i i like i was just chugging waters and everything to get ready to finish it off on friday no breaks just straight up eight hours ripping instant rips with people both nights it was or days it was unbelievable and like then like someone like i'm so and so on fanatics live and then i'm just i'm hugging them like first time i'm meeting them it was such a cool experience like easily one of my favorite experiences so that's awesome so speaking of meeting people i'm gonna go back a little bit let's talk let's finish this out with sort of our our weekly plug for wrestling card takeover tim you mentioned tim from card vault live he's one or card vault live oh my god card they do go live too so technically you're you're you're fine tim card vault one of the sponsors mentioned card shop live stephanie's come up a bunch we also have mc sports cards sports card junction guys at card ladder have been great swish and the team at bless online bcw brian we've mentioned from thc sports cards and then of course troy and his team from wax culture all supporting this acknowledge our sponsors can't thank you guys enough and it's just thank you incredible to to to have so many people want to support the community like this you mentioned just sort of how much you've enjoyed being a part of it but thank you for for joining us as part of wrestling card takeover friday the thirty first national convention join us at the embassy suites if you're going to come and be a part of it make sure that you email book to last podcast at gmail dot com you just made the list yes and just have and just have have he's come a long way troy he's come a long way he really has but like i i think it's it's so important to come and be a part of the community circle up with all the wrestling card collectors it's gonna be the most of us in one place at one time ever i think we're expecting around three hundred and fifty people including your team so can't wait to have you guys there are you what's what's are you guys excited here dude like first off no thank you guys you guys are the ones putting this on right like this is this is unbelievable to be able to to have this kind of night and i i wasn't honestly i was not planning on going to the national i was planning on just going to summerslam and then i heard what was going on i immediately reached out to ryan i was like any way i could help let me know and then we just ended up getting in contact with you guys my wife who also co owns the wax culture but we are so excited for this like i i booked my flights i'm ready to go i'm going to the national mainly because of this night what days are you gonna what night are you gonna be there just friday be there now thursday and friday because they added an event for me too yeah so go there for that and then friday night i'm with you guys i'm so excited for that and then first thing saturday morning headed to summerslam and then yeah we're all in the same boat i'm i live in not me i'm i gotta stay down there i gotta stay down there unfortunately but yeah what what a what a four day trip for you man that's gonna be insane it's again surreal like is is is is this isn't real to me like this is wild i we and we planned this the one time they do a big event in minnesota we never get this we haven't had summerslam since like nineteen ninety nine so like it's it's been a long time since we've had a big wwe event and of course it's the weekend of the national but i can't complain because i'm gonna try and do both as best as possible it's gonna be awesome great to see you there hopefully we'll we'll get a chance to catch up in person awesome to have you on the podcast thank you for joining us and and spending the time here telling your story we always love having new guests on and we're gonna try and get as many of our sponsors to come on and and and do this as well hopefully we'll have tim and everybody from cardvault we'll have pat stephanie on a couple of times we're gonna try and get everybody else on as well and i think it's it's amazing that how much you've been able to build in such a short amount of time with with wax culture and everything you do for wrestling i can't wait to i i think i joined some of your breaks recently they may not have gone off yet but sapphire is slow moving in some cases but can't wait to see by the way yeah i know it's such an awesome product close my mind loaded product wait to see done the number crunching on the numbering like ain't it like the best odds to hit a one zero one is what it was adam talked about that yeah it's it's absurd it's it's gotta be because of all the extra auto checklist that they added in yeah hundred and like seven different things yeah you guys know who's on the most auto checklist right in ballard maybe i don't know stone cold i was gonna guess stone cold stone cold and the energy are four different auto checklists like that is oh for sapphire yeah for sure that's awesome it's like the the but the sapphire is a little different you're either you're either the signer or you don't and then you got the same number of autos as everybody else but so it's really just straightforward like how many checklists are you on for sapphire that's how that kind of product works but like your your chromes and all that that's where really diving in knowing that checklist well it'll get you that yeah that's that's great i didn't even think about that because stone cold has legend autos he has the the regular base autos and then he has hall of fame there's yeah yeah hall of fame yep hall of fame march was he on march march of champions mhmm maybe yeah like oh he does i mean undertaker does too so that makes a lot of sense like but the funny enough like there's only like twenty or so copies of each base autograph and then you only have the blacks the reds and the and the papas so yeah i love sapphire i did a big rip last night on with with one of my friends and like walked away unhappy because i i you know i'm only chasing one person but yep and then you know it's just like it's it's crazy we ripped some we ryan and i ripped some together when we were in minnesota earlier for the shop opening there it's a great product man i don't know why people in wrestling just i think twenty twenty five really snake them hurt people's yes yeah but yeah twenty twenty six is a whole different product man it's so awesome such a hidden gem it really is it'll be it'll be for a long time i think people are gonna come back to it but i'm anyways i'm gonna save a couple cases for that reason because i think down the road you wanna talk about a product that's like you got some great names when they're younger and stuff and like i i will hold on to these cases for a long time i mean years if i can if i can like i that's ryan does that too see a taser let's listen i have a little bit of a hoarding problem let's just leave it at that with with wrestling product that's with wrestling running so i've seen the hoard it's impressive you haven't seen the new one you haven't seen the new one have will though you will when you come visit me so i will see it yes for sure alright troy great to have you on thanks again can't wait to to see you in in chicago i know brett's eager as and and thanks for spending some time with us today it great to hear your story and with that we will see you guys can you tell everybody where they can find you at and then what you always end see i okay i for the record you weren't here earlier troy i've never beat adam with the podcast it's twenty six episodes i beat him today by like five minutes that's never happened and here i am like by the way do you wanna have him plugged man i'm so happy you're here troy do need in check i i do i do i i i don't know about that but i try to so troy can you tell us our our listeners yes there you go good job thank you for keeping me honest ryan it's it's as if i've never done a podcast before i apologize go ahead troy well the wax culture you can find us exclusively on finax collect the the home in my opinion two w b reps nice good and do you have instagram and and everything as well yeah we do have instagram we have tiktok my wife handles a lot of that stuff i just do the videos and smile and make a goofball and just be a goofball you know take pictures with yourself yeah yeah i think it's awesome that you and your wife do this together by the way that's that's really awesome that's really cool alright real quick to that so she wasn't originally supposed to be the owner but i was like i really want her to get into wrestling so i i put her name on the on the ownership papers and i convinced her to sign i was like alright now you have to like wrestling i didn't want you gotta do it now you gotta do it it worked you would be like the the growth of my wife's like the things that she knows of wrestling i'm so impressed i am a proud husband and i wish i got a w on that i wish i imagine you guys like standing in a room like and she's got you got your hand out and she's like looking around like do i shake his hand to it she's looking for the crowd reaction she's finally it's like that's how i imagine it went down in pure wrestling format yeah oh but yeah alright well now that i now that i've gotten where we can find you thank you again i'm so sorry i'm like out of it today as you can probably tell i'm messing up sponsors' names and everything usually when these weeks happen it's because of something at work and today it's definitely something at work but thank you again we'll see you next week brian yeah thank you for keeping me honest man that's what i have to do well big gulps see you later