There’s been buzz about this release ever since it was first publicized. Say what you will about the TNA product on television, but this release contains autographs from some of the biggest names in the history of wrestling. Hulk Hogan was the driving force of the WWF for decades while Ric Flair was doing the same thing over in WCW. Now they’re facing off in the same federation and TRISTAR is striking while the iron is hot.
Those two cards aren’t the only ones available in this release though. The Jeff Hardy autographs in the set should prove to be popular as will RVD’s autographs. There’s a large autograph checklist though and the majority of the 55 autographs don’t have the amount of name recognition that the average WWE wrestler does. I know that I’d be tempted not to rip the card in half if I were to pull a Bubba the Love Sponge autograph. He’s not a wrestler and doesn’t belong in this set no matter how good of a friend he is to Terry Bollea.
I doubt that there will ever be a market for wrestler “rookie cards",” but if there were, this would be RVD’s TNA RC. TRISTAR did a great job with the quick turnaround of this set. Hogan, Flair, RVD, Hardy and Mr. Anderson haven’t been in TNA all that long, but they got them into this set and did a good job of it.
The cards look very nice and the photography is great especially when you consider that a lot of these images were taken from the big TNA Monday night special and the show where Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair made their debut with TNA. The time period between those shows and the release of this set wasn’t long at all. You’ve got to give TRISTAR plenty of kudos for that. They definitely struck while the iron was hot and it is paying off. The cards have improved by leaps and bounds since the first TNA set. I still don’t know of too many people who are a fan of the glitter, but it’s TRISTAR’s thing so I don’t mind them sticking with it.
Each blaster box contains 24 cards and that includes one autograph card. So, you are basically paying $20 or whatever the blasters sell for at retail for just the one autograph card. These are unnumbered retail versions of the autograph cards. That seems pretty pricey for what you get in a box.
TRISTAR continues to deliver fun autographs on their cards. The card of Mr. Anderson reads, “Mr. Anderson… Anderson!!” which is what the wrestler yells into an old school microphone lowered from the ceiling as part of his entrance.
On the downside of things, the stickers are once again on stickers. I can understand it for this set since there was a quick turnaround time, but there’s no way that there should be sticker autographs on future sets. All that TRISTAR has to do is send a representative or two down to Orlando on a Thursday night with cards to be signed and they’re all set. It’s really inexcusable. On-card autographs would really bring these sets to the next level.
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