2012 Leaf Originals Wrestling

Love wrestlers from the past? Love collecting autographs? This new collection put out by Leaf is just for you. A hobby box is a little pricey (seen it for around $70-$80), but the 5 cards in the box are guaranteed autographs. The sketches are a little caricature like, but they are autographed.

Instead of a box, we opted to go after some pieces on eBay. Bought the Iron Sheik (who doesn't love Sheikie Baby?) and made an offer on a 12 card lot which was accepted. For the lot, were after Heenan, and the Steiner Brothers. Santana and Shamrock were nice gets as well. We are really enjoying these cards checking out all of our favorites from the past. So many cool wrestlers are included in this collection. We may still pick up a box and try our luck. These would make great gifts.

For more info, check out a cool site we found, WrestlingTradingCards.com. Leaf 2012 Wrestling Originals info. Check out Amazon for some buying options.

Kenny Omega vs 9 Year Old Haruka

In Japan, they like some odd entertainment. This however is great. Kenny Omega has talked about working with 9 year old Haruka, how they trained for the match and how impressed he was with Haruka. Awesome video and Haruka looks like a future star. Huge props to Omega who shows just how talented he is to pull off a match with a 9 year old girl.

Smackdown - Hershey, PA Encounter

We would like to share a story with an encounter we had after a Smackdown show and I will be telling it as the driver (a little foreshadowing). The show was in Hershey, PA on June 21, 2011. It was a good show and had nice seats. The Hershey Arena is a small, intimate setting which made the experience even better. After the show is where we ended up with an encounter.

Like most arenas, traffic after shows turns out to be bumper to bumper trying to exit the parking lot. Our car was in the far left lane, already merged over with stop and go cars ahead. As I looked over to my left, I noticed an SUV coming up side by side with us, trying to get ahead of me. Normal reaction would be a little anger, however, in the passenger seat was Wade Barrett staring back at me. So with a laugh and a nod, I decided to let them ahead of me.

Now, right there makes for a nice little story, but with some quick thinking, we turned this into a great a memory. So with Wade Barrett in front us, he was stuck in the same traffic we were. I wanted an autograph, thought it be deserved for my nice driving gesture. I had a pen and had my ticket stub. I threw the car in park, jumped out and went up to Wade's window. He sort of just looked over and with his window up I mouthed, "can I please get an autograph? I did let you in back there..." and gave a smile.

Without saying a word, Wade rolled down the window and took my ticket to sign. As he was signing, I look to the back seat and there was Daniel Bryan, sort of laying back there looking back at me. When Wade handed back my ticket, I went to Daniel with my ticket and pen extended to him with a, "please?" Daniel did the same as Wade, no words, rolled the window down and signed. Now as Daniel was signing, I look tot he driver who was none other than, Cody Rhodes. I run around the front of the car to Cody's window who already had his window down. Without a word or a look, Cody signed the back of my ticket for me. I thanked them all and jumped back in my car.

This whole time, traffic had not moved anywhere. Shortly after getting in my car and celebrating my meetings, we see a guy run up in between the cars to get a peek at who I was getting autograph from. I see Wade sort of decline the guy to step back, there was a break in the traffic and Cody drove off crossing all four lanes to the right and they were gone. I couldn't think of any better way to wait out traffic.

Barbershop Window: Wrestling Apparel

Photo courtesy of www.barbershopwindow.com

Photo courtesy of www.barbershopwindow.com

We have heard about Barbershop Window (we'll call them BShop for short) through various channels (most notable on the Art of Wrestling podcast and as seen on TMZ) and have wanted to place an order for a while. These guys do great tee shirt designs, great looking, clever, funny and stylish. Well last month, BShop ran an anniversary sale where if you purchased one tee, you would receive a free BShop logo tee. We can't resist a good sale.

BShop has a nice selection of tees with great designs. From current wrestlers, featured Indies and references from the past, BShop covers a wide range of designs. We were tempted with a Mr. Perfect shirt, a Miami Dolphins inspired BShop shirt (got to check it out here), & Rick Rude shirt. However, we went with a Shirt featuring an Indiana Jones like character press slamming another wrestler with the phrase Indy Wrestling scrolled across the top.

The packages came, perfect condition, the right sizes, and correct designs. The order took about 3-4 weeks. Now this seems long but the site explicitly states their turn around time, so it was not a surprise to us. The length of time sort of adds to their small business, semi-underground club feel. Has the are of something that is not mass produced off an assembly line. One think we would like to see is the ability to choose a shirt type. We love our tees just as BShop, so we know of the wide range of physical shirts out there.

Support these guys so they can keep doing great work. We love the shirts we got and hope to order more in the future. Visit their site, www.barbershopwindow.com.

WrestleMania 29