Winnings From Wes

I'm pretty sure I just hit the motherlode.

As everyone is aware by now Wes of Area 40 (and various other blog names) has gone into blogging retirement but went out with a bang. In addition to the crazy box busting and pack ripping he did, he also ran a contest, that being to guess the number of hits (relics, autographs, and otherwise) he'd get in the mega-break and that person would win a prize pack. I believe the final number was 352 or thereabouts and on a whim I guessed 350. 

Well, wouldn't you know who won the pony.

It turns out I was pretty much right on the money so in addition to the cards from the break, I won the prize pack. I'll get into that in a bit, but first, the cards from the break.

Before the break, Wes announced that he'd only be sending out the hits and I believe donating the base cards. Serial numbered cards count as hits apparently. I'd forgotten that I'd claimed the Flames in the break so I was a bit surprised to see these. The Joel Otto card is my first hockey buyback.

The Bengals were the one team I remember I claimed in the break. I was expecting the Peter Warrick card but the Akili Smith relic was another nice surprise. I'm actually excited for the Bengals next season as they'll have a new coach and hopefully some new tricks up their sleeve after they (finally) parted ways with tired old Marvin Lewis.

That does it for the cards from the break and if that's all I would have gotten, then I would've been fine. But there was more .... oh, so much more ... and that's where the cards won in the contest come in.

First, there's this Jimmy Garappolo booklet card. I've never owned a booklet card until now and I have to say, it's pretty neat. It's a pain to store though. It came in a small case so I think I'll keep it in there until I figure out a way to store it.

However, this is a card that's easy to store ... and probably a sought after card, it being a Tom Brady rookie card. To be honest, I'm not a Patriots fan, however this is a card that I'm happy to add to my football collection. It's in good shape too. 

The majority of the cards included in the prize pack were rookie cards. This is a duplicate as I broke a Pro Set set last summer and donated the commons. For now, it's in the football binder next to the other one.

A few other rookie cards here of two top quarterbacks. I always find it interesting to see cards of Brett Favre as a Falcon, considering he only played 2 games for them as a backup quarterback before being traded to the Packers for a first-round draft pick.

Lastly, at least for the world of football, there's this. A 1968 Topps Bob Griese rookie card. Sure, it's miscut and looks like maybe it was trimmed or cut a bit? Not sure. Also, the back is a little beat up. However, it's still an awesome card and one I'm now lucky to have in my collection.

I'm not really one for basketball but I will admit, these are some pretty cool cards. I'm always down for vintage cards and the Robert Parish card fits that bill. Him and LeBron will go into my miscellaneous binder where all the random cards I have reside.

This was included in the prize pack as well. I've never bought any Benchwarmer cards and to be honest, it's not really my thing. I'm still not sure what to do with this as it doesn't fit my collection. (Update: This has already been claimed in a trade.)

Here's something very interesting, a 1/1 Dean Prentice game used stick printing plate. Prentice isn't someone I'm familiar with but it turns out he had a 22-year career in the NHL with primarily the Rangers but also with Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota.

I still collect UFC cards even though I don't really follow the product anymore. It's more of getting the cards of the stars I remember from when I actively followed the product. I think I've seen a few Kendall Grove bouts back in the day but I don't really remember them. I did the swatch on this card though.

This would be my second Archives Signature Edition card. Personally, I think these cards are pretty neat and I guess they could be considered buybacks. Bour had a pretty good run as Miami's first baseman and finished 5th in Rookie of the Year voting in 2015. His power dropped off a bit last season and Miami shipped him off to the Phillies as a waiver trade. He's since signed with the Angels as a free agent.

Here are a couple unique cards. The first is a 1985 Chong Mark McGwire card of him with the single-A Modesto A's (now known as the Modesto Nuts). If I had to guess, I'd say it's his first minor league card but not sure. Also, I'm not familiar with the card maker itself. The Craig Kimbrel card is  a 1/1 game piece celebrating a career saves milestone. As of this writing, Kimbrel is still a free agent.

The rookie cards just keep on coming here with Ozzie Albies, Aaron Judge, Rhys Hoskins, and Shohei Ohtani. I've made it clear before that I didn't like Donruss last year but it chromes .... ahem, "optics" ... up pretty nicely.

