what's going on everyone we are back with book to last episode thirty i it's the national week so obviously ryan bannister my usual cohost is off doing national things with his team best of luck to him we have brett doing a run-in as well i'm really happy to have you here because we're gonna get to talk about some stuff that we haven't got as much to talk we haven't been able to talk about coming out of new york last week and everything that's been going on for this week by the time you guys listen to this the national will be partly over i think in for the most part but we wanted to get some content out there brett are you excited as i am for this week to finally be here after six months of planning i'm definitely excited there's a lot going on i am sitting here trying to close out some work i'm also trying to prepare for the trip ahead my i i had it all planned out this is when i was gonna leave this is when i was gonna get there and then of course you know you hear things from people and people wanna meet at different times so i am trying to leave earlier than expected which is good i think more time at the national why not but yeah man it's been a busy week i was looking back i think we've been planning wrestling card takeover which is kind of weird because it'll be over by the time this goes live to the masses but it's been about a hundred days plus that we have been talking about so it's kinda wild you've been primarily the point guy so how are you feeling about the event in the national i have to say that this is a feeling going into one of these shows that i don't think i've ever had before we've done the main event before we've done a party of of of some sort before but i think the the level of of execution and the effort needed to get a party like this off the ground is unlike anything i've ever experienced both in my professional life my personal life like i don't even think our wedding was this big so like i think that this is this is crazy like the it feels genuinely crazy but i i wanna believe that by the time i'm listening back to this podcast i'll feel like much more relieved than the weight lifted off of my shoulders it's been an amazing ride and i can't tell everybody how excited i am we'll talk about it here as we get a little bit further into the agenda for the for the episode here but i wanna take some time at least to do some quick stuff around summerslam because i would be remiss to like just say like hey you know when we're when we're doing this and summerslam is in my hometown the worst planning in the history of wwe i don't get to go to saturday night where which is the match i wanna see the hell in a cell but i just wanna do a quick run through of some previews here then we'll get into some discussion around fanatics fest and national and everything we're going on this week and hopefully it'll at least give some people who have been at the show some some fun content to listen to on the ride home or whatever but like given what has happened this week in the different wrestling shows like do you feel like this summerslam is all it's been cracked up to be or are you still feeling like there's more that needs to be told in terms of the story here you know i think i wasn't the biggest fan of the go home raw show for a lot of different reasons but i just thought it was a a little bit clunky there are parts that were very very clunky but i don't think i can complain too much because for me when i'm consuming wwe product especially at a premium live perspective i usually just need like one or two really big matches to get me excited and you know there are there are definitely certainly a few matches that we can get into and talk about but for my money when i think about this era i think about seth rollins and i think about roman reigns and the fact that they're getting back together locking horns roman trying to avenge the losses or inability to really beat seth in those big moments is enough to draw me in you know i think with some of the changes in booking this match maybe should have been a wrestlemania match but we're getting it at summerslam but i don't know man anytime you can get roman reigns and seth rollins in a ring for a massive championship moment i'm there for it so that is what i'm fired up to see i think you know roman from a work rate perspective has had i know there hasn't been many but he's had some of my favorite matches this year i still everyone kinda goes back and talking about wwe and triple a and best matches everyone wants to say mask versus match which mask versus mask which i think was definitely a awesome match and should be talked about but i still go back to the the roman and punk main event at mania so i'm hoping for another big moment for roman and what a great dance partner i mean it feels like seth rollins can't really have a really bad big match in these in these moments so that's what i'm looking forward to yeah and i think like everybody wants to compare big feuds to rock and austin that's always been the benchmark for everything and i don't i don't think that this has shown me that that is really the benchmark for feuds anymore because it's it's hard to only wrestle that person three times like i think like roman and and seth have wrestled each other i think like eight times there or something like that and as a result i think this match probably isn't as big or doesn't feel as big because we've seen this on the stage before but i can't think of a better like angle plus wrestling match combo that exists right so like i think we have these wrestling matches out there where you're gonna have a really good angle leading up to it but maybe the match isn't very good or you don't have a very good angle but it has the banger of a match i think this has been a great angle feud that they've built through this i think the promos and everything cutting coming up to this has been really good and i've been interested like i really wanna see seth and roman go at it i want them to put on a a match that is worthy of summerslam i think roman is a betting favorite right now by a significant margin i don't think anybody expects him to lose but i i wanna at least feel like he's in trouble and i think seth is probably the best person to set him up for that i mean roman's probably the most widely collected wwe superstar of this current era maybe challenged by by cody rhodes or centimeters punk or something like that but it's hard to argue that cena and roman and and those guys are are on a an s tier level and i think like these and seth really isn't that far behind but he signed for so much more than roman has and i i don't think his cards have really lived up to it but i think like for from a hobby perspective these are two of the biggest names going at it and then you know you also have on on the previous night you have the biggest up and coming name with obafemi and brock lesnar going at it so i think like from a a marquee sort of match perspective cody versus punk oban brock seth and roman like those are like you said wrestlemania type moments that are likely gonna be created and i think from a collecting perspective as well like it could not have aligned better for for collectors to see this sort of play out as it has i wanna get your perspective on this this is something i was wrestling within my head a couple nights ago and i was thinking about roman reigns and his cards and you know you've got different eras and i'm wondering if the different eras have different significance when it comes to roman reigns and you you think about like obviously the the first era which is the big dog era which is everyone's least favorite era of roman reigns you got his cards there his first tops cards and then you've got the bloodline era which the hottest storyline of all time blood bloodline version one and this is primarily in the panini era and then you've got bloodline version two which is otc yeah otc era good branding in the kinda topps era like base do you think and i think i was thinking about this from the perspective of like you know a player like perhaps lebron james who's been on these had these different cycles on different teams and he's collectible across the board but it feels like different pockets of collectors like to gravitate to specific lebron