alright welcome to episode thirty six of book to last i am adam gelman welcome back for all of our loyal listeners ryan bannister this week is in dallas for the card show and i had a work thing on our usual taping time frame so my other tag team partner we're gonna use the free bird rule as we usually do brett mcgrath how are you sir how's your week been it's been fun crazy exciting all of the things was away for a few days with the family on vacation but i definitely made sure i squeezed in time for some wrestling when i returned so i feel like i'm all all up to speed on the happenings there's so much happening across i know the wrestling card space and i'm feel very fortunate to get the opportunity to fill in for mister bannister and talk some wrestling cards today yeah ryan will be back hopefully shortly and best of luck to him in dallas on his biannual trip i think so we're gonna miss him this week because got some fun stuff planned but glad to have brett join us let me get our agenda here up on the screen and i think like for me personally like this week was a little weird and just getting into the opening pyro here because we had like a a sunday night's main event or whatever they wanna call it and i think the matches there weren't the story it was the outcomes of everything and some of the returns and i think there wasn't anything on the pay per view that was unexpected it was just everything that happened outside of the matches is what drove the interest in the pay per view so let's start with that because bronson reed is back and we've been teasing this for on the podcast we've talked about like his potential impact when he comes back and as somebody who has a ton of cards out there and doesn't have a lot of value associated with him like it seems like he's poised to finally put the injuries behind him he's in tremendous shape and this could be an opportunity for collectors to get a good look at what brancery could do when he's literally the best shape of his life made a huge impact on the obafemi bronson bron breaker because a lot of bronze in this match and i was i i knew it was coming but i and i i was sad that they didn't give bron breakker the win i know you hate him but i think like i think obafemi needed to feel a loss here so that we can start this and people will argue no you don't put the guy under in a spot that he's in you gotta do with a d q finish whatever i disagree i think you can take losses when they mean something and i think this would have meant a lot for the vision which has been decimated by injuries i don't know what you thought what your thoughts are yeah i i will i will try to play both sides where i say something very very nice and then i say something maybe right not true based approach sort of to a to a promo yeah i think that first of all it's great to see bron bronson reed back he's an incredible talent like he is in the best shape of his life like great character i think he he there was a void in the vision without him there i mean you you can't forget that this guy you know pinned roman reigns and i think that is really really important and i think he's got cards and i think like there will be a moment where he's probably on a stage a little bit bigger than he is right now from a character perspective so great to see him back i think everyone expected some sort of non finish in that match i think the issue that i have are it's twofold i think number one it is surprise surprise with the bron breakker character and maybe it's a me thing and i just have this complex but like i really really struggle with this badass and what he's actually supposed to be and who he is actually for and i don't wanna offend any breaker fans out there but like the moment for me was really on monday night raw when he's backstage and he's talking to paul heyman and you know he has this assumption that he took care of the vision took care of business and that oh buffimi is out of sight out of mind and it's just like like as as an audience member i'm like is he being serious is he being facetious like come on like we've all watched wrestling so like there's just like this constant disconnect with with me and his character he's an unbelievable athlete like he's he's great performer in ring obviously but like i struggle with that and i think overall like just i struggle with the obafemi booking and i struggle from it from a a one perspective like you literally just retired the biggest force in probably wwe history in brock lesnar like take them out three match series you got the loss in between and it's over see a brock lesnar obafemi continue to scale and to me it's like any feud not with a wwe champion or a name is big or about on the same level as brock lesnar i struggle with so like this overall program with the vision i'm i just struggle with it because we all know what's eventually gonna happen like oba's gonna you know take out every individual member in a match and then he's gonna face breaker and he's gonna be break and it's just like i don't know maybe it's me watching too much wrestling over the years i'm still having fun watching it but like i don't know i'm just like i wish things were different for obafemi right now well i think like you nailed sort of the brawn breaker situation is like he is like this incredible talent but i think like obafemi sort of exposed him on the mic and was like he's got some major holes and gaps in his game and i think like it has nothing to do with what he's performing in the ring it's all about like the other aspects of his character which i think aspects of his character which i think wwe is doing both of them a disservice by making this the future of wwe match which i i don't think you call it that you let other people make that assumption and we've said that a number of times but i like i wanted i wanted oba to lose only if you're truly invested in this vision faction and i think like it seems like they are and i'm not seeing i don't see it i don't like logan paul i think he's an amazing wrestler he's hurt so like he can't really add anything physically so like i don't see the reason to invest in this faction yet but coming bringing bronson reed back and maybe putting him into a a a feud with somebody that isn't obafemi would give them the opportunity to put him over like the beast that they did when he first came back where he was just tsunami every after tsunami after tsunami but when you put him in obafemi and and you're like as an audience member you're like you say i need to see that this mega monster can fall and yeah i and but and i and you mentioned the loss of brock lesnar i saw that as the worst possible decision to bring that feedback so i'm gonna sort of wipe that from my memory but i don't know man like this was not the right call and i was like and you can't just dump him into a feud with roman reigns unless you're ready to put the belt on him which i don't think they are yet i think they'll do that at wrestlemania so i don't know man i think they've really booked themselves into a corner and like the only person who could potentially lose a feud to obafemi and not really be completely dismembered by that is bron breakker and that's just stupid in my opinion but either way yeah one final note on this is like i have thought about this a lot and i think about like the raw roster and when i'm watching raw like what excites me as a fan the most and undeniably roman reigns but roman reigns isn't there every week so it's like well who's next and it's like it's over femi and it's like without a doubt and that is for a lot of the audience who watches and it's like when you start a raw and you after a sunday night where oba gets destroyed and then you start a raw in literally the same backyard where obafemi was a college athlete and you destroy him in front of all of these fans who have just been waiting to watch him and come out and destroy people like i don't know i just i'm struggling with i'm sure eventually you hit fast forward and we'll all be happy again but right now it's hard i i don't think any of it impacts obafemi's cards no but i just no don't love the booking i i think this is a very weak period of time for the booking right now i it's not as bad as it was prior to when we were in that rut where smackdown was bad and raw was kind of like like it's not that bad but i think like when you were like on fire coming in and out of summerslam and then this is kind of where you head i think like it's an inevitable valley before an eventual peak at wargames or money in the bank or whatever but i do like what they're trying to do with the triple threat here of liv and vakar and becky lynch not just because i'm a homer but because i think that