The 2021 Topps WWE set helps to ring the final bell (pun intended) on the card company’s involvement with pro wrestling’s premier company.
Panini America, which won the bidding to license WWE cards and stickers, will debut in April with a Prizm product that will coincide with WrestleMania 38 the weekend of April 2-3 at AT&T Stadium in Texas.
The Topps WWE set dropped on Dec. 22, 2021, so this is the swan song. There are several blaster boxes at my local Target store, so I picked one up this week.
A blaster contains 10 packs, plus a bonus pack. Regular packs have seven cards per pack.
Panini America, which won the bidding to license WWE cards and stickers, will debut in April with a Prizm product that will coincide with WrestleMania 38 the weekend of April 2-3 at AT&T Stadium in Texas.
The Topps WWE set dropped on Dec. 22, 2021, so this is the swan song. There are several blaster boxes at my local Target store, so I picked one up this week.
A blaster contains 10 packs, plus a bonus pack. Regular packs have seven cards per pack.
Topps is promising one relic card per box, and my bonus pack had one of them. It was a Match Film Strips Manufactured card of The Undertaker vs. Kane. The match was held March 29, 1998, and was part of WrestleMania 14 in Boston. The Undertaker won the match but was punished after the match when Kane whacked him with a metal chair.
All of you Boston fans must have loved that set of matches. You get Pete Rose, who helped the Big Red Machine beat the Red Sox during the 1975 World Series. And then Charlie Hustle twists the knife further, telling the crowd at the Fleet Center that “My buddy Bucky Dent says hello.” And “I left tickets for Bill Buckner but he couldn’t bend over to pick them up.” Classic stuff, WWE writers at their best.
Back to the cards.
All of you Boston fans must have loved that set of matches. You get Pete Rose, who helped the Big Red Machine beat the Red Sox during the 1975 World Series. And then Charlie Hustle twists the knife further, telling the crowd at the Fleet Center that “My buddy Bucky Dent says hello.” And “I left tickets for Bill Buckner but he couldn’t bend over to pick them up.” Classic stuff, WWE writers at their best.
Back to the cards.
The base set is broken down in two distinct parts — 95 cards that chronicle top moments and matches, and 105 cards from the WWE Superstar roster. I like the way the wrestler’s name is featured in the Superstars lineup, bold and at the bottom of the card under a WWE logo.
I pulled 33 of those cards, and all of them had a horizontal design on the card front. The card backs have about eight or nine lines of type that describe the wrestler’s achievements and character lines.
I am not fond of the overuse of teal on the card backs, but that is simply personal preference.
I pulled 33 of those cards, and all of them had a horizontal design on the card front. The card backs have about eight or nine lines of type that describe the wrestler’s achievements and character lines.
I am not fond of the overuse of teal on the card backs, but that is simply personal preference.
For the Top Moments and Matches part of the base set, I pulled 30 cards. Eleven of these cards were highlights from SmackDown, while five were from Raw.
The design on the card front varies between vertical and horizontal, depending on the match.
The information box under the action on the front is too busy. That is to say, there are too many words. For example, one card, with a two-line description, reads “Randy Orton challenges Edge to a wrestling match.”
One line is sufficient — Randy Orton challenges Edge. Honestly, 99% of the time the challenge would have been for a wrestling match, so why include that?
There were several inserts in the 2021 Topps WWE set.
One was an RKO Outta Nowhere card of a May 5, 2008, match that featured Triple H and Mr. Kennedy against the Superstars of ECW.
The design on the card front varies between vertical and horizontal, depending on the match.
The information box under the action on the front is too busy. That is to say, there are too many words. For example, one card, with a two-line description, reads “Randy Orton challenges Edge to a wrestling match.”
One line is sufficient — Randy Orton challenges Edge. Honestly, 99% of the time the challenge would have been for a wrestling match, so why include that?
There were several inserts in the 2021 Topps WWE set.
One was an RKO Outta Nowhere card of a May 5, 2008, match that featured Triple H and Mr. Kennedy against the Superstars of ECW.
Another was a Coolest Mixed Tag Teams card of John Cena and Trish Stratus. The card, among 11 in the subset, was from a match in Toronto, marking Stratus’ return to the ring for the first time in two years.
The WWE Hall of Fame Tribute set, featuring 18 cards, concentrates on the New World Order, or nWo. The card I pulled was one of The Outsiders defeating the Harlem Heat in a 1996 Halloween Havoc match. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were The Outsiders, and the card features Hall as Razor Ramon; Nash was known as Diesel. The Outsiders beat Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray), marking the first time The Outsiders would win the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
Memorable Entrances is a nine-card insert set. The card I pulled was from WrestleMania 9 in 1993, when Bobby “The Brain” Heenan tried to make an entrance to his ringside seat to announce the matches while riding on the back of a camel. He wound up being seated backward on the animal. It was billed as the World’s Largest Toga Party, and the Brain was decked out accordingly.
The WWE Hall of Fame Tribute set, featuring 18 cards, concentrates on the New World Order, or nWo. The card I pulled was one of The Outsiders defeating the Harlem Heat in a 1996 Halloween Havoc match. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were The Outsiders, and the card features Hall as Razor Ramon; Nash was known as Diesel. The Outsiders beat Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray), marking the first time The Outsiders would win the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
Memorable Entrances is a nine-card insert set. The card I pulled was from WrestleMania 9 in 1993, when Bobby “The Brain” Heenan tried to make an entrance to his ringside seat to announce the matches while riding on the back of a camel. He wound up being seated backward on the animal. It was billed as the World’s Largest Toga Party, and the Brain was decked out accordingly.
Not a bad set. WWE decided to move on to Panini, which probably offered a more lucrative deal. And as longtime WWE broadcaster Jim Ross wrote in his latest book, Under the Black Hat: My Life in the WWE and Beyond, WWE chairman Vince McMahon’s main focus has always been “cash and creative.”
This was not a bad swan song for Topps.
This was not a bad swan song for Topps.
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