james cards based on a specific era so i don't know like do you think that we as wrestling collectors can are that sophisticated where we can begin to pick and choose based on all these dynamics of the the run that roman reigns has had yeah i i think so i think i've seen the roman collectors separate those out pretty exclusively i think you're right the big dog era is is likely probably one of the the least collectible eras and then you have the bloodline v one you know that's absolutely probably the most collectible but i i think like when all is said and done i think these last two errors are likely gonna probably blur together a little bit just because they're generally the same type of roman approach as one's a heel and one's a face but yeah i think i think as collectors like i've seen the rookie cards or the rookie cards the roman leaky sort of fcw card like those still have intrinsic value just because they're firsts but i think beyond that like the the twenty nineteen twenty eighteen sort of tops run stuff just doesn't carry the same amount of value and if you even look at like the twenty twenty one transcendent cards which is like his first sort of like high end tribal chief type card like that doesn't even have the level of collectibility that i think something like the immaculate jumbo patch autographs and the prism golds and the stuff that came out during the panini era i i think those are probably gonna remain the most collectible roman reigns cards that exist no matter if they if they if this second era ends up being better or some for some reason the only thing is the chase cards in the in the otc era i think are probably if they can get a wrestlemania patch if they can get like some of those really crazy chase cards then then obviously my answer will change but you know the inscriptions are cool from tops and everything like that i i love that stuff but it's hard to beat those early panini cards especially the prism stuff right yeah yeah the i i tended to lean that way just as that we have the slide up i feel like we need to take a minute to talk about obafemi like we're from a a collector perspective where do you think we're at like we we like to say in the hobby like we're in this inning like we i knew you were gonna say this where what inning are we what inning are we at with obafemi because i i it feels like sometimes we get really excited about someone from a collectibles perspective and then it it kinda fades it doesn't go all the way down but like it maintains but other times and i feel like this is the rare occasion where the train keeps moving and it's our opportunity as a collector to jump on and stay on or wait i'm i'm curious like obviously the company is completely behind obafemi they're he is the guy you know his cards are selling well but i don't know like what what's your forecast on obafemi and his collectability like in the next kinda two to three years yeah i i think that's so like we're in the phase of his like the rookie hype cycle right so like we if you think about how careers usually progress in football and basketball like those first two to three years and we're sort of in that with wembley right now we're in that with jackson dart especially who i think is is probably not gonna have the type of performance that is necessitating the prices that people are paying for his cards but like when you look at what obafemi represents he is that blue chip rookie prospect i mean and i think there are some wrestlers like kendall gray and others who are still before that cycle right starting oba is like kind of the the past the starting line but not quite to the middle of the race where people tend to sort of like adjust their their collecting strategies so i think like i believe personally he's the front runner by a million miles to win the royal rumble and like i i think i've told multiple people within the last week who are determining what they're bringing to the national convention to to trade and do whatever i say leave your oboe cards at home like don't even bring them thankfully i've gotten a lot of redemptions out of chrome that i've been forced to redeem so it prevents me from selling them before i have been ready but i don't have the i don't have them in hand so i'm really thankful for that but i if i'm holding oba right now i'm not moving a single one i think he has a an inside track to the main event of wrestlemania forty three the problem is it's in saudi arabia and i think i don't know what the collectibility of that wrestlemania moment is gonna be compared to others so if that if this moment coming up at forty three would have happened you know in any other city i think we would be i would be even more so on the bandwagon but i the fact that he's gonna win his first world championship likely in saudi arabia i think hurts it a little bit but overall i i can't see a reason to sell oba are you i like i know you've we've both been kind of buying you know just to to get a little bit of a taste but are are you holding too yeah i'm i'm i'm trying to i i fall into the same maybe not as aggressive as you where you know you buy these cards of the guys you like and ultimately all roads lead back to you know if a if a becky lynch super fracture pops up that you need you'll you'll move the oboe to make sure you secure that for your collection and i tend to kinda keep my roman and my cena card so he might get sacrificed at some point if the right card pops up and i need the cash but it's it's this is fun like i i feel like there's no downside right now and right you know you can get into his market at a variety of levels and getting getting some autos here and there out of chrome and not necessarily pay thousands of dollars so i think that's really good and it's part of the reason i like wrestling cards so much because if you wanna buy a jackson dart auto out of chrome like you're spending a thousand dollars plus on that and that's not the same for someone like obafemi who might have more or who does have more global recognition than a jackson dart yeah and i think that's always tough right because we we try and equate apples to apples and it may just not exist but i think like when you look at like the top rookies in football and basketball they're signing probably triple to quadruple the number of cards if not more than a lot of the wwe guys and yet wwe doesn't have the market to support a out of fifty auto an out of ninety nine auto an out of one fifty auto like those types of cards are never gonna reach the levels that that would in football and basketball and stuff because the market just doesn't have the the manpower yet to to sort of support those prices but when you get down into the black out of ten the red out of five and the super fractures and and the black prisms and the gold prisms like those types of cards are absolutely i think i've seen people reaching out to me like hey i have this i've been offered fifteen thousand dollars for it do i wanna sell this i'm just like i even at that price i'm still probably thinking twice because it's just he's got so much potential but he a year from now two years from now i i don't know if that same potential is gonna exist i think the time to sell per the rookie hype cycle that we know is that after that second or third year the the new guy comes in and takes out like usurps the hype from the preexisting guy and i think it really takes a generational performance to like what shohei ohtani has done or to a degree what wenby has done in a lot of ways but i think it's gonna take a lot for oba to maintain the level of value beyond just that rookie stuff that will hold i that that's where i i would say royal rumble wrestlemania time frame is playoff season it's time to move yeah all roads are leading to roman reigns versus obafemi right i don't think there's any question about it and my only concern is injury just like with any player it's like if he gets injured like bron breakker did can really really kill momentum but i also wanna talk about this this match the the latter match they're having for this interim title i've never seen that type of match being done at any ple let alone a summerslam and tiffany stratton being from minnesota like i don't know if she's even the favorite to win i i i want chelsea green