women's division has lacked a story for her so long and liv was just on the shelf waiting that care is back and they've got this like three headed monster which i think all talented all can drive a story as much as i dislike liv morgan overall like she is the perfect foil for these this sort of heel side of things and you've got a tweener a face and a heel it works and i hate triple threats but this is one of the times where it works so that was really cool but before we get on to that i totally skipped over randy orton and cody rhodes because the way that that match ended with all the blood and all of the the stuff that went down like i thought the match was just kinda meh but like the the overall like punt story and cody not being able to pull the trigger at what point are they gonna stop teasing this and actually just full on just go cody and randy together as the two man power trip of the heels and just let them run ramp it or let cody just completely go away and do street fighter stuff as bannister has always said but i don't know like i'm just not i don't like cody in this role of being like this sheriff and even though randy came out ahead through underhanded means to perfect two thousand nine orton as bannister texted us like i like i like that i like randy being back to his old conniving ways but cody just i don't know man he just doesn't resonate with me the same way i don't know about you yeah i think i have intrigued on the story line and where it can lead to i think i i am i think just based on our conversations way more of a cody fan than than than you would consider yourself but i i'm i'm with you like something something different is needed and i i have seen over the course of programming these seeds have been planted so i'm trying to be patient as a wrestling fan i mean i mean there could be worse people that he's dancing with right now right dancing with one of the all time greats so i'm excited about the direction because it's a little bit of a mystery for me right now but i am excited to talk about this this women's triple threat potential because this is probably exciting me the most right now yeah and there's and it's and it's needed right like i think all of these people have been waiting for something as we've said and i just i hope they don't like i i know it's i know the path right it's gonna be becky and and stephanie vakir either have a match or becky and liv have a match and stephanie gets involved the same way that becky does and then it leads to a triple threat in money in the bank or whatever do i i think money in the banks the match itself the the latter match the women's match suffers without stephanie vakaire in that match so i am curious how that all works out yeah i i wanna talk i definitely wanna talk about money in the bank but like there's i wanna i there was a moment i had while watching raw in that the the live and vicare match and i wanna get a pulse check from you because it it reminded me of something but first of all like the match between liv and vakira was fantastic even though the finish was what it was i think that's the match that they probably if they had the time they would have had at wrestlemania but there was a moment and it just brought me right back to the attitude era which was this is good good what i really wanted is when i saw becky coming coming down it was very much in like the the the stone cold role of yes like like i i just went instantly to like the foley win when mankind got the title for the first time in stone cold's role in that like i saw becky and then it got cut short and it didn't go the full way which was fine i'm like okay maybe this is this is leading to something bigger so i don't know like that thought came in my head and i just think we're all ready for the man to be back like we're we all want we all want it like it's been too long like having her at the top of the mountain with the title is where we're eventually headed i think undeniably so i'm ready for that to take shape just because we we've seen all the different iterations of becky she's been great in all of those roles but we all just want the man back yeah i think it's really hard to i mean she's she likes playing a heel i think she said that on a few different podcasts because it gives her license to do things that that they don't get to do as a face but now that roman reigns is doing what he's doing where he's basically a heel in a face role i think it gives her this tweener ability to sort of be be the man of of two thousand nineteen where it's like she's shitting all over charlotte flair and she's you know standing on people's throats and whatever maybe they go back to that but either way i mean like i i'm i can't wait for it stephanie vaquier is an amazing talent in the ring i think liv has come a million miles becky gets good matches out of everybody and i think that if they put this triple threat on tv whether it's on a money in the bank or if they do it through other things i i will be there with bells on as i think a lot of people have been waiting for all sides of this but i i don't know it's like i think liv's cards have taken a dip because people are just overall sick of her just sitting around and doing nothing the cares cards took a major hit when she lost at wrestlemania we'd said that was gonna happen but she's young and she's athletic and she's gonna come back and do awesome stuff and i think this is just the first of many of those things i don't think they push her back down the card which is good because i was worried about that and i think it'll help her values now to rebound a little bit i actually had some vacaire cards shipped home from blez from the first time ever because i have confidence in her again now that she's back and they didn't put it right back into a feud with like maxine dupree or something which is great so anyways like but the the women's made card i think on both shows has has done nicely with tatum paxley debuting and solruka finding a little bit of ground to get into this money in the bank match lyra vakiria finding her psycho side or whatever it is like i think they're they're cooking on the women's side and i think everything else like they can only focus on one thing at once it's like we we can't have too many focuses here and like they they really realized like women's division got hit hard after wrestlemania and they were just like okay we need to focus on this so hopefully this gives them a little bit of juice coming into money in the bank but solruka punches her ticket on raw i don't know who else they're gonna put in this i have a feeling tatum paxley probably gets in and because they wanna give her a spotlight and i would guess one other member of the judgment day whether it's raquel or roxanne gets in so then who else is gonna fill this out so i don't know if you have seen this so i there is a match announced for mexico city so nxt champion kehlani jordan is in lullabies is debuting and raquel they're all there's a three three way i think i think in that match i would imagine lullabies will win that match he can't debut her in then like yeah so so there's that now when i was thinking about this in prep for this i was just like who makes the most sense to win with the women's money in the bank and you mentioned her name and dude i think it's time pull the pull time to pull the card on roxanne perez i just think her winning that match it has there is storyline potential you saw her involvement in helping liv win i just think can you imagine the dynamic of her having the briefcase and let's say liv still holding the title and she's in judgment day they've been planting those seeds so i don't know i think she's super underrated and she's played kinda sidekick i just think it's time to just like let her spread her wings and let's see her go i i think that would be so i said you can't have so when they did the turn of the tournament with you know the people were saying well raquel is gonna win queen of the ring and that's gonna be the vehicle i don't think that that's the way to go money in the bank you can draw it out and you don't have to do it in a stupid tournament you can do it like through storyline i i think that's an interesting call i love what roxanne perez does in the ring and i think she if you give her the the runway she'll she'll do well so i i don't disagree with you on that i think they're probably gonna go smack down and i think because chelsea green is injured i don't know like it's it's hard because i think liv is an easy target because people are just generally dissatisfied with her booking but i don't there's this is wide open i think like they could go smackdown they could go raw tiffy time tiffy time taking