2 Blasters of WWE Heritage Break

I tried yesterday to find a hobby box of WWE Heritage, but to no avail.  I still have to stop down at my other great LCS, Don's Sportcards, but I hit up Bosco's first thinking if anyone would carry a box or two of WWE Heritage Hobby it would be Bosco's, nope.  So I ended up stopping at Wally World and they had blasters and rack packs.  I opted for the 2 blasters mainly because you get a relic per box  and for the same price You would get the same amount of cards but aren't guaranteed anything in the rack packs, although you probably get one of every insert in a rack pack.  Not that I won't pick up a rack pack or a hobby box now if I can find one.  Anyway...I don't really follow professional wrestling much anymore. As a matter of fact I only recognized a handful of names of the current stars.  But back in the 80's growing up I was a huge WWF fan.  I would watch the shows even thought the stars fought nobodies and I would make sure that I had my Saturdays cleared when the Saturday Night Main Event would come on on NBC instead of Saturday Night Live.  So half of this set is for me.  Plus it's on old school cardboard.  No gum though. And of course this isn't the first Heritage WWE set that Topps has put out either, but I don't ever remember seeing the mid 2000's releases and those sets were based on classic Topps baseball designs not Topps classic wrestling cards.

Here's a box label for anyone who's not going to put there set in a binder.

First lets look at the base design.  It's based on the original 1985 release, there was also a 1987 WWF set, which is the one I remember collecting, so we might see a second WWE Heritage set next year if this one is a big hit.  There are 110 cards in the set. The first 55 are current stars and the last 55 are classic stars.

Here's the Rock in the current stars pile.

Really Fast 5? I think I could have picked a few other movies that were bigger blockbusters than that.

And here we have the Andre the Giant from the classic pile.  You'll notice that they couldn't use the original WWF logo since the WWF was sued by the World Wildlife Fund and they won so the WWF became the WWE.  Not really the same. I always thought the WWF had such a cool logo. And it just rolled off the tongue.

Grenoble, France huh?  Damn that would make a good trivia question.

This set has some parallels and lots of inserts, with relics and autographs.

I did get one parallel.  I'm not sure if it's retail exclusive but odds on the side of the box say they are 1:90, so a harder pull from retail.

I got a silver border Koko B. Ware card.  I remember that guy!

The backs are the same. There are also suppose to be gold and black numbered parallel cards and printing plates you can hit.


The first insert set is the Family History set.  I only got two of these so about one per blaster. I think the odds are actually like 1:6 like most of the inserts.

There is also a cool Fables Tag Teams insert.  Although looking through the checklist there are also some great Tag Teams missing.

Next up is the Ringside Action inserts set.  The largest of the insert sets at 55 total cards you get one per pack.  Here are four of my favorites.

Next up you have the Superstars speak.  I ended up with 4 of these and there are 20 cards in the set.

Next up we have Jerry "the King:" Lawler Portraits. I only pulled one of these.  There pretty neat, but not original.  There are original sketch cards in the product though.

Next up one of the inserts I will be collecting the Andre the Giant Tribute cards.  I only got 2.

And there are also stickers in the set. Another one of the inserts I will be trying to put together.

There are 18 stickers in the set and if that seems odd it's because the back of the  first 9 and the last 9  form puzzles.

The Red Bordered puzzle is Sgt Slaughter.

I'm not sure who makes up the yellow border puzzel just yet.

But my favorite insert set and the whole reason I wanted to pick some of this up is the Allen and Ginter mini inserts. Totally out of place in this set, but that's what I love about them. Plus they are just so cool.  I only ended up getting 2 from my two blasters and oddly enough they came from the same blaster.  At 1:6 odds you would expect to get at least one per blaster and I'm happy that I got my two. It's a big set with 30 cards and will probably be one I'm working on for a while.

I was also lucky enough to get one of each type of relic possible out of my two blasters.

I have no idea who Dolph Ziggler is, but I like the retro 80's card design and the big WrestleMania logo.  Really 27?  Man I can remember the original WrestleMania and Battle Royale.

I like how Topps tells me that I now OWN something.   Damn right I do.  At least for awhile.

And I also got a Randy Orton T-Shirt relic.  Also someone I know nothing about.  And I could have done a quick Wikipedia search and found something out for you, but I didn't.

Overall I really like this product.  I wish it were a bit cheaper more like the 80's releases when you could get it for a quarter a pack, but we ain't in the 80's no more. There are quite few classic stars missing, but I'm sure that's all contractual BS or something.  I love a few of the inserts. I love the classic card stock and mix of current and classic stars, even though I'm a classic guy.  And I really like the A&G inserts.  Out of two blasters I didn't have a single double card and almost put a full set together, I'm only missing 12!  You can see what I need to complete my set and insert sets on my Help me Complete a Set page.  It's right on top.  I promised Colbey I'd help out with his insert needs so he has first dibs.  The relics are up for trade for a few days and then I'm going to be putting them up on ebay to help the cause.  The Stickers, A&G and Andre Tribute cards I'm keeping.

Dammit Topps I thought I was done with you for the year.

I was just casually looking through some listings on the bay and came across some listings for the new Topps Heritage WWE set.  A vintage set of there 1985 WWF release, which I have a ton of somewhere.  I haven't paid attention to professional wrestling in more than a decade, but back in the mid-80's I was a huge fan.  I couldn't wait for Saturday Night's Main Event and the other weekly wrestling shows.  I haven't seen any of this yet around my neck of the woods, but dammit I'm probably going to have to pick some up.  I think I might be able to get away with just a blaster.  But the thing that got me most was that one of the inserts is an Allen and Ginter mini set. You know I have a weakness for mini's.  And look at this checklist, while I don't know a lot of the newer guys, there are some classic 80's wrestlers in there, no Honky Tonk Man or Hulk Hogan though.

2012 Topps Heritage WWE Allen & Ginter Checklist
1 Brock Lesnar
2 Christian
3 CM Punk
4 Daniel Bryan
5 John Cena
6 Kelly Kelly
7 Kofi Kingston
8 Layla
9 Randy Orton
10 Sheamus
11 Booker T
12 Diesel
13 Mankind
14 Stone Cold Steve Austin
15 Trish Stratus
16 "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes
17 Andre The Giant
18 Big Boss Man
19 Big John Studd
20 Cowboy Bob Orton
21 Doink The Clown
22 "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan
23 Kamala
24 Koko B. Ware
25 Papa Shango
26 Paul Bearer
27 Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat
28 Terry Funk
29 Vader
30 Yokozuna

I was also looking through the base checklist and there are quite a few names I would have included that I noticed were missing, but that's another rant.
I most definatly will be putting the Allen and Ginter set together.  I might even grab the base set too for fun.