to win so badly i can't even put it into words like i really hope she wins but they still have one more person to add i'm curious who that's gonna be but if you like it's it's big names there's some big names in that match charlotte flair jade cargill i mean you name it like i'm that's probably on night two i plan on being there that's the match that i'm really excited to see because the women usually go all out when they're given these types of opportunities i think it has to be tiffy or chelsea based on the tea leaves and the story that is being built and i just want to believe that it's going to be chelsea green and chill they're friendly now and chelsea green is going to have the bigger title and there's gonna the the chemistry is already there you can see it backstage it is fun the dynamic is good so i'm a fan of both of them so i'll be happy either way but it to me it feels like it's gonna be either chelsea or tiffy and what i'm excited for from a wrestling card perspective or what i would like to see because we've seen tiffy with the title and we saw what her cards kinda were doing during that moment it's like chelsea green already has a really strong collector base mhmm everybody likes chelsea green what would chelsea green's cards look like with the championship title i think that's what i wanna see i wanna see that and you know like there hasn't been anybody male or female in the company who has gone so all in on their character than chelsea green she has been one of the most entertaining parts of the programming for it seems like years now so i'm pulling for chelsea green i think she should be yeah me too and and i i wanna see what she does with it like i feel like she can make you know chicken salad out of chicken shit better than anybody out there and i i want it like even with the the abysmal booking that it's max smackdown has been plagued with like i really wanna see what she does with her screen time of this belt plus when ria comes back she can squash her and there really won't be any harm to her you know booking because she's always been a loser in the company anyways so i think like you know seeing her run with this belt is gonna be awesome it'll prop up her market i think he like more so than it already is because i think people know she's collectible because of her husband and his collecting and she's also been this very popular wrestler who's had a long career of of success but you know i think in wwe she's played this like different role and she's i really hope she gets the spotlight that's that's something i'm really hoping for and with liv now a hundred days without a title defense she's literally held the belt since wrestlemania not defending the title so like you know they they've moved the intercontinental championship a number of times they've moved the us title a number of times like i feel like we need some stability i think liv walks out of summerslam the champion i think they have chelsea on the other side hopefully taking the reins or tiffany stratton there's a lot of moving pieces coming out of here i think if i'm at the national i'm probably looking for some chelsea green cards just on the off chance that she wins or i'm trying to find some of these other people that you know are likely going to walk out of summerslam with a belt around their waist for the first time maybe even like raquel rodriguez who just won on raw like she is a really cheap autograph and it seems like they might be willing to get behind her i'm not a huge fan i i think the charisma as as the the modern day diesel is maybe starting to show through but it's taking her a very long time to get there so you know those are the people that i'm probably looking at summerslam and being like ah that's the people i wanna target really what what what do you make of that title change i think definitely cool to see someone win their first singles championship with a smashed up face with blood all over her face all over her nose but you know i don't know it just felt like the solruka thing they just never really hit the ground running with that like do you think there's lost confidence there do you think there's something bigger for this storyline what'd you make of it i i think there's probably a lack of face competitors that can go up against liv they need somebody that can lose to liv and i think probably taking the belt off of her probably sets her in line for a title match with liv down the road i think that would be a fun match to watch i think raquel and liv's dynamic is the two women's champions mirrors what they had with sasha banks and bayley back in the day and they saw the success they had there so maybe they're planning something with that honestly i don't think there's a lack of confidence in solruka i was just worried that this was gonna happen overall and i was talking with brian thc who collects her and i was like are you as are are you thinking that you know this could be something that might hurt her rather than help her so i don't know man like it's there's a lot of there's a lot of possibilities i think we gotta let that one cook a little bit yeah i think so too yeah i'm i'm oftentimes we wanna jump to conclusions you gotta just be patient which is hard to do sometimes very hard yeah yeah i wanna take some time now if we can to sort of and it's weird talking about the national as if it hasn't happened yet and people listening to this are like well we're there like you know we've we've seen this all and so we'll take some some time here but you and i both got the chance to experience everything in new york last week first of all like i don't know if we've each had our chance to sort of like really say from a wrestling perspective like what this meant do you wanna sort of give your take first and then maybe we can sort of do this tale of two shows of like hey how how are these really sort of shaping up for wrestling collectors and then what it's all about yeah i think for a fanatics fest perspective definitely it was stimulation overload there was so much going on i've never been to a show quite like that there was something happening everywhere all the time but i think it was very encouraging that cards were really a central focus of the event from the displays to the activations to the dealer setups being integrated and i think i remarked maybe when we were all on just the fact that it seemed to me that most dealers had some sort of wrestling allocated in their showcase which was encouraging and i don't know man like my primary takeaway when it comes to wrestling cards in fanatics fest was i left very very if if you are someone who is invested in wrestling cards in this category if you if it's your primary lane you collect if you really really enjoy it which i imagine you do because you're listening to this show like i would have a lot of confidence in where you're putting your money the fact that they're putting wwe right next to nba nfl mlb like is very very encouraging and it just doesn't seem like too long ago and adam i know you've been creating content in this space for a long time but it just doesn't feel like it was that long ago where it felt like there was like ten people that were engaging with wrestling cards online and now yeah it becomes so much more mainstream and so when i was like out on the plane finally to get home and i was reflecting on the i was just like you know like i feel very my primary takeaway is i feel very encouraged about where i am putting my money and sometimes with wrestling cards i wasn't sure about that it was like i'm gonna spend this money on these cards because i really love them and they're meaningful to me and i i'm a wrestling d gen and they're they these are this is just fun but like from a investment perspective like the money i put into this card is going to hold and might go up like i have never been more confident in collecting wrestling cards from a monetary perspective based on what i saw at fanatics fest than than i am right now yeah for sure and i think like stimulation overload is is really the the right sort of descriptor there i remember walking in and just being in awe and and just like you get in those those lanes that they block it off because they have somebody walking through or whatever and you're just trapped