The Mike Trout card is definitely not a rookie card, one of the few in the pack that wasn't, but it's a 2014 Bowman blue parallel numbered to 500. Pretty cool card and a nice add to my Trout collection. The Stephen Strasburg card is from the 2009 Upper Deck USA National team set. It took me a minute to realize that the multi-player card is a David Ortiz rookie card. It's still amazing to me that the Twins cut him loose.

Rookie cards weren't the only thing included, there were also these cool autograph cards. The Archives Snapshots brand is something I'm not familiar with but I guess they're going for a Polaroid picture design? It reminds me more of the basic design most promo pictures of boxers and wrestlers use with the wide white border at the bottom and the thin borders on the other sides. The Paul Konerko card is really neat as it appears to be a minor league card. At first I thought it was probably a TTM signature but there's a tiny little logo on the side that says is an "authentic" autograph.

I'm nearing the end of the package here and I'm closing out with my favorites. First, this well worn and well loved 1953 Topps Jim Fridley. Sure, the corners are rounded, it's creased, and there's some paper loss in the bottom right corner but that's a sign that it was well loved. It's vintage, it's not meant to be perfect.

Next, three of the top baseball rookie cards of the 1980s, that being a 1983 Donruss Tony Gwynn, a 1985 Topps Kirby Puckett, and a 1983 Topps Wade Boggs. I'd been eyeing the Gwynn and the Puckett on COMC for a while now but now I can take them off my want list.

This card, though, is my favorite card that was in the package. As those who have been around here for a while can probably tell, I'm a big wrestling fan. I grew up a WWF fan but when I discovered classic WCW, Sting quickly became one of my all-time favorites. He was also one of the sole reasons I watched TNA/Impact Wrestling on a weekly basis. When he finally showed up in WWE in 2014, I was excited. However, he only had a handful of matches and his career was ended in a match with Seth Rollins when he suffered a neck injury. This card instantly becomes one of my top five favorite cards in my collection and I can't thank Wes enough for including it in the prize package.

This has to be one of the most epic mailers I've ever received from Wes and since he went into retirement, it's most likely the last. Thanks for sending these Wes and I appreciate your contributions to our humble little community.

Fun Finds From the Flea Market #3

Last weekend, my wife, son, and I met up with some friends of ours at the local flea market. While it wasn't the best day weather wise (super strong winds, chilly, and overcast), there were still a good about of vendors to be had, inside and outside. Let's see what I procured this go 'round.

One of the first stops was at the comic shop. I'm not much of a comic book guy but I will buy the occasional book or graphic novel here and there. This jumped right out at me simply because of the art on the cover and the fact is was 20% off the cover price.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I said on a previous post that I'm not a Funko collector but this was too good to pass up, especially since it was a few dollars off the normal retail price of $10. Sting is one of my favorites of all time so this was a nice pick up at a discounted price.

One of the booths I regularly stop at has wrestling collectibles and cards. They also have a giant rack of discounted junk wax from the early 90s, both sports and non-sports. This jumped out at me almost immediately. It's 91-92 NHL Pro Set, but it's in French! I've already done a box break of Series 2 last fall. I tore into this later that day and I've got a future article lined up already.

Finally, I stopped at the vintage card dealer I usually visit. While I had fully intended on not buying anything as soon as I noticed a bin of loose 71 singles for 30 cents each, I couldn't pass that up. I thumbed through them, found a bunch of nice singles shown below.

While those cards above were 30 cents each, the ones below I grabbed and the guy threw them in for 75 cents each.

For six bucks, I got a nice smattering of singles from 71 Topps and that was definitely the highlight of this flea market trip. While I'm not planning on collecting the set, I'm always up for getting singles from 71 Topps whenever I can get them cheap.

This was a pretty good trip to the flea market, while it was lacking a little on the card front, I still got a nice variety of stuff for $30.

WrestleMania Week: Hall of Fame Edition

It's the day before WrestleMania and as is tradition in the land of WWE, tonight is the Hall of Fame induction. This year's class looks interesting if nothing else so I thought that I would show off a few cards of each inductee (with some help from COMC) and give a brief summary of their careers. I also should note that even though Snoop Dogg and Joan Lunden are being honored at the event, they are classified as "honorees" not "inductees". Enjoy this trip down memory lane!