the title from chelsea i do you so here's the other thing no one's failed a cash in yet on the female side is this the year where they like say okay tiffany you you go and you fail like or becky you go take it and you get back blindsided by stephanie mccarrie you don't get to do whatever i don't know but i i think it'll be interesting to see how it would put on the men's side as long as obafemi is not in the match it's a success so it takes like keep oba out of the match and you're fine like anybody can win and it doesn't really matter because either you're going after punk and that's an easy way to take the title off of him or you're going after roman and you're probably gonna fail so i don't know yeah the on the men's side i think it's there's a lot of interesting directions the the match that was announced the next one is austin theory big cast and javonne evans and it's like i feel like you have to have javonne evans in the money in the bank match but then it's also like big cast would also provide the base that you need in that sort of match but i just feel like you have to have jevon evans so like i'll i'll i'll pin him in to win and then i was thinking about like who would be the most intriguing money men's money in the bank winner right now and i have two names and i wanna get your reaction to them so the first name is solo i mean can you imagine solo having the money in the bank in this current storyline yes looking at roman reigns each week doing his shtick on the mic i think that would work the other name incredible yeah yeah the the other name is and i feel like they've just been putting him in spots which leads me to think that there might be something bigger and it could be men's money in the bank and that's finn balor i just think finn balor being money in the winning the money in the bank the way his character is and can be slow plotting and methodical like there's a lot of interconnected stories that you could tell him like so for me right now if if you give it to finn and you give it to solo i'm happy either way one of those works for me yeah finn deserves i hate using the word deserves that's not the right word finn's storyline deserves a payoff of him at least attempting a cashing on punk and i think that and punk would be all for it because i know he he wants finn to get more attention he said that a few times but i i have no issue with either of those picks solos because i mean like i want solo because he's awesome but i want finn because he i think it makes sense so anyways alright let's let's move on to some card market news because we've got a lot of it universe early breaks have started they have previewed a ton of cards and i watched breaker mayfield alex break a couple of cases early i've seen the megas and the blaster stuff you know i i don't know how i feel yet like we're still very early on but i wanna start off by saying two things one these slammed case hits that topps previewed this week are you know they're very like hdr type of approach where they have that artistic look to the photographs and i think they actually are art driven cards which i jump through hoops to collect those types of card i love sports art and i think these are so well done so in that that preview i i knew it was coming and i could not wait to to have it live those cards are so awesome is is is this artwork done via rob schamberger because it looks like it it is not so rob schamberger is exclusive to aew right now okay wwe ended their relationship with him a few week a few years ago which i was devastated to hear because i love rob schamberger's work i have it on the wall behind me i have an i have the original so those two paintings one is the original becky lynch that's schamberger and the other one is stone cold it's a print that's signed by him that's schamberger i love rob's work and i'm i was sad when he left but i think this is a guy named justin and i can't think of his last name but it was called out on like one of my posts and i i i think the cars look absolutely awesome are these case hits do they are they paralleled at all they're they're not parallel i think they're case hits yeah okay i at least i don't know that that my guess is that they're case hit sorry okay i saw the yeah i've seen the undertaker and the stone cold and these things are incredible i'm curious to see what their print run is because that'll influence probably my interest whether i because whether i go hard or not but yeah these are the coolest things i've seen from this product so far they it looks good i'm just my level i'm i'm still like undecided on like what my level of interest if at all is for this product yeah i think the the there's a lot of stuff that people don't know about this product that they will find out very very shortly that i'm i'm not gonna share it here on a public forum but you'll get to see it very quickly and people are gonna lose their lose their their on this it's gonna be awesome but i think overall the autographs this year are almost a complete downgrade from twenty twenty five in my opinion i don't like the legends design as much i definitely don't like the title marks as much and i think the horizontal auto relics i'm not a huge fan of either i like vertical cards especially when you're using the one inch by one inch swatches they are they're they're labeled as event used which i think is is great if if that's you know something that's gonna continue to be a focus for tops that's great but i think like you know these are these are meant to be it seems like a flagship type set so like you know i wanna see you know cards that look good for the affordable nature of the product and i think they've accomplished that i think universe does but i'm not an i'm not a flagship type collector i like high end stuff i like shiny cards these are neither of those things so it doesn't really fit into my pc but my favorite case hits that tops has done are the kaiju inserts and the ultraviolet and i think these slammed inserts remind me very much of the ultraviolet case hits from chrome i really hope we get those in twenty twenty seven but if this is what we get instead i'm i'm not gonna complain because they look amazing but oh i mean there's more inscriptions you know more relic autos like i don't see anything generally special about universe but at least it doesn't look like complete crap so that's i would love to get your perspective as the man in the weeds on the fact that like if this is the flagship product why why are we getting the flagship product two times in the same calendar year i think about like the the explanation on football chrome is easy right like they got the license so they released it and then now they're like releasing chrome for the for the new year with the new draft class and now they're on track to like be on schedule right before the season comes out but like i can't connect the dots on why there's two universe sets yeah the there's a the original universe was supposed to come out in twenty twenty five like the middle of twenty twenty five it got delayed dramatically for i i don't even know why like they they never really explained to me or explained publicly like why it was so delayed but i have a feeling it it had to do with signings and redemptions and the usual stuff that delays a product so that came out in february and i thought it's overplayed my expectations i thought the autographs were were great i love the cards and then everything else the case hits the base cards the inserts i hate it so like now we're flipping it and i love all the nonautograph stuff and i hate the autograph stuff but to your point like i i think it's a mistake to release these so close together they do feel like different products which at least they've accomplished that like the title marks and everything does look different enough that it doesn't feel like copy and paste which is great but yeah i i like i don't know if this is the flagship i i assume that they're gonna put out the most affordable product that they can find and if this is it fine but you gotta like if this is coming back for year three you've gotta push this out into well into twenty twenty six i got one more question back twenty twenty seven sorry one more question back to you on just like universe if you are a wwe collector who has collected in the panini era and you're still collecting that stuff and you haven't quite moved over to the top stuff yet like how should collectors be thinking about this set in comparison to maybe something from the panini years it's revolution i mean like that's this is this this is revolution but it's double the price of where revolution came out at and the content is completely different on the hit