with like three hundred people behind you you're just like oh my god this doesn't feel great but like the overall experience in the show was insanity and like i think no one puts this stuff together better than fanatics does i think they did they've done a great job with wwe world they've done a great job with fanatics fest now for two years like there's there's just a lot going on here that i think really showed exactly what you just said is like they there's a a huge investment in all the licenses and brands that they own i think overall like they're the kids there's a ton of kids there there are ton of families there like and i think that will continue like people could say well it's just because of the the world cup final i don't know if i necessarily agree with that there are a lot of wrestling shirts there there are a lot of people there in cosplay for wrestling seeing there for the wrestling autographs i don't know if that's necessarily the way i would look at it and i've seen a lot of other people saying oh it's just influencer heaven or it's just this or that i was like you know guys i i think you you really have to look at this from the perspective of something that's different than anything we've had in this space before and i i don't i i don't think it's a bad thing that these these conventions like the national or fanatics fest are are hugely attended because it it just shows that that everything that we put our blood sweat and tears in with our collections and our time in this hobby is really sort of finally reaching a point where it's not we're not uncool to to say we're collectors anymore like and that that's really interesting to me but you know i i think you're also walking around these things and you're just like i could use a few hundred thousand less people in this so i could enjoy it a little bit more right yeah i think one thing i wish they we saw there which it felt because there was such a presence and one of the comments i made was that you know if you look at across fanatics fest and look at like if you charted like apparel and what stack ranked them like without a shadow of a doubt like jalen brunson was number one number one right coming off the championship number two was like either a debate between jackson dart or rhea ripley like i saw just so much rhea ripley stuff and i was like that's pretty cool like kids grown ups cody rhodes too i'm just yeah yeah it's good call lots of cody rhodes stuff but one of the one of the misses and hopefully we can we've got podcasts we can share but you know i would have liked to because there there was a cost for us to go out and there was a cost for everyone to be there it was not cheap but i just think that they should have done something from an exclusive perspective i think that would have been really fun and really cool to get our hands on that since we anyone who's there made the time and the monetary investment to be there that's that's one of the things i would like to see in future years yeah i don't think you're wrong and i love exclusive shit like i i love when they do like the rare sets and the rare like they did the gpk stuff which i thought was cool the funkos i bought a few of those for the ria collectors that that reached out to me but like i think the the understanding that if you go to one of these things there should be something there that you get as a benefit of being in attendance we'll talk about what they're doing at the national here in a minute but like i i think you're completely correct i wanna see this as much of a participation thing that they did for baseball do it for for wrestling just because of all the fans there like you saw like there were just so many kids there with with ria shirts cody shirts jehu so like you name it like all the most popular kid people a lot of those people come to these places wearing those gear i mean it was really cool to see that like be in a place of like minded individuals but you mentioned like the dealers themselves as well having you know being forced to have this wrestling at their tables i think in exposing them to our hobby i think you mentioned like really really cool to to see where that leads because hopefully it brings about more buying and selling and they get into it the way that we have and you know that's exactly kind of the conversation we had but i would also say like i don't know if i need to go back like i i think like that's the other thing is like as much fun as i had and as awesome as it was like i i don't think it's on my calendar for next year i think i i it's hard to plan to sort of of these a year and i i don't i don't think that that's a possibility i i would prioritize doing like another wrestling card takeover at next year's national versus sacrificing that and going to fanatics fest it's just because the persona i represent just that doesn't make sense right yeah i think that makes sense it is tough i can't believe we're we're we're doing both in such a short time especially planning planning the event but so it goes i wanted to ask you about the celebrity nature and i think from afar when you're watching it online so much of it feels maybe a little manufactured like get over to this table they got cards of yours that sort of thing but i think when you peel back the wrestling side of it and you look at someone like dominic mysterio who was there and had like he legitimately had his own collection of his cards like there was a lot of that he was about as authentic as any celebrity i've ever seen at fanatics fest in terms of like being a collector of his own cards and being able to communicate the sets and why certain cards matter like i was watching hold on a second is it is it weird that he collects his own cards like like that i'm i've i've not been able to place that feeling yet like if i were on cards would i go buy my own cards if my son was on cards i would definitely do that that if my child or my brother or whatever that's different but clicking yourself is is that a a little weird do you think it's a good this is what i'll say it might be but i think the fact that you have someone as popular as him who is in the space who's like yeah for sure is probably a good thing you know i i was i saw some tiktok of like him going through his collection with a group of i saw that too at the hotel or whatever they and he was talking about his autograph and how he changed it after he like betrayed his dad because he didn't want mysterio in his in his autograph and like see that those those nuggets i thought were like super cool it's like that's what we look for for as collectors but i liked the celebrity participation on the wwe side just because i thought mysterio was a good person to kinda wave that flag yeah i i think like for people who are saying oh it's all staged it's all like what do you guys what do you expect i mean charlotte flair does not collect wrestling cards at the moment but having her go up with that little girl and sort of do the things that she was doing was awesome to see i liked what they've done in past years where they're bringing kids into it so it's not like hey i need to buy for myself but seeing dominic like be an authentic collector is awesome like that that feels validation right we get validation from that and i really like that but at the same time like i think that that we're we're getting further and further into this like athletes being collectors i mean there was a video from the twins that was posted that they all rip cases in the clubhouse and the minnesota twins and then there's all the stuff we've seen with mike trout and all these other you know athletes but even like jason sudeikis who we we saw walking around and i all i was really close to talking to him because i i real very nervous i'm a huge ted lasso fan as most people are but like he seemed very authentic and he had a very big collection with his son otis and all this other stuff and i think like all of that is cool like it doesn't impact you personally that these people are running around like kat going around buying things up at high prices that may have some impact but charlotte flair going to a table and buying her her mini me a card like that doesn't really impact people and she's just fun like i i look at it as marketing and advertising