Sting

Image courtesy of COMC.com

Sting first came on the scene in the UWF in the mid-1980s teaming with the future Ultimate Warrior as the Blade Runners. He debuted in the NWA with Jim Crockett Promotions during the UWF vs. NWA invasion angle during 1987 and found himself in the main event of the first ever Clash of the Champions broadcast in March 1988 against Ric Flair. The match has since become legendary and during the course of the 45-minute match, Flair turned Sting into a certifiable main event star. Flair and Sting would have a legendary rivalry over the years and Sting would capture his first World Championship from Flair at the 1990 Great American Bash in Baltimore.

Throughout the 1990s, Sting would remain in WCW as other stars jumped back and forth between WCW and the WWF. However, in 1996, with the invasion of the nWo into WCW, his image changed drastically, going from the blond surfer character that everyone knew and loved into a dark, brooding character with face paint that resembled the movie The Crow. At Starrcade 1997, he challenge Hollywood Hogan for the WCW Title, a match that was marred with controversy afterwards.

In the latter part of the decade, Sting joined the nWo Wolfpack faction and feuded with Bret Hart and in 1999, he was involved in forgettable feuds against Rick Steiner, Sid Vicious, and Hulk Hogan. Come the end of WCW in 2001, Sting returned to face Ric Flair for the last match in the company's history. After the end of WCW, many of the stars eventually made their way to WWE, but not Sting.

After the fall of WCW, Sting would make sporadic appearances in multiple promotions such as the ill-fated WWA and NWA-TNA. He would eventually start working for TNA on a regular basis in 2006 feuding with their top talent such as Kurt Angle, Abyss, and Samoa Joe and stayed with them until 2013, including a match against Hulk Hogan at Bound for Glory in 2011 and a match against Ric Flair on an episode of Impact Wrestling.

At Survivor Series 2014, towards the end of the Team Cena vs. Team Authority main event, Sting finally debuted in WWE, costing Team Authority the match and setting up a match with Triple H for WrestleMania 31, which he ultimately lost. Later that summer, Sting returned and challenged Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. That match would turn out to be the last match in Sting's lost career as he suffered a career-threatening neck injury during the match that has unofficially ended his career.

The Fabulous Freebirds 

(Michael Hayes, Jimmy Garvin, Buddy Roberts, Terry Gordy)

Image courtesy of COMC.com

The Freebirds (consisting of Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts) had a legendary feud with the Von Erichs during the heyday of World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) in Dallas. It all started Christmas night 1982 when Michael Hayes was the special referee in the Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich steel cage match at Reunion Arena. As Von Erich was about to leave the cage, special outside enforcer Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy slammed the door into his face costing Von Erich the NWA Championship. That would set off a nearly two-year long feud involving many wrestlers such as Jimmy Garvin and Iceman King Parsons among others.

In 1984, The Freebirds migrated north to the WWF for a brief stay, about a month. However, they did make it into the opening bit of the first Highlander movie during that brief stay. The Freebirds then returned to WCCW rekindling their feud with the Von Erichs that would last until Michael Hayes and Kerry Von Erich called a truce. During this time, The Freebirds also made some sporadic appearances in the AWA, most notably at Superclash '85 and WrestleRock '86.

The Freebirds would resurface in WCW in the late 1980s, this time as a duo with Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin. The two would capture every major tag team title WCW had to offer at the time, including the World Six-Man Titles with a masked wrestler named Badstreet. Towards the end of 1992, The Freebirds would split for good as Hayes began to transition out of the ring by managing and providing color commentary on TV broadcasts. He would later jump to the WWF as Dok Hendrix. He remains there today as one of the top WWE road agents and producers.

Big Boss Man

Image courtesy of COMC.com

Debuting as Jim Cornette's bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers in the NWA in the mid-1980s, Ray Traylor began a huge career in pro wrestling. In 1988, he debuted in the WWF at the Big Boss Man, the character that he is forever known as. Later that year, he formed a heel tag team with Akeem known as the Twin Towers and ended up facing Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in the featured match on the second episode of The Main Event. In the summer of 1989, he challenged Hogan for the WWF Title, culminating in fantastic cage match on the May 1989 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event.