side of it mhmm but i think the cards themselves remind me of revolution i don't think that topps has settled on what their kaboom or downtown is gonna be yet especially in wrestling i think in sports they're getting closer right so i think like they found some really big hits in in that people have really loved with the gpk and a few other things but i don't know man like i i think this is revolution i don't think this has staying power i think once stadium club comes out people will forget about this and it's unfortunate because i i don't think there's enough wrestling products that come out a year for that to happen i think you should make every one of them mean something and i think that this because it's hot on the heels of twenty twenty five universe i think it it suffers and that's unfortunate yeah i'm a i'm a revolution guy so i hadn't quite connected those dots but yeah makes sense we are just moving on here so we can get to some of the fun stuff here as well we got our first look at assigned topps debut patch for ricky saints we knew what the design looks like thanks to all the previews that they've put out in the cards from chrome last year so just so everybody understands tops in every sport uses either a chrome like a readily available sku so it's not like royalty where there's only like a couple thousand cases they wanna use the largest allocation of cards to release these debut patches to make it more accessible in their minds and so every year i believe that tops chrome every release will have the the the batch of debut patches last year we had five this year there's gonna be a significantly higher amount of those including obafemi and of course ricky sainz i have also confirmed that i believe danhausen is in this set as well and i think that that's gonna be a major chase but these cards look awesome i love the design they chose for these it looks regal it looks awesome not william regal like just you know but i think i think they look great my question to you is like if you had to make a decision of like the obafemi debut patch or the obafemi wrestlemania forty two patch which will be likely released in the same time frame one of them is a meaningful debut the other one is him retiring quote unquote brock lesnar at wrestlemania forty two before all the other crap happened which one are you choosing this is such an awesome question because my my my wheels were spinning and i think i've landed i would rather and sorry all you rookie only collectors or first only collectors i have to go wrestlemania because i saw it and i saw the moment and how big it was and it was against brock lesnar and when i think of obafemi right now as a character i'm not thinking about his debut i'm thinking about that wrestlemania match so the day these dude this this this ricky saints image look this card looks incredible like it looks so good this gets me really excited but i think i'm still going wrestlemania patch with oba it would it shock you to believe that i'm i think i'm on the same page i i loved what they did at wrestlemania to such a vast degree now i know that people will say oh there's gonna be a million like oh buffetemi is gonna headline a bunch of wrestlemanias like what difference does this patch make versus the eight others that are gonna come hopefully that's a problem we experience if it isn't i think that one card is just such a moment in time and wwe is a company built on that but yeah i mean like i see the understanding of like debut patches is the standard for baseball and now football and basketball i mean like we saw the hype around cooper flagg we saw the hype around on knippel's card and dylan harper's card all being in the same auction on fanatics collect like i get it but as a wrestling fan the debut wasn't as big of a deal and i think because he had been on nxt it didn't feel like we were getting something crazy that wrestlemania was crazy and i loved every minute of it and it reminds me of that nostalgia to your point you watched it happen time for time for first of all i can't wait to see those things run side by side and see if this one prevails second time for some cross sport comparison time i'm thinking about this and i tried to think of a name like if this were like debut patches in football and then also like if they had super bowl patches because super bowl would be wrestlemania like i think of it like a character like or not a character but an athlete like cooper dejean on the the eagles because he was a rookie and he got the super bowl it's like which one would eagles fans rather have that is a perfect comparison yeah which one and i like how do you deny the super bowl pack like that's the the biggest stage of them all much like wrestlemania is the biggest stage of them all so i don't know like i think wrestlemania always wins the more i think about it because it's the granddaddy of them all yeah i can't disagree and that's a great comparison kudos to you for coming out pulling that out of you know where without any prep but i think like the cooper jean degene like comparison works because like the debut patch for cooper cooper degene oh my god i can't say it again cooper degene would represent like like the game yes but like that super bowl was his moment right and but the problem with super bowl is there's only two teams so like you're you're very limited in the amount of players that are gonna be valuable but to the same argument there's probably a limited number of rookies that are gonna be valuable in the debut patch as well so i don't know half dozen of one six of the other but man what a great this is like a topic that i think will be argued on many a different show for a very long time and i hope we get super bowl patches or world series patches or something because tops really did capture lightning in a bottle here with that type of experience for the collector i wanna quickly touch on psa because i think this is big news and i think it's bigger news that i like i usually something like this happens and it's literally like everywhere everybody's talking about it i haven't i haven't felt like the you know that meme where it's homer sitting in the bar and it's all and he looks crazy and everybody else is the same person like that's what i i usually when psa releases news everybody talks about the same talking points mhmm i think it's different in wrestling and i'll and i'll i wanna get your opinion here because they've reopened a new tier of grading it is not value so we're not the twenty five dollar value tier yet but they have opened a sixty dollar tier it has a thousand dollar limit which for wrestling is most of the cards you would grade we were getting a little bit beyond that in some cases but like i i think this is a a pretty impactful piece of news for wrestling collectors as much as it is for sports card collectors and obviously pokemon collectors but i don't know man like i i don't grade cards so like this really isn't my thing but for somebody like you who grades a lot of cards like and and you have psa as a sponsor which i didn't connect the dots until about thirty five minutes ago like how do you react to something like this in a in the context of this podcast versus your others yeah no i think it's it is generally really good news for all collectors and i think the impact may be greater in wrestling in wrestling cards based on just dollar values so yeah man i think it's good i think like it's i don't think psa wanted to close off service levels but when demand reaches a point like as a business you gotta like redefine your operations and then hopefully slowly open things back up and that's what we're seeing here so i think the sixty dollar price point right now and with you know ninety to a hundred business days is pretty reasonable i know people love to just go back and say well you know back a few years ago i could grade this this would be like eleven twelve bucks a card well we're not considering the changes in the dynamics of the current market and just life in general everything is more expensive so i like the update i think it's reasonable and i think it'll be really really good for wrestling card collectors who do like to grade their cards it seems to me a pretty affordable price point based on kind of the current landscape and even though i don't grade cards and and don't really support grading overall like i wanna see the pop reports grow i think the reason that i wanna see that is because it lends credence to the growth of our area and i think one of the main things that wrestling card suffers from is that when you pull up a kaboom psa ten and you look at the pop report there's only twenty five total grading and like we need to see because everything