and i think collectors as a whole have told people like i don't wanna be marketed to yet all of these things are insanely successful because of the marketing and success that fanatics has done so i think like you can't have it both ways and i think it's also like what difference does it make like i i think it's cool that dominic collects cards it's and like i said is it weird that he collects his own cards a little also i think he buys other stuff too i've seen him buy other stuff too so i mean like that's all really interesting sort of nuggets as you've said and you know we can we can always wanna be this deep dark corner of the pop culture universe and we're not anymore and i think that that breeds a lot of new experiences for collectors that we haven't had in the past we haven't had to go through a discussion of whether kevin o'leary coming in and and wearing a card on a chain at the oscars is a good thing or a bad thing that's never a discussion that's needed to be had before so a lot of these feelings are brand spanking new some people will process them differently and for me i i just don't see a huge impact for my own collecting experience but i also see it as like hey it's it's an it's fun to watch it's cool it's like a minute two minute clip like what difference does it make like have fun with it why be upset yeah i think that is all very very good points by you i'm just i'll go back to just i'm i'm encouraged about the investment that fanatics is putting obviously they're making money off of wrestling cards but it's i think it's it goes far beyond what i was expecting which is is for sure yes and you need you need that and hell we're you know it will be done but we are throwing an event for people which i think we need in spaces like these niche spaces like wrestling cards but then you have manufacturer putting wrestling front and center on big stage that helps too so i just i feel very confident about where we're at right now and you don't have to like every release no of course i i don't i don't but i think the for every miss here and there they're you're gonna get hits and i just feel like we're we're in a really good spot right now so let me ask you this last question on fanatics fest we're now we're we're doing content at this most stale point of like the the the whole hype cycle here has your viewpoint changed over the last couple of weeks since we've we've departed like is it something that that you feel like your understanding and processing of the event has changed now that it's it's been a little bit of time since you've gotten back it i feel like i'm still trying to process and it's really challenging for me to process everything with everything else that's going on it's been rapid fire yeah but i think i you know my talking point has been mostly if you aren't happy with events like fanatics fest and you wanna stand behind your phone and talk shit about it and you're not there like your opinion really doesn't mean anything to me so like go out and experience it because likely there are going to be things in this monstrosity of event that are going to be for you and that's that's kinda how i i felt after that it's like do i need to go back next year i don't know if i need to if there's like a good reason to get stacking slabs involved with something wrestling related sure i'll be there in a second but i i think for me it's like i feel very very happy that i encouraged it and like most importantly i've said this several times but just i feel very good about the way things are right now with the state of wrestling cards and i'm not sure i would have that same exuberance or confidence i'd be happy about way the way it's going but i i have more confidence than ever before because i was at the event and i saw how the big dog was handling that ip yeah and i think we'll come back next week and have probably a similar discussion around the national but i mean comparing the two shows like i saw darren rovell i mentioned this on our our last podcast i saw darren rovell put out that awful tweet about like the this is the national killer and blah blah blah blah and i'm just like like how can you have such a disassociated take having been to both events like i i've he was there for both and like still having that take is so disconnected and weird and i think it's just like i've heard it on multiple podcasts so i don't need to spend a ton of time on this it's like it just serves different purposes serves different target audiences different outcomes and we've i've said that on main event a number of times i know you've said it on different shows that you've had covering it since then because you have the luxury of of more shows to cover this on but i think like like when we get out of the national coming the day after that this airs like i think we're gonna be like in this space of like okay now like i'm sort of longing for that news to come every single day because it really has for the last couple of weeks it's always something new wrestlemania patch new set new this new that we've got a preorder for topps universe coming like all of this stuff just keeps going and going and going because this is the the the major sort of hub of sports card everything for a year and then once we get into the the fall and the winter like things tend to slow down a little bit before we hit royal rumble season so i think that people have sort of gotten used to this sort of like buzz that's been around the industry and now the you know comparing these two shows is a natural sort of like oh we have to rank everything like sports cards sports wrestling everything has to be ranked we have to do mount rushmore's we have to do this i don't necessarily believe that that's really sort of the the right approach here and i think both of these conventions have different reasons to exist and i think we're gonna prove that this weekend with wrestling card takeover being just an enormous event for wrestling collectors but we're not the only community doing stuff like that star wars f one you name it soccer there's a ton of communities doing very similar things to what we're doing and i just don't think there's as much of a vehicle at fanatics fest to offer that because you don't have the breadth of collector base that comes to those events versus a national right yeah i had a conversation with my friend james at mad city collector who's a he's a creator he's got a soccer card podcast he's a massive soccer card collector and i was talking with him at the national and we were catching up and he was like yeah i'm going over to this event and i was like what's that he's like oh it's this big soccer card event and he was like going through like everything in the dedication and the focus and i i remember when he left i was like i wish something like that existed for a area that i collect in ie wrestling cards so we're we're we're it's a reality like we're we're making it happen so we'll see how it goes but i don't know man like i'm a startup guy you know you've worked on teams that are kinda nimble building in in the software space it feels like this is our our v one and we're gonna learn a lot from this experience but yeah you'll never you'll you'll never really know unless you you've done it and you've had experience doing these types of events in the past maybe not at this scale but i'm i'm very encouraged that we as you know a a group of guys with some awesome sponsors who love wrestling cards get to offer this to the community at the biggest show of the year so it's gonna be awesome yeah let's i wanna take just a brief because topps announced today that they are putting out and i'm sorry if you had fomo coming into this week it likely just got exponentially worse today because of what they're previewing on social media so they're gonna be doing so top says and by the time we're talking about this you will probably have already seen the cards you've got cards in hand and stuff like that it's rare that one of these events starts on like a wednesday and a thursday where we can't where we're not like on a weekend as it's happening so it it feels this feels a little weird talking about it in the future tense even though people listening to it will be listening to it in the past but these cards are are interesting because