Wonderful!

Though Matt Hardy made "Wonderful" the exclamation it is these days, Mr. Wonderful was the bad guy going against Hulk Hogan in the 80s. A bad guy you liked to hate.



As far as WWE time goes, DDP deserved better. The Undertaker stalker thing just never felt right, and then he got lost in the shuffle when he could have been a big time player. He's done alright in retirement with the DDPYoga stuff - couldn't happen to a nicer guy.



Wow - Noble is a legend? I never minded the guy, but that is high praise. Then, NXT Prospect insert for Elias, before he dropped the last name. Hopefully he can get into a decent Wrestlemania appearance this year as it is deserved.



We also have a bronze insert of the late great Eddie Guerrero, and another women feud highlighted in the WWE rivalry insert set.

5 packs, 35 cards, 106 points.

Reigning down

I am not a Roman Reigns hater. I did get sick of him while WWE was trying to push him to the moon with main event after main event at Wrestlemania, but the guy himself puts effort in. He has the pedigree and look, I just think if they pushed him as the big tough guy who didn't speak and just took care of business (a revved up version of what he was in the shield), he would have been over with everyone more easily.

Just my two cents. He may not be a good guy or a bad guy, but to many, he is "The guy", and all the props to the man given his recent time off with Leukemia.

Speaking of "THE" guy...

I do not watch anything overseas, just too much to watch with WWE as it is, and I can't balance any more than the odd check in of TNA, so I didn't know much about Shinsuke (shin-skay is how it is said, if you care to know). First match I saw was his "5 star classic", or whatever you want to call, his match against Sami Zayn in NXT. It is the newest match that I go back and watch now and then, it was that good.

Nice! Another NXT rivalries card, and some women this time. A shame for Paige with the career ending injury so soon in her career.

Special card appearances by D'Von Dudley, Kevin Owens, and Gallows. Not sure Greg Hamilton needs a card, but if it means there are cards of Renee Young out there because they include announcers, I am sold!

4 packs, 28 cards, 85 points.

It's been a while since I pulled something from the DantheMan box from December - so today, 2016 WWE Topps Heritage. This is another set, I have absolutely no cards from, so a great start to my set here again. Enough that I will have to put this on my "to be completed" list sooner than later. Oh, and enjoy the classic 1986 Topps design...or don't, I know it is an acquired taste.











Just like that - 79% done, and that ugly design continues to grow on me. Also - who thought X-Pac would be a legend....I mean, he created the saying "heat like Z-Pac meaning the "go away and get off our TV" kind...

Grab some cake

So the quick baseball thoughts today with the Hall of Fame announcement of inductees yesterday. All deserving, but of course the one hitting closest to home is Halladay getting in during his first year up. Well deserved, though may have been sped up by his unfortunate death. Regardless, glad to see him getting the honour, just a shame he isn't here to enjoy it.

All others in deserves it too - Mussina, Edgar who was the definition of a DH, and Rivera who becomes a trivia answer being the first unanimous choice. A very strong class.



I really enjoy the legend cards in the base set, most of them are from when I watched as a kid and bring back great memories. JYD was a fan favourite, though never quite had a sustained run as a main event guy. With the Grab Them Cakes sone and dance he did with the kids, the fun he was having was easily evident.



A better bad guy than I would have thought, but he did it really well and was hated back in the early 90s.



NXT prospect insert - Blake never really did much for me...



Here we have the first Rock tribute, this one showing him at Wrestlemania. I get it, but interesting how they did the write up on the back without mentioning the interactions of a certain woman who was in MMA and joined WWE a couple years later.



Glad Dean got rid of that long hair...



The ring announcer of my childhood - Lillian Garcia is nice, but it will always be the Fink!

3 packs, 21 cards, 64 points.

Keeping with wrestling cards - a few more Listia shares for today as well.



I don't usually do stickers, but for a couple pennies, I picked this up. Interesting enough because it comes from a small vending machine set of 12 cards which I never knew about.



Like the 1998 NWO sticker, the 2002 Terri is from a period (like with my sports card collecting), that I have plenty of holes. It just seems that in general, there isn't as much out there from say 98 through 2004 or so.

I was also surprised that the two Usos are my first cards from the 2015 Topps base set. Will have to change that in the future.

The pack AJ Styles built

Another pack circa 2016 WWE Then Now Forever today, and first card out is...


AJ rocking that soccer mom haircut on his rookie card. A great way for WWE to showcase how they are the only game that matters by slapping the RC on this card....not like AJ has been around for a while, or has cards out in TNA sets or anything...we just disregard all that stuff.



What do you know, second out, a man AJ had a good feud with over the title, and the biggest face in wrestling, currently making his issue with the "part timer" The Rock a few years ago, more and more ironic by the day - John Cena. The man put everything into his wrestling career though, have to give him a hand for it.