functions off of card ladder and psa is the backbone of this hobby whether i like it or not and i think like if we can't see more pop reports to grow in the higher visibility wrestling cards that are out there it's gonna continue to be a boon for wrestling cards to jump into some of the mainstream areas that we would like and i think that's really where the closing off those value tiers for a while really hurt wrestling cards to your point i think it was nest i don't think that there's any debate about that it was necessary but opening it back up at sixty dollars where most of the wrestling cards that you would grade fall within that category especially from a chrome perspective like the only thing is i hope wrestling collectors understand like topps does not have a great track track record of producing psa ten level cards in this year's or last year's chromes like the the gem rate on those cards is very low and i think you have to be very selective and this only proves that psa wants you to be more selective with the cards that you send to them so be careful don't just send a package of a thousand cards because you think you're you're guaranteed at least some tens like the grading aspect of this is be more thoughtful and i think wrestling collectors still have a lot of room to grow there for sure and i think one of the important elements when you've got people newer maybe to grading people always just think about like the technical grade of the cards but i think the most important part is the authentication of the card we have seen fakes and counterfeits especially with case hits it's in the wrestling spaces this continues to grow and more money comes in it's like it is good especially on that profile of card to see them go through the authentication process to make sure that if you're a buyer on the open market you're not buying a phony card like no one wants to do that and i think the addition of grading into in the mix and especially at a price point that's somewhat reasonable can help kinda stop some of those bad actors and bad things that are going on in the space i like when it comes to grading that is the one aspect of the platform that they psa provides i think is completely underrated and i think that is a major major factor especially for cards that are graded multiple times without a serial number like a you know that that you know wrestling cards have now been exposed to more often than not i did got to play this game with ryan a couple of maybe like a month and a half ago and i wanted to play it with you because i i wanna hear your perspective on some of these things so let's play a game we're gonna go wrestling car hot takes so just like hot ones the wing eating contest i've adapted it for wrestling cards we're gonna do a rematch here and i wanna offer some spicy takes i've picked up from social media or from other places and i wanna get feedback from you and i on some of these things these are things that i have put on slides that i've pulled from other places so it's not just all me you'll you'll know when it's me trust me but i think some of these are fun so we're gonna start with a mild take this is one pepper and i said the break from constant product releases so we had what like six or seven to start the year isn't it actually gonna help universe be more successful this time around so there's been a break there's been about three four weeks even longer i think since the last wrestling product came out now we're back on with universe i don't think that that's gonna help it the same way it did last time around and i i think this is a mild one pepper take but i'm just curious what your thoughts are yeah and i i tend to agree and i'm mostly this is coming from a personal perspective where the addition of a second universe set really doesn't move the needle for me now if it were a product i hadn't seen before you know some something you know interesting that tops might offer then i'd be ready to go like i'd be buying into some breaks but i i don't really have any feelings towards another universe set so there's some like we're getting more cards there's the panini era so like there's plenty to be busy with like i don't collect based on what's available or what's newly available and that's just me so i i tend to side with this take yeah i i think last time around universe greatly benefited from being the first product back after that extended break without products but i think the break could have actually been longer and it wouldn't have hurt the the industry the the trajectory that we're on it did last time we were sort of in this spot but i think anyways like for universe the draw is that it's afford more affordable than a royalty it's probably more affordable than a chrome in in most cases in in a lot of different you know perspectives but i think it's it's also like the draw is like there there really isn't another sort of alluring factor to this other than those cases which i think are really cool this year but i i think last year really benefited from that break so alright we're gonna go up to a two pepper take here all the attention is on flawless as the top panini product and i know i'm this one i'm speaking to the party so i get it but the hot take is that prism will be the standard when we look back at the panini era yeah i so i tend to and this is outside of wrestling this is across sports in the panini era i tend to try to consider which product has the strongest force and by strongest force i mean brings in the highest volume of collectors dealers flippers breakers all the things and i always go back to the prism products not saying flawless isn't fantastic and phenomenal like it certainly is there's a certain prestige to that product but there's also a certain price point to that product where that's going to eliminate a large segment of the collecting audience so prism is just it's more more accessible there's there's more the checklist is bigger obviously like there's limitations too and there's only so many of certain things but man i can't say enough about the three year run and how truly limited that is especially if you're specializing around specific parallels within that product now i know flawless even more limited but i think it being even more limited makes it harder for me to say that is the one and i just think i don't know you know i'm a prism guy i can't i can't make the case outside of prism so yeah i'm i'm prism all day i just think they knocked it out of the park with the photography too and that's another understated element it's just oh steve did so good yeah yeah so good i put this on here just so ryan would throw his throw his phone across the room when he when he's listening to this bannister is a big flawless fan and rightfully so i am too i think brett is as well you've bought flawless card games we've we've both yeah we've both i i'm heavily invested in flawless and i love the product but i am also just as over index on prism my entire collection is shiny when we first and the reason i the reason i put this in here is because when we first talked in twenty twenty one and you had me on the podcast the first time it was right after the announcement that panini had was coming into the space and i said prism coming to wwe was a gigantic deal and it still is a gigantic deal you've picked up some monster cards recently you've shared them on your instagram from this set and you've even just for your football going back i mean this has always been your focus but yeah i don't think people really recognize the impact that panini had during their three years and especially with prism because i've said this more times i can count now there are more goals in the first year of topps chrome wwe than there are in the three years of pne prism and i i just think people are vastly undervaluing this so yes this is my take and this is me speaking on behalf of a few of us but it's something that and i am heavily invested so keep that in mind yes this is this is self serving in a lot of different ways but i think it's really worth a consideration here like everybody's talking about flawless right now the star swatches are driving a massive resurgence in flawless interest but i just i can't get over the impact that that panini prizm has had and i think long term even though flawless is one and done like people will look back with kinder eyes on prism than they ever have in in today's world so alright we're gonna get we're gonna get really spicy here there's a three pepper take beyond the current auctions the best cards in wrestling are not for sale facts hurts which hurts that's not the hot take which hurts the data around how valuable things really are in this space and i