After turning on Akeem and being accepted by the fans, Boss Man began siding with Hogan and teamed with him as part of the Hulkamaniacs team at the 1990 Survivor Series. As the calendar turned to 1991, he began feuding with the members of the Heenan family such and challenged Mr. Perfect for the Intercontinental Title at WrestleMania 7. His most memorable match however came at SummerSlam 1991 as he competed against the Mountie in a Loser Goes to Jail match in which the loser, honest to God, spent a night in jail. Mountie lost which led into a number of ridiculous skits with the Mountie in the city lockup.

Boss Man left the WWF in 1993, wrestled some in Japan, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and independent promotions here and there until he resurfaced in WCW towards the latter part of the year as The Boss. He never really found his footing in WCW as there was a long list of character changes. First as The Boss, then the Guardian Angel, then back to Big Bubba as part of Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom.

Late in 1998, Boss Man would resurface in the WWF with a new look and new attitude as part of the Corporation and won the tag team titles with Ken Shamrock. During this run, he also became a multi-time hardcore champion and had an infamous match with Al Snow called a Kennel From Hell match, the concept of which is baffling to explain. In 1999, he had another infamous angle with Big Show over Big Show's dead father and challenged him for the WWF Title.

Boss Man left the WWF in 2002 and sadly passed away in September of 2004 at the age of 42.

The Godfather

Image courtesy of COMC.com

Charles Wright, the man most famously known as the Godfather, began his career in 1989 in USWA, one of the last remaining territories, as The Soultaker and soon after beat Jerry Lawler to win the USWA Unified Heavyweight Title. Late in 1991, after a brief run in the GWF in Texas, he made is debut in the WWF as Sir Charles but was given a makeover and turned into Papa Shango, a voodoo warrior. While Papa Shango's run was only for about a year, he did make an impression as his only major feud was with Ultimate Warrior, which included a bizarre scene where Warrior puked on television. After Papa Shango vanished from the WWF full-time in 1993, he popped up again in the USWA, independent shows around the New York area, and the occasional appearance on WWF television.

In early 1995, Papa Shango was history and Kama, the supreme fighting machine, debuted as part of Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation. He was involved as a cornerman during the Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lawrence Taylor match at WrestleMania 11 and his highest profile match during this time was against the Undertaker at SummerSlam 1995. Kama would disappear for about a year and a half before returning as Kama Mustafa and a member of the Nation of Domination.

While he was with the Nation, he began calling himself the "Godfather" of the Nation and the name stuck. Eventually, he adopted the fun-loving, pimp character we've all come to know and love. In 1999, Godfather won the Intercontinental Title and was scheduled to defend it against Owen Hart at the Over the Edge pay-per-view in May of 1999 but just before the match, Owen Hart was tragically killed during a stunt gone wrong.

In 2000, The Godfather dropped the pimp persona and joined up with heel censorship group Right to Censor and started teaming with Bull Buchanan. The duo won the WWF Tag Team titles from The Hardy Boyz. As the calendar flipped to 2001, Right to Censor starting losing their steam and all members were eventually released as they were all lost in the shuffle following the purchase of WCW in March 2001.

Today, Godfather still makes sporadic appearances in WWE while also working independent shows.

Jacqueline

Image courtesy of COMC.com

Jacqueline got started in USWA right at the tail end of the territory days as Miss Texas and wrestled there for four years winning the USWA Women's Title an astounding 14 times. She showed up in WCW during 1997 accompanying Kevin Sullivan to the ring on certain occasions and wrestled Disco Inferno at the Halloween Havoc 1997 pay-per-view. In 1998, she debuted in the WWF feuding with Sable, which led to the WWF re-instituting the defunct Women's Title. Jacqueline defeated Sable on an episode of Raw to become the first Women's Champion in three years.

After the feud with Sable, Jacqueline moved into a stable with Terri Runnels called P.M.S (Pretty Mean Sisters) and managed Shawn Stasiak, known as Meat. During the 2000s, Jacqueline would readily be in contention for the Women's Championship and was a coach on the first season of Tough Enough. In 2004, she became the first woman to win the Cruiserweight title, beating Chavo Guerrero Jr in an open challenge. A few months later, she was released from WWE.

After WWE, Jacqueline toured the indies and made a few appearances for TNA, including a surprise appearance on the first 3-hour TNA pay-per-view in November 2004. Three years later, Jacqueline started wrestling for TNA on a regular basis at the side of James Storm and eventually managing the team of Beer Money, which consisted of Storm and Bobby Roode, which lasted until she left TNA in 2013.