for a long time twenty eighteen twenty nineteen topps was offering rapper redemption packs at the national they never had anything besides baseball in them as far as i can remember there may have been a couple of years with with star wars but panini had the licenses for basketball and football and everything so there really wasn't a need to do anything but baseball wrestling didn't have the level of dedicated collector that was gonna come and buy these packs now we do so they're doing packs for every one of the licenses that they own including fifty wrestlers with forties five ish autographs all the big names obafemi included rhea ripley like you name it there's a becky lynch autograph i'm chasing so if you get one hit me up i'll be there to pick it up from you but like the the cards look cool like they're tops chrome branded cards with a national logo like i love seeing that there's like you said investment here and people can talk about oh i don't like what fanatics is doing i don't like what fanatics is doing panini has done this in the past like why is this new because i think it's like panini maybe had like three or four wrestlers on a checklist they maybe had like ten to fifteen autographs across the board and and some of the vip packs they never had a fifty card set they never had forty five different autograph subjects that they brought to this party i think this is huge pini is doing packs as well and there are wrestlers on their checklist i think i saw hulk hogan and a few others so it's not like pini is being left out even though they don't have wrestling anymore but this is the biggest manufacturer offering we've ever seen at the national and it's not even close yeah i think just putting wrestling cards alongside all of the other licenses in a pack at an event is massive like accessibility accessibility accessibility like imagine a kid opening up a pack in first cards bobby whitt junior the next card is penta and he's like who is penta look at this guy he looks insane and they read the back of the card then that might get someone to do a search look on ebay tune into the product and i think right to me that obviously collectors of you want the becky one of one i can only imagine like the clutchers are gonna want these cards but i think accessibility to non wrestling collectors just putting those cards front and center is massive so we we mentioned wrestling card takeover before and i just wanna take some time to talk about some true feelings about the event because as we said when you're listening to this it's probably been happened already but we've we've talked about our sponsors we've talked about the planning but we really haven't really gone into sort of what the goals have been or anything like that and i said on the last podcast that we wanted to plan to flag with with wrestling card takeover and i think that that remains the main goal here is show that our community is capable of this but like you're kind of like the whole book to last involvement in this is is relatively new it wasn't a a a thing last time we've even approached trying to do something like this like what what are you hoping to accomplish at least with wrestling card takeover this friday like what do you think is your takeaway from seeing this l in motion and and what do you hope to come out the other end with yeah so one of the things i talk a lot about just in my content is the shrinking of the sea of this hobby it is massive there are many different pieces to it there's eras there's different sports there's different types of collectors there's different motivations around participation in this space and i just think anything that we can do to create focus around specific pocket i e wrestling cards and bring together those individuals under one roof to meet to build relationships to connect to collaborate like this is to me this is not just a we're gonna have fun and we're gonna forget about it like my hope is that some really strong relationships are created peer to peer peers to brands brands to peers and like there's there's really no hook like there's we're not charging anyone anything like we just want people to be there to be excited to share in their passion so i think just the ability to create a space for wrestling card collectors is awesome like i remember my first national when i went in there i was like where are the wrestling cards i was searching everywhere and i found like three showcases right there was like some eighty two all stars and then i found like someone had a box of like fully loaded i think the first fully loaded had just come out and i was just like this is it like and it was literally that was it all i did was run around there just wasn't a presence and so now there's a presence and there's a big presence where there's an event involved so you know my hope is that you know we spend all this time on screens communicating on phones and there's narratives there's kind of back and forth everyone's very opinionated it's like my hope is that everyone can meet those people that they interact with online and just break bread like hang out talk cards talk wrestling do all the things wrestling brings people together in person like there might be disputes online everyone has their own opinion everyone gets very fired up but when you're like sitting in real life with someone who likes wrestling and who likes wrestling cards there's really nothing to complain about there's a connection there so my hope is that we can build some really good strong connections for collectors in the community yeah i think like the national and i remember going back as far as like my old website with sports cards and censored and everything like when i used to do my national write up i never talked about the the stuff i bought as much as i talked about the people i met and i think like that for me it's always been an event to support the collecting experience through people not through the cards and and i think in recent years it has probably changed because of the amount of money that's flowing through that room and it's always been a big dollar event like there's always been million dollar cards on the floor of to going back to twenty fifteen and before even like that honus wagner that they're showing at the cards at the show this week that's been there before like a lot of these things have been there before and i think what changes is the people and i think the people make these shows interesting i think fanatics fest as a whole was probably more interesting to me because there's this whole new crop of people there were a lot of wrestling people in that room i don't know how many were wrestling collectors but there were more wrestling cards at that in those showcases at fanatics fest that will be at the showcases in the national the difference is the people the audience the target markets are different so you have a much more concentrated collector base coming to this which is why doing an event like wrestling card takeover works at the national where it may not work as much at fanatics fest and i think like when you look at what we're trying to bring here i've gotten people coming in from like germany that are gonna come into the national and go to this event there's people from all over the united states i've gotten dms from people i never expected to get dms from and saying like hey can i come to the event how do we come to the like be it signed up this type of stuff and that's not a measure of like oh we're doing this and we're awesome because we've accomplished this it's like wow this is getting out there there's a lot more of these wrestling collectors that exist than i think anybody ever thought and the hobby has grown to a point now where we can support a larger event like this which is so awesome to see and again i've mentioned the word validation before but that's really what it is you mentioned bringing these like minded people together that is so cool like being able to and like you and i had lunch in new york and mhmm we talked forever just about random shit like i love doing land i can't do that at home with my wife because she doesn't care about this stuff like doing that with somebody who cares about it every week with ryan bannister and you and everybody else that's great for an hour