Bob had a good wrestling career - but the times changing, I think for the period, Randy is a bigger deal during his career than Bob was during his. Still, a great wrestling family.



The long careers keep rolling with the Undertaker. One of my personal favorites, I hated him as a kid when he debuted, but as I smarted up in the mid 90s, appreciated him, and loved him since. Here we also see the first bronze parallel...meh...



Fulton's biggest run was as part of Sanity in NXT, but he suffered an injury and as Sanity made it big, he was replaced by Killian Dain, and that was that, he is now back on the independents.



Yesterday was a WWE Rivalries insert, today, the NXT version. I hope Sami Zayn can turn his career around - so much promise and awesome matches in NXT, but just hasn't been able to turn it on with the main roster.

2 packs, 14 cards, 42 points.

2016 WWE Then Now Forever Wrestling Blaster

Today we start another Dave and Adam's pick up...


There will be plenty of wrestling this year I think. So, I was thinking, because of my scoring...

Base card - 1 point (yes, all cards get a point)
Base card need - 2 points
Base variation card - 20 points
Base card Toronto card - 5 points
Base variation Toronto card - 50 points
Insert Card bonus - points based on odds - if 1 in 4 - worth 4 points, double if a Toronto card

There is a bit of a disadvantage to wrestling, and I am not sure how, or if I need to bother adjusting...it is my system after all. My leaning is towards leaving the scoring as is (so there is no "Toronto" bonus for anything), except I will bump the new base card score to 3 instead of 2 (and equally, no insert would score less than a three). I think this better reflects that, there are few new wrestling cards, I wouldn't be happy in getting whereas, there are definitely a bunch of hockey (Montreal cards for example) and baseball cards (Yankees for example) that I really don't care much about getting.

I think this should be a fair trade off - or at least reflects fair to me and my feel for collecting the different sports right now.

So, as suual, we skim off new packs from the box first...



This will give a good advantage to the second boc I picked up because, having a relic opened, given the odds on the next one, should mean a good chance to beat this box...but first, have to see how this box does...

Oh and, if this whole scoring thing adds nothing to you as a reader - just ignore my ramblings about trying to justify the purchases of boxes and good versus bad - just enjoy the showing of cardboard..I think that, we can all do! :)

Pack 1:


The standard Topps 2016 design on the base cards which is fine. I could have done without the foil name - the foil just doesn't work well to stand out, too dark. That said, we start of with one of the biggest men ever to wrestle with Yokozuna. A former champion and known for losing to Hogan on his return to WWE back at Wrestlemania 9 - Yokozuna had the belt for about 90 seconds.



I had to figure out this was an insert set for NXT Rookies, and Tye was card number...15? I get the numbering is alphabetical, but make an exception man!



Here is a perfect example of the foil problem. A WWE Rivalries insert, and the names are very hard to see. Thanksfully, we all know Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens.



I can't believe how long Rosa Mendes was around WWE - about a decade - for what little she really did on camera. No offense, I would take the job in a minute to be in WWE, but I don't think her career turned out the way she thought originally.



We finish with a couple more legends cards with the Funks and Sting. Even this card makes mention that Sting's WWE run fell short and that the WWE Universe didn't get to see much of the man called Sting. He could still rock a menacing look though.

1 pack, 7 cards, 21 points (both inserts are every other pack, so 3 point minimum since I needed them both).

A separate share today...401games was have 20% off singles not too long ago, so I placed an order for some Magic cards and just picked it up the other day. Generally, a bunch of new to me versions/editions of artifact cards from a handful of sets that were very underrepresented in my collection previously.



Not sure how I missed having so many 5th edition cards since I was still playing at the time. Might have been because I was playing and not collecting, and since many weren't useful, I didn't bother chasing them down back then.



We move to Classic or Sixth Edition and onto 7th. The significance of the "editions" is that these are the big set releases. Essentially what happens now is one base set a year with a few expansion sets, which are smaller, around it. These old editions were the base sets back in the day. Now you get core sets, but same thing.

Not that they are more expensive in some cases, but rare cards are harder to find and symbolized starting in sixth edition with the symbol mid-right of the card, being gold in colour. As it so happened, over 30 of the cards in this bunch happen to be rares. Didn't do it on purpose, but makes sense those would be more likely to be missing from the collection I have.




One of my favourites - Fodder Cannon - different picture in this set, but luckily, same flavour text.




Not all the cards have new pictures, such as Wooden Sphere, but many of them.



Solarion is an interesting card. Doesn't work in a colourless mana artifact deck, but for a multicoloured deck, could be an interesting add. Lots of mana to cast, but a doubling effect if not taken out quickly by opponents.



Love my big baddies like Colossus of Sardia.



A great bunch of cards for the artifacts collection. I should take a look at what is left realistically - maybe another 500? 1000? I dunno. There will be some I can't afford and won't want to afford, but probably still plenty of cheap ones I can find and add.