think the this is something you've talked about on your podcast a few times so i wanted to get your take here yeah no i love this and i i think about this all the time and i've had to make massive decisions about this in my own buying and i'm i'm very hopeful like i'll have a the biggest card i've ever purchased i'm i'm hopeful i'll have access to it so i can share it soon and it is a wrestling card spoiler alert but there was when i made the purchase and bought the card i like there was no like card letter comps to validate or say this is what you should spend it there wasn't that at all like there wasn't anything close like i had to go based on my own intuition my my conviction what was happening in adjacent products and say i believe in this i want this i'm gonna pay this much for it and i think this could this can be very discouraging for individuals who are trying to buy cards and sell those cards for a premium right away but i think it might be the best thing for those individual collectors who are in this trying to find opportunities and buy cards for the long term eventually like inevitably like data is going to be populated it's just going to take there's gonna be a long tail to it it's gonna take time but i i always say this like if you believe in wrestling cards and you see something and it's not available publicly or it's never been available publicly and you want it like pay the premium like there's you can't go to direct comps on anything in wrestling outside of maybe case hits and this and that but yeah i i think this is such a great topic and i just think it's so important for collectors in wrestling to like realize that sometimes you gotta pay more and sometimes there's not gonna be a comp to to help validate it for you yeah i think that's a really key point and i i talked about this on main event wrestling cards this week i said that new people coming into the space are gonna be very behind because all of the good stuff is already bought and locked away and it is not available for sale and it was funny because somebody actually came to me on instagram recently and said hey can i buy this becky lynch card off i'm like no like no you can't and like you know it's not me being an asshole about it it's just the fact that that's my identity here that's my pc and i think there's a lot of people in wrestling cards that are like that wherein sports there's there's always a way to like at least sneak an offer in there like oh it's you know it's not for sale but you know i'll i'll hear you out type of thing like i'm not even willing to hear people out at this point and i think there's a lot of people out there that you know lock away the best cards in wrestling and i think that lack of data like you said like if your if your purchase was publicly available and i don't know if it will be eventually if you partner with card ladder to get that added but or if you even want it to be but i don't think if because that data doesn't exist at a at a scale level and drake has been talking about this for ages but i think if some of the best stuff in wrestling really sold now it would it would open up a floodgates of people who recognize wow this is a lot more valuable than i thought things were here one hundred percent alright two more to go extra hot for pepper here all the controversy around the john cena wrestlemania patch auto one zero one will push it higher in final value instead of hurting it i think the answer is yes any publicity is good publicity i have not like even intended to like really highlight this card but like i did a whole episode is with this card as the subject for it last week and then i recorded another episode where i ended up talking about this card again and it's just because it's been on my mind there's been the controversy but it's been also been promoted there's so much interest for the wrestling card community so yeah i mean there this has been the topic of conversation and whether good or bad i think it's going to end in a really really strong price for this card yeah and i think the overall controversy is inherently negative like let me state that we talked about that briefly at the beginning of last episode we haven't really gotten anything new so it's not worth talking about but i will say i have heard a lot of people on social media thinking that the card is gonna end lower because of this controversy because they don't want this this person to walk away better off than you know with as a result of the and i i'm like that could not be further from me this is not my take this is a take that is everywhere like people are like oh this is gonna hurt wrestling cards this is gonna hurt royalty this is gonna hurt this this is gonna nothing has been hurt and i i've even talked to some breakers and they said that royalty has actually performed better for them since this controversy came to light of course so i think like this hot take is is more of the around the fact that guys i think we have to come to terms with the fact that it really doesn't matter what controversy is built around this card it's gonna sell for a ton of money because people don't wanna miss out on a card just because there's some you know scuttlebutt that says this or that happened and you know as much as i credit the community for taking a stance and and really you know holding their ground on a certain aspects of different scams and scandals that have come out this one is not gonna have the impact on this particular card and i think that any publicity to brad's point is is good publicity alright we're gonna end with one final extra insanely hot take here for pepper plus the success of wrestling cards is not due to anything brought to the space in the last five years it's just a measure of the greater hobby being hot i wanna hear i wanna hear this is one i'll let you go first i wanna hear your perspective so i was listening to a podcast and the one and the person on the podcast was and i was driving home from a client meeting this morning and i heard this and i was i i was like oh man that is a hot take and there was another take in here that we we changed out and i think it's good that we did but like i'll tell you like the greater hobby being hot is helpful to wrestling cards like that is not up for debate but wrestling cards were on a trajectory upwards that before this current boom started and it started in twenty the end of twenty twenty three all through twenty twenty four and it really kicked into high gear when tops took over in twenty twenty five but i think that for anybody who is like i don't like that wrestling cards are are now this you know hot item in a smaller space i don't like that things are different or whatever like those i said last time we did hot takes that those people are gonna be sad for a very long time but i think the other thing is like people look for the downside in a lot of these positive things like they start asking when is the bubble gonna burst when is the crash gonna happen and i i i everybody talks it's it's on every podcast we're we're gonna see the blow off soon we're gonna see the the the peak soon and all this other stuff but like i don't know like i think wrestling cards has really come into a new sort of renaissance here in these last five years thanks to panini kicking it off and bringing mainstream sort of collectors into the into the area like you know we talked we saw steve pock at wrestling car takeover he is not the the person you would expect to have a large wrestling collection and he sure does and i think like you know those are the types of people that are in this space now they weren't before and i think it's it's not due to the fact that the overall hobby was hot because he came in when it was down he was there because he loves wrestling and i think that's really cool and i think that when we look at the overall space and i i don't think that this take is correct i don't either i think one thing i'll comment i think he brought a lot of good points to the table is just there i just think about in the last five years just think about how much content has been created pointed at wrestling card collectors i mean adam you have been doing this for a long time this podcast is new this year there are so many different creators whether they're breaking whether they're they're doing their own podcast i think about i think about a lot of accounts like constantly covering the space and that's new and i think that stuff is really important it's important to update people on information it's important to postcards it's important to curate ideas and like this this it feels like this year that has really hit another level and i think providing people with information gives people