SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
First up, I’d like to say a few things about the passing of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. Many younger viewers of WWE might not truly understand the legend that was the Weasel, but for those of us who watched the WWF in the 80’s and then WCW in the 90’s know he was instrumental in bringing Wrestling to the forefront of pop culture, and he’s well represented in the app, with 23 cards, including 4 awards and a Gold Rush.
His co-hosting of WWF Prime Time with the late Gorilla Monsoon and the chemistry those two had together was nothing less than spectacular. On screen Gorilla would play the good guy and Bobby the bad guy and they were terrific together. Off-Screen they were the closest of friends, and it showed. Bobby’s later life was filled with health issues, including several cancers and at the end he didn’t look at all like he did in his heyday. I knew this day was coming but still too soon. First Harry Dean Stanton, now “The Brain.” Sad weekend. RIP Bobby.
September hasn’t been all that spectacular in the game thus far, as the calendar is loaded with two PPVs in the next three weeks. That’s not to say that there have been some interesting content drops. We’ve had a series 2 of the Rob Schamberger art cards, a second series of the Boom Studios Comic Covers, a smattering of inserts here and there, and oh yeah, the Women’s Division release, which was a cluster-bomb of epic proportions.
The Women’s Division set consists of several parts: a 21 card “roster” set in four variations, a 20 card “matches & moments” set in four variations and an 11 card “rivalries” set in one variation. Released simultaneously as the 2017 version of Undisputed signatures, the app is still jumping as people tried to complete their sets.
One thing hindering them, the Women’s Division cards are extremely hard to search for in game. You can’t search the keyword “Women’s Division” or any variation of the actual title. If you search “Roster” for 2016 cards you’ll come up with the roster set, but as of now no one has found any keywords other than the color variations to search for the Matches & Moments set, and there is nothing you can search for the Rivalries set. Add to that error that the gold variant, which in the announcement were not announced as being limited, sold out at 500cc within minutes, and Diamond only packs containing not only golds, but silver and Rivalries were pulled from the store for almost a full day. Coin packs only contained the red, blue and Rivalries cards.
Additionally the Silver Emma Roster card was not in packs at all for more than the first day and only appeared several hours after Diamond packs returned to the store. Her single has about half of the CC than all the remaining silvers. If you want to be confused even more, the award checklists in app didn’t list the Emma as being needed for the award, but were later amended. Those same checklists were also quite buggy until being fixed. Here’s the main problem: this is only wave 1 of the Women’s Division set, wave 2 is forthcoming next month, and in it will be Becky Lynch and Charlotte amongst others.
I had a minor personal crisis occur while waiting for the Women’s set to drop, and wasn’t able to be online when it did (over an hour late from what Topps announced too). So I missed out completely on Gold variants, but with a bit of help I was able to complete the silver, blue, red and the Rivalries sets by weekend’s end. I didn’t bother with the Undisputed signatures since there was no one in that set I collect, and the two Triple Sigs sold out early and shot up in value over the $20 price point. As of now the Women’s triple containing Ember Moon’s first non-award signature has sold for as much as $30.
The Undisputed single signature set of 10 contains first single sigs of Kane, Liv Morgan and Mrs. Jonathan Good Renee Young, as well as a new Paige sig, but since the CC was limited to 1500 there really isn’t that much secondary value for these. Expect them to go for $2-5, with the high end reserved for the ladies. It’s really too bad that Topps didn’t choose better performers for this set, though they have the opportunity with Wave 2 to really knock it out of the park. There are 56 different single sigs in the physical Undisputed set this is based upon.
Performers that could have signatures in Wave 2 (but are not guaranteed) include Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Undertaker, Johnny Gargano, Tomasso Ciampa, TJ Perkins, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows. Speaking of the Good Brothers, in the physical product there is an AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows triple signature which would be incredibly popular in game if Topps chose to include it in Wave 2. Let’s hope they did. We won’t mention the Quad Booklet of the entire Bullet Club (WWE Version) since there’s no chance that’s going to make it in game.
Later this week we’ll get the second No Mercy set and in two weeks time we’ll see a second Hell in a Cell set. Interestingly enough, No Mercy was a Smackdown PPV and HIAC was a RAW PPV last year and both sets had some decent cards that still get offers. Of course, the high end sigs in those sets last year were limited to 100cc, and that doesn’t seem to be happening much anymore.
The second VIP only signature was released this week and it’s The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, which is a big improvement over the first VIP sig, Dolph Ziggler. For one, it’s DiBiase’s first signature in game, and secondly it was available for coins and diamonds instead of just diamonds. While legends don’t usually get the same collector attention as current stars, this is a nice inclusion, and one I’d like to see continue. I would actually appreciate being a VIP if they had a legends theme to these special signature releases.
Next week we’ll see 2017 Heritage hitting the game, and since I’ve been collecting the physical version I’m somewhat excited to see what we’ll get digitally. The set is solid with 1987 Baseball as its main theme, but also containing subsets based on the classic Wrestlemania III set also from 1987. In two weeks along with HIAC we get something called “Stadium Inserts” which I would surmise as being related to Topps classic brand “Stadium Club” which first appeared in 1991 for Baseball.
Don’t forget you can find me in game at GRENDELSEN, and I’m always happy to trade or answer any questions you might have. Leave questions or concerns here and I’ll see you next time.
My Collecting Blog – The Budget Collector
The Daily WiLL – http://willaday.blogspot.com
NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE: DIGITAL DABBLINGS #16 – What’s New for August & Topps NOW!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.