Stan Hansen

Image courtesy of COMC.com

Stan Hansen is probably the most successful American wrestler ever in Japan, however he debuted in the WWWF in the mid 1970s and began an immediate feud with Bruno Sammartino, including a match where he broke Sammartino's neck. After Sammartino returned, he again challenged for the WWWF Title but came up short. Hansen returned in 1980, this time going after champion Bob Backlund but after finding no success, he left the promotion and went to work in Japan.

It was in Japan that Hansen became a star, but he still wrestled the US on occasion, most notably for the AWA in the mid-80s where he beat Rick Martel to win the AWA World Title and WCW in the early 90s where he feuded with Lex Luger over the United States Title. However, most of his time was spent in Japan for both New Japan and All Japan.

He teamed with Bruiser Brody, became the first foreigner to beat both Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba, had violent and hard-hitting matches with Vader, Hulk Hogan, Dr. Death Steve Williams, Mitsuharu Misawa, and Kenta Kobashi during his long career overseas. He retired from the ring in January 2001 and was named the commissioner of the Pacific Wrestling Federation, a position which he held until 2007, when he resigned.

WrestleMania Week: 1998 Topps WCW/nWo Cards

It's WrestleMania week on the blog and since it's the biggest pro wrestling show of the year, each day the whole week leading up to WrestleMania on April 3rd will have some sort of pro wrestling tie-in. Today, we'll kick off WrestleMania week with a look at some 1998 Topps WCW/nWo cards!

In 1998, WCW was at its peak with mega stars like Goldberg, Sting, Hollywood Hogan, Ric Flair, and Kevin Nash along with a great roster filled with other people like Bret Hart, Lex Luger, Diamond Dallas Page, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Ultimo Dragon, and Chris Jericho. Topps put out a set in 1998 with 72 cards featuring some of the biggest names in the promotion and lots of the people on the undercard.

I've got all but one of the cards in the set, the only one I'm missing is card #41, Jay Leno. So to kick off WrestleMania week, I wanted to show all the cards in the set I have and comment as I go.

Most of the top names on this first part. Of these, Giant is the only one who is still currently active. You can also see three different designs. These cards had to have come out towards the end of 1998 as there were two different nWo factions depicted.

Getting into some of the second-tier guys now, along with fading stars like Roddy Piper.

More lower card guys. Hey, what's the British Bulldog doing in there? He was only around for about a month or two and still managed to get a card in the set? Rick Rude would make history during the Monday Night Wars appearing on both Raw and Nitro at the same time on the same night.

Mostly cruiserweights in this batch. If you look on the back of the Eddy Guerrero card, his last name has four Rs in it, not three. Nice to see Jimmy Hart get a card.

One of my all time favorites, Meng (or Haku for you WWF people) is on top right. If you've never seen any of his matches, the dude meant business in the ring and just beat the crap out of everyone. The announce team also got a card. I always felt that Tony Schiavone was a really underrated announcer. I think finally, with the advent of the WWE Network, people are going back and discovering old WCW stuff and finding out how good the guy really was.

There's a Ric Flair sighting! Unfortunately, it's stuck in the middle of the pack. Wait, Gene Okerlund gets his own card but the rest of the announce crew has to share one? And how did Jim Neidhart get a card? He was around less that the Bulldog!

The last few base cards and moving on to the Nitro Girl inserts. The Nitro Girls were basically cheerleaders that would come out and dance during broadcasts of Monday Nitro and during pay-per-view events during this time to help energize the crowd.

More inserts. I really like the idea of having inserts showing the current champions when the cards came out. The Goldberg and DDP cards on the bottom are actually stickers.

Finally, the last batch of stickers.

Overall, this is a pretty fun little set and provides a nice glimpse back in time to when there was a viable alternate to WWE. Only a few short years later, the assets of WCW would be sold to WWE for less that $3 million. I highly recommend reading the book "The Death of WCW" for the complete story of how they reached tremendous heights in the mid-90s, only to have in crash down in the span of a year and a half.

Come back tomorrow for more WrestleMania week goodies! This is just the tip of the iceberg of the fun stuff I've got lined up!