but this is gonna be like a full night of just talking with people having a great time celebrating the podcast celebrating the community everything it's completely free we're gonna be there from six to midnight like stop by even if it's just for fifteen minutes and say hi we'd love to say hi to you get to know people i i i was listening to cage this morning on his national podcast he's like listen there's no conversation i'm having that's more important that that's gonna be important enough for you not to interrupt me and do this and i was like i even sent him a message like saying hey we should hook up because he's been a sort of a wrestling card hater for years and i wanna mend that bridge but and he was open to it so i mean like these types of events mend fences it brings people together in ways that we can't explain and we're giving everybody a reason to come beyond just hey there's gonna be giveaways there's food there's drinks all that other stuff we want you to come and be a part of the community and celebrate with us so i'm really excited i hope it by the time you listen to it it's it's it was successful yeah i just wanna shout out anybody who's listening to this saturday first thing after wrestling card takeover and you went to wrestling card taker takeover you are the real one that's what i would say yeah yeah for sure there were a couple of huge sales which i did not expect coming into national week i'm gonna go through these very fast because i i think we we'll we've sort of run the gamut of like okay this is national week like we're gonna talk about the national we'll talk about this but i seeing a gunther wrestlemania patch autograph sell on ebay to a big gunther collector for eighteen thousand two hundred and eleven dollars via auction was just not in my bingo card or whatever people say it was great to see i think these wrestlemania patch autographs continue to be hot collectibles they continue to show that they are the one card that tops is gonna make that it will that will stand the test of time and this one was inscribed ring general so it's one of the only inscribed ones that i've seen aj styles was pulled over this week as well so like we've we've gotten a lot of wrestlemania patch autograph news coming in still no cena we've seen rhea still no punk like all those things are still sort of floating around but eighteen grand for gunther i think good price first of all but secondly like happy that we're still seeing this as news sort of even a couple of months after royalty has been on the market i had this one on my watch list as i'm sure everyone listening did and terrible listing name by the way yes yeah the it's terrible there were a couple moments when it was hovering lower for a minute where i was like i know there are gunther fans out there or collectors but like i was like considering i was like i might throw a bid out on this one because this card is so cool like it is i just love the inscription but yeah gunther's he's one of my favorites to watch week in and week out so big sell you gotta love it yeah i was like the so the just for people that weren't abreast of the situation here it was listed by it now thirty grand with a ten thousand dollar starting bid i believe yeah and it had a reserve on it so like you literally could not have and the the the title of the auction was tops wwe royalty gun for wrestlemania no one of one say autograph didn't say one of one didn't say any year that it was a part of like it was completely just buried and yet people still found it it got reported on i'm glad it sold for where it did and who who bought it i'll let them reveal it on instagram when they get it but like hopefully they do get it but i think like this is one of those situations where even in the worst of circumstances an auction with a reserve you don't do that on ebay it still sold for a really high price i thought that was that was cool to see this is why we send our cards to consignment that's exactly right because consignors would have told you you're an idiot for doing it this way we also had on the phonetics premiere we had the john cena liquid humongous price on this card i think the photo on it is awful i think the which is really unfortunate because it's an amazing looking card if it weren't for that photo he has the title belt on backwards because it was during his heel run and i like this whole thing just did not sit well with me but the auction itself sold for almost the price of a wrestlemania patch which is really cool but you know another five figure sale i think we've had now ten or eleven in the last couple of months which is nuts but yeah i just wanted to call this one out because fanatics premiere this isn't a fanatics weekly a wrestling card made it into the premiere auction this time have you seen these in hand yet like yes anyone what what are your thoughts they're amazing they look yeah they look cool they look cool i was sniffing at this one but like the photo killed me man i love the title i i love a good john cena heel backwards title like i'm not sure how many more we're gonna get but it's i mean it's not worse than the last year finest his photo that one was bad too it's not all time sticker but this one yeah the photo just didn't do much for me yeah i think like these cards i want the roman reigns even though that photo still is not the one i would have chose but i want the roman reigns and the rear rip i think both of those liquid silver cards are so incredible i saw a bunch of them at fanatics fest they're great looking cards they're some of the best case hits that tops makes and they're the most inaccessible as well unfortunately so i know you were sniffing around this card as well i thought it was yeah okay you wanna do you you wanna yeah so it pops up it used well first tell what it is because they're people so people don't just tell me guys this is the twenty twenty five wwe tops royalty superior relic signatures roman reigns platinum one of one so i think you sent it in my maybe busiest time which is usually when i'm with my children right when i pick them up it was like during that and i think when i landed back at home i like was like holy shit and when you sent a screenshot and so i went and looked it up and it was gone and i was like no is it gone is it gone if you were like it's gone and i was like damn it and then when i when i saw that it sold for i was like that's kind of it was like one of those moments where i was like that's exactly kind of where i put value to that and maybe where i would have made the offer at so unfortunately was unable to to get this one but i did pick up a out of ten that just landed i put a little story pick on my on my instagram last night but yeah i just dude i am a big big believer of the they use relics the on card autographs like the premier premium product of a guy like roman reigns just because it's like man there's not that many right now and it's like this will always be the first royalty set so that stuff to me matters as i'm analyzing spending big money and yeah this card absolutely kicks ass man i love it yeah so it has like this tribal pattern on the relic it's very similar to the the the shirt that was used for the i i think it's the same shirt that was used for his universe relics because i know jameson got the original one of one foil fracture from universe for his roman reigns collection exquisite sports collectibles on instagram i i think this card is better than any roman reigns that from from that perspective it's it's hard for me to say this is better than the immaculate because the immaculate one has the best photo of it of any i mean it's just it's so good and that and that design is awesome i think that does as a whole that card looks better than this one it's probably four to five times as valuable but seeing this one sell for ten thousand dollars humongous price and i thought it would probably even go a little bit higher but you know whoever got this got it at an offer that made sense for them and i think the seller just wanted to move it so but it's it's such a great looking card i don't think people appreciate royalty yet they will exactly they will it it all depends on it's all about the wrestlemania patches right now but it's it's this is what i am sniffing around