confidence it builds trust and it makes people more likely to spend money on big cards when they become available so to me that's been a huge shift and that's that's something i'm seeing every day across this space well said alright let's get on to some big sales really fast here this is one we we talked about flawless being the the the most attention on it right now i was shocked that this one went as low as it did this is the hulk hogan one of one flawless logo diamond this is the wwe logo so this is arguably one of the bigger ones in the set for hulk hogan it sold on alt for seventy five hundred dollars and or seventy five sixty three last week and i i thought this was gonna be a five figure card i don't know if this is a measure of hulk hogan's market cooling a little bit because i think some of his cards maybe have cooled off a little bit since now that the the news of his passing isn't as as fresh but yeah i thought this would given all the attention that is on flawless was this just the wrong platform or was it you know i don't know like this this seems low to me yeah i think it could be wrong platform i think it could also be like sustaining interest for these cards and i think i think you've see we've seen these cards they're they're all have intimidated intimidating stickers intimidating stickers are they usually collectors would like to wait and see and wait for a card to come to auction to validate those prices and this is one of those moments is this the right validation i don't know like these like my complex with these cards is always like it feels to me that and maybe it's the nature of the logo it just feels like it's missing an autograph i don't that just to me but yeah again we go back to flawless and it's just one year so like one year it's hard to validate a card like this over the long term but yeah i mean i thought these were cool cards but i would never pay what these cards the asking price of these cards because i just i don't think they're i don't think they're they're they're not that interesting to me in that price point yeah i i mean like i like the cards like i like the the single diamond one zero one base cards a lot more like that's always been something now becky had one of these did i chase it yes i would i like the base cards man i love the base cards are so gorgeous and the one of one diamonds look great but i think like the rhea ripley just like this is up for sale too and i think this is probably gonna we'll see what rhea goes for because i think that's probably on this level and if it goes for less maybe that's an indicator if it goes for more maybe that's another indicator but this was just low to me speaking of prism so i i purposely put prism and flawless back to back the this is a psa nine twenty twenty four roq gold prism and it is it went for thirty two hundred dollars via that offer on ebay through the psa sort of account so the twenty twenty four rock i think is one of the better pictures but it's i think it's probably the the lesser of the three just in terms of like the value of the gold but it still went for thirty two hundred dollars which is a a crazy amount in a psa psa nine so or maybe maybe they listed the auction as a nine but it it might be an eight actually no it's a nine never mind sorry disregard that but this is a huge price for this card i do you think that that when you compare this against the the twenty three and the twenty two like what's your viewpoint on sort of where this price sits i'll just go back to this there and adam i'm just taking the words out of your mouth because you've hammered this so many times only thirty base set gold prisms of the rock like the pool is so small and when i think i'm i'm i'm envisioning the images in my head you've got the rock bottom on twenty two you've got the landscape stoic pose in twenty three and in twenty four you've got the rock holding the title that this is is this his brahma bowl belt yeah this is the people's champion the people's championship yeah the people yeah i think yeah i i think i don't know like it's it's tough to compare and contrast obviously twenty two is always gonna be more valuable if you told me that this was more valuable than the twenty three i i wouldn't lose sleep over it i just i kinda look at all of these things as a whole and it's like i keep going back to the there's only thirty copies i can't imagine these things going down in value because of that and we found out yesterday because we're recording this late so this is thursday recording for a friday release there is a psa graded gold shimmer from twenty two that just got listed on ebay through dc sports i believe and i'm very curious to see where that ends because there's a distinct possibility that that hits five figures there's only three of those even though they're traditionally not as valuable as the flat gold so either way this just briefly i am of all the sets that topps has done the twenty twenty one transcendent collection superfractor autographs these were one per case because there's only fifty cases available to the public the xpop just hit the market and sold via best offer on ebay for twenty three hundred dollars it's a psa ten these cards have a little bit of an interesting grading history because they they either grade really well or they don't grade really well at all there's really no in between this is one of the psa tens but to see an xpoc card sell for twenty three hundred dollars out of this set like i just think it validates like this is one of the most collectible wwe sets ever made i love the becky lynch that i have i would never that's if i had to run into my house to grab a a card when it's on fire that's definitely one of the ones i would consider it's that cool of a card to me i know a lot of other people feel the same way but this one's selling for twenty three hundred dollars for xbox of all people just sort of sort of tells how valuable some of these cards might be yeah these are these cards will always be at the top of the mountain for me i still can't believe what i see some transcendent pieces sell for i think transcendent is i mean think about what they retail that and just look at the prices now i still think it is one of the most overlooked sets yeah and wait wait until it comes back like wait until it eventually comes back if it comes back i think it will but this these cards man they only did these one year and it's from a premium product you've got the the the gold super fracture swirls the on card autograph i mean these cards are the best and i don't own any but these cards are the best yeah okay this one i'm only so we had two cards with awful scans in a row like the i had to go and pull plug in the cert numbers for both of these cards because the auction oh what a terrible scan jeez yeah so i'm only putting this on here because this is the becky lynch kaboom psa ten i mentioned before pop reports on these cards are very low there's only twenty three of these that are graded i own an ungraded copy of this but the graded psa ten via best offer sold for two thousand dollars and i hate talking about kabooms on this podcast because i feel like we have done it way too much like we've done we every time the rock jumps another thousand dollars like i feel like we have to cover it on the podcast but becky has never sold anywhere close to this and it's not a measure of her being on fire it's a even though i would love for that to be the case it's a measure of this set being absolutely just bonkers bannister has some very interesting theories on on why there are so few of these available but i would say for first of all i think these are the best looking kabooms that panini made and we got lucky that that wrestling you know is part of this and i love the photo on this becky card it's one of my favorite photos panini used during their entire run so i am a big fan of this card even though i'm not a huge fan of kabooms seeing it go to two thousand not really a measure of my collection but a measure of the kabooms more than anything do you agree yeah i i if i were if you if i were you were to ask me what the becky lynch kaboom look like i would not be able to tell you but like i feel like i'm seeing it for the first time here and this i am not a kaboom collector i'll never chase these cards they're just not my thing but this card looks amazing so just incredible photo it's like what i would hope a card of becky lynch that is this high profile what it would look like and they knocked it out of the bar yeah this photo is from war games and she ended up winning the war games match going through a table i actually have a piece of that table autographed by her next to me here so anyways let's close