COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: New PWG, NXT, and WWE Women’s Trading Cards

It’s been a busy week for wrestling card collectors.

Since Tuesday, Topps has released two new WWE products: the Walmart-exclusive WWE Women’s Division, and the hobby- and Target-exclusive NXT. And earlier this week, fans began receiving their 24-card sets commemorating last weekend’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament from Pro Wrestling Guerilla. Each product offers very different things to a variety of collectors.

2017 Topps WWE Women’s Division

This new product is a follow-up to the 2016 WWE Diva’s Revolution set from Topps, which turned out to be one of the most popular wrestling products with collectors last year. WWE Women’s Division is exclusive to Walmart and is available in $20 blaster boxes, $10 hanger boxes and $5 fat packs.

Blaster boxes contain 80 cards, including one guaranteed hit (autograph, relic, kiss card, shirt relics, mat relics, or commemorative belt relics). Hanger boxes deliver 40 cards per box, including exclusive Finishers and Signature Moves insert cards (five per pack). Finally, fat packs include 18 cards per pack, including three exclusive Rivalries cards.

As with most trading card products, autographs will likely drive interest in 2017 Topps WWE Women’s Division, which features autographs from approximately 38 women. The product includes autographs from all of WWE’s current top female stars, including Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Flair, Bayley and Sasha Banks. There are autographs from nine NXT women, most notably the first autographed trading card of Ruby Riot. Legends autographs span the past 25-plus years, featuring everyone from Wendi Richter and Princess Victoria to Trish Stratus and Torrie Wilson.

The Kiss Cards set, which features autographed parallels, includes Trish Stratus, Mandy Rose, Asuka and Natalya, among others. There are plenty of shirt and mat relics, and two rare booklets that contain autographs, kisses and mat relics of Carmella and Natalya. Manufactured Commemorative Belt Relics feature replica Divas’ Championship and Women’s Championship belts.

2017 Topps NXT

This is Topps’ second NXT product, following the 2016 version. The new 2017 Topps NXT product is sold exclusively at hobby stores and at Target. Hobby packs are similar to this year’s Undisputed product in that each pack offers one guaranteed autograph for around $20. There are seven cards per pack, 10 packs per box, at around $200 per box. There are also T-shirt and mat relics. Target-exclusive blaster boxes ($19.99) deliver 42 cards, including one guaranteed relic and the chance to pull an autograph.

The 2017 NXT product includes the first certified autographs of several NXT wrestlers, including Killian Dane, Nikki Cross, Riddick Moss, Tino Sabbatelli, Nick Miller, Shane Thorne, Akam, Rezar and Tian Bing, among others. Top stars in the set include Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode, Asuka and Ember Moon.

2017 PWG Battle of Los Angeles

Designer Brian Ubben followed up last year’s surprising PWG Battle of Los Angeles set with a new version for 2017. The new cards are designed to resemble the black and gold 1991 WCW trading cards from Championship Marketing.

There is one card for each of the contestants from the 2017 BOLA tournament, with the exception of Joey Janela, who replaced TK Cooper. The 2017 set includes early cards of several top prospects like Keith Lee, Flamita, Sammy Guevara and recent WWE signee Donovan Dijak. The set also features cards of some of the top independent wrestling stars in the world, including Marty Scurll, Jeff Cobb, Sami Callihan, Matthew Riddle, Michael Elgin, Penta el Zero M (Pentagon Jr.), Zack Sabre Jr., Trevor Lee and Rey Fenix, among others.

Each set contains all 24 base cards and one rare card. There are four rare cards total, which have the border colors reversed and include PWG stars like Chuck Taylor and Candice LeRae. For more information on how to order the 2017 PWG Battle of Los Angeles cards, contact Brian Ubben on Twitter @BrianDaBrain.

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PWTorch Collectibles Specialist Michael Moore can be reached at michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MMooreWriter.