it is this stuff right now i got my out of ten for under a thousand bucks yeah as a as a thousand bucks so i was like to me that felt like a win but yeah i don't think the non wrestlemania patch stuff is being appreciated quite where it will be in the future is my thought process so i think flawless being numbered only out of twenty five and below creates this artificial scarcity that ramped up the chase more quickly than any other set these have ones that are out of ninety nine out of fifty out of twenty five out of out of ten and and then the one on ones because they don't have out of fives so i think it will take more time for people to appreciate this but it's already drying up it's already starting to dry up and once people recognize that tops isn't gonna do event worn for every set forever in perpetuity i think these cards will become more appreciated i think someone got it will eventually have gotten a steal on this and i i can't say enough good things about this card it looks absolutely amazing i think you're out of ten looks amazing too i think both of those are dude when i got when i got it in the mail and i was like what do these look like in person dude i was just i was like just staring staring you know when you get a card and you're like good lord the detail the autograph is nice the patch is nice but that i after getting that i was just i was a believer in this set more than than i was before i think dynasty is gonna ramp it up even further but if you've seen the acetate cards like that's the other thing i was trying to find the roman reigns acetate autograph that matches the becky lynch one that i have and these cards are already spiking they're already a lot of them are already over six seven hundred dollars apiece out of twenty five there's no parallels so it's just like it's twenty five and i think there might be one of ones if they ever got around to making that but like those cards are underappreciated too like come two years from now those initial acetate cards only having twenty five of them humongous lift i think is gonna be happening last one we'll cover because this took me like i i i sent this to you guys in the group chat and i was just like what the hell just happened a a twenty twenty four flawless obafemi on card autograph relic psa ten the ruby version of it sold not for fifteen hundred dollars it sold via best offer fixed price seven thousand five hundred dollars i know who bought this and i'm i'm re i really wanna out them because they're not part of our community and like i think josh luber is going around and buying a lot of these obafemi cards he's been sniffing around some people that i have messaged me and i would be very shocked if it wasn't him that bought this card but seventy five hundred dollars for a flawless patch autograph it's a psa ten so the pop report is gonna be one if if any beyond that is shocking to me i was floored by this price yeah i i think probably bannister is feeling pretty good that no one wants to buy his we covered all this with the last last national but yeah i think you know you've got the the the materials you've got the on card autograph but again like we've it's been a theme of this like the the the photo is amazing like yeah it's great i love it the photo's amazing with the title in his mouth so i just think photography you gotta have good photography to fetch these types of sales yeah for sure as we close this out and we've we've now reached the the end of of our planning cycle for for the national you've got a ton of stuff in the works i know you've been mentioning on your podcast you're gonna be camped out at the card ladder booth recording some content i can't wait to meet the card ladder folks i have i was gonna do it in new york at fanatics fest but just wasn't able to connect with chris and christina and everybody so i'm excited to to to stop by there when i get in i've got a bunch of deals there i'm i'm i'll talk about next week what's happening and beyond that because i think it'll be live on youtube by then but you know there's a lot of stuff going on this week for me i'm i i've walked into the nationals before and be been like just overwhelmed i think this year is gonna be a whole different beast i'm just what are your final thoughts sort of to close this out because we're both sort of like like electric at the moment like i feel like this is a rock entrance that's waiting like that moment right before if your smell hits like that's what that's what this feels like for me i'm going all in proud yeah i'm pushing it i'm going all in i'm ready to go i am preparing for my gas tank to be on e when i'm driving home to indy on sunday but i mean what more could you ask for you got collectors you got friends you got events content everything so last year i felt so motivated it really closed my kinda q three and q four out really strong after the national and i'm expecting the same if not more so these types of events in person connecting with like minded individuals is what it's all about like we spend ninety nine percent of our times on screens and so i mean adam when we were in new york man it was we we've spent time together but we've never spent that much time together and it was awesome kind of connecting and going to saturday night's main event and for everyone who talked shit about that event who wasn't there like in person that was like one of my favorite wwe events i've it was so cool i was i was not planning on going i don't think either of us were no no that's what canceled flights do so yeah i'm just motivated i'm excited i'm i'm hope hopeful i get to meet so many of the listeners of this podcast podcast like you and ryan have built an awesome community around this show so me too saddle up partner man it's gonna be fun yeah i think i think that we'll we'll we'll have to do like ryan's gonna hate me because we're gonna have to do like an hour and a half you know podcast again we've we've kept this to an hour for the last few weeks i think we'll we'll end right around there to the this week as well i think we're right at the end here but you know i i feel like there's and i said this i think on the last podcast is like there's gonna be like this gap that exists now where we we had this like build and build and build and build and we're finally here and now afterwards like how do you deal with that now being over and that that hangover sort of experience is like walking out of wrestlemania and you're stuck in the tunnel for an hour trying to get to your car that's what next week is gonna feel like because i think we're gonna be like we're gonna be so buzzed and everything like that and i get to go home and go to summerslam which is even cooler i never really expected to be able to do that and like i'm taking my son we're gonna go and have a good time i wanna go to the summerslam store but i don't know if i'm gonna be able to make it there like there's this whole sort of like circular event in minneapolis around summerslam that i have to miss now and so that's unfortunate but i get to miss it for like the best possible reason in the world so and hopefully they'll offer a bunch of the stuff on the website like they usually do anyways but it'll be good to go to the event it'll be good to see everybody can't wait to meet up with everybody who's been listening like please as as we've said come say hi text us message us on instagram say hey i'm at the show where you at probably be hanging around rbi crew and thz in that area sports car junction all with a ton of wrestling cars that's probably the the majority of the time that i'm gonna be spending there i'm not gonna get in until like thursday afternoon so because i have to drive from minneapolis and i had to work for most of the week so i i won't be able to be there like for wednesday kickoff but it'll be pretty shortly after i'll be on-site and then i'll have to leave probably pretty early on saturday morning to get home for for some stuff but i think i'm i'm hoping to make the most of this man as quickly as possible it's gonna be rapid fire as usual saddle up it's gonna be a blast see you in rosemont adam thanks everyone for yep tuning in and checking out book to last been a great week see you next week guys hopefully it'll be as successful as we've planned here