this out quickly with just a a title match topic that i think i i'm very curious to hear your thoughts on what is one thing that you've learned from your experience in creating content across all the major sports that has helped you better approach your experience of wrestling cards yeah so i will always say this that and my my my thoughts are from a collector and creator perspective i always think it is valuable if you have a history of collecting in other sports and bringing that experience in other sports and taking that knowledge to wrestling cards i think it is a massive advantage when you're because you have an un deep understanding of like product history collector interest you know typically price points and what not to spend a lot of money on and maybe what to spend a lot of money on and i feel very very fortunate because like i i understand certain products and certain things based on all the conversations that i've had over a long period of time where i understand some people only collect wrestling and that's great but i think if you're only collecting wrestling throughout the history like you might not have that same opportunity to gain knowledge of historical sets and where they rank and where they those price points but and maybe you don't care and that's totally fine too but i do care and i collect in wrestling and i collect football and i collect some basketball stuff and i just think like participating in those circles and understanding the history of football cards understand the history of basketball cards has given me an an advantage when new products drop or when cards pop up that might seem very intimidating and expensive to some people and to me it it it seems like man this is a deal and i think anytime you can use other knowledge from other categories and apply it to a space like wrestling cards like it's it's a good thing so like i don't know like i'm sure other collectors you've collected football in the past i'm sure like when you started collecting wrestling you probably took some of those things and applied it to your new category but yeah i just think it more information the better it's not always gonna translate but it'll give you some sort of baseline yeah i i think you nailed it and i've been creating content in sports cards for more than twenty years at this point and most people who listen to this podcast either don't know me from before because this it was before any of this got big and and i was a a a big fish in a small pond and now i'm a very small fish in a giant ocean but like i think when you look back at the experience that that has had it has its pluses and minuses brett definitely explained some of the pluses yeah because you feel like you have the like wrestling cards i feel is doing a speed run through all of the things the controversies the the new products the ups and downs the porpoise effect of like everything like you know it goes up and then it goes down and it goes up and it goes and like a lot of that stuff happened has happened so many times in sports cards i can't even count all the controversy with the breakers and everything like that it's already happened in sports cards and we're just getting exposed to it for the first time in wrestling cards so like i feel like this is a speed run but at the same token like i i do feel like that experience does present a a little bit of a jaded sort of like or not jaded is the wrong word it's it's like this i i kinda loathe when people don't have that experience too and they they aren't seeing the forest with trees and it does create some relationship barriers i think to connect with people who are to your point only collecting wrestling cards like i probably come off very full of myself when i'm talking to people who just haven't gone through the things that we've gone through and i think that's where that's a a negative experience as well but i i the last thing i wanna say is i listen to being a content creator i try to consume as much of other people's content as i can and it's just it just gives me i feel like you said an advantage but also an appreciation for some of the other things that are going on in disney or in football or you name it because i hear the excitement in other people's voices and and content and it it really does inspire a lot of thinking to be done in this space which i think is just on the cusp of of becoming bigger and better and stuff like that so one one practical example because this was posted today and it just triggered as we were talking about this and we've talked about this product in this episode but i think about a product like revolution like on paper to a just wrestling card collector they could say oh revolution yeah this is just a run of the mill set this and that but like if you go back and you look at revolution amongst basketball collectors it started in twenty fifteen and it went all the way into the end and it is a beloved set because of the price point and be the galactics are just highly coveted especially from that debut year and then initial set yeah yeah initial set and andrew so coolie cards posted the kaleido of rhea ripley and i'm like when he posted that i reposted it i have a john cena but i love these cards and i just we're like i thought to myself like do collectors understand that there was only one base set one of one without an autograph in revolution probably not but like i love to investigate and get nerdy on that stuff and so like seeing a card like that end up with an awesome collector like andrew is just awesome but then i asked this question is like do people outside of wrestling or people just in wrestling cards really understand the potential of this card i don't know but those are the things i'm always thinking about well i mean i remember when i was making content back in when revolution twenty twenty two for wrestling came out ryan shear and i talked endlessly about the galactics and the importance of those cards and i sought out those cards very early on because to me those are what revolution is known for is is those galactic case hits not the kabooms in wrestling it's the kabooms in everywhere else it's the galactics because kabooms were not part of revolution in football or basketball or anything so i think like for me when you look at the kaleidos and you look at like all the different revolution type parallels that made this set such a collector favorite in basketball it's one of those sets that isn't driven by autographs either and i think now we're getting into a discussion as i said but this is what happens when you have like content like you start to think about these things and brett's completely correct in this it's like i don't know if more people recognize like if you go back and you look for a steph curry galactic from your good luck it's a thirty thousand dollar yeah good luck like it's and like we've said that before in other other podcasts but it's like i don't think that that transferred over to wrestling because there isn't that much familiarity with other sports and so when you have a rock galactic that sells for two hundred dollars like people are like well it's just a case it's just another case well no it's not if you think about it from the grand scheme of things but look at the pop look at the pop reports galactic versus kabooms just just look at them and i'm not saying i know the the prestige and the brand recognition of kabooms is another level but when you start looking at the data it might get your wheels spinning a little bit yeah i agree so next week we have a special guest coming on topps is gonna join the podcast to talk about the release of universe some of the other things that are coming down the pike hopefully we may even get some reaction on some of these debut patches that are being signed i'm very excited to talk to them again we had them on earlier and i thought it was a fun conversation it isn't the type of conversation i know people are gonna want where it's like everybody's just asking all of the crazy conspiracy theories and stuff like that that's not what this ever is about but i i'm excited for the conversation next week brett i think and i will will continue to chat about some some of the things mentioned on this podcast because it's just like those are the types of things that get us fired up talking about those things but ryan should be back next week thank you for for joining me on on short notice my work schedule got very complicated this week very quickly but it was fun to have you on and do some hot takes because i didn't get to do it do it with you last time so hopefully we'll we'll have this on again shortly but thanks again for joining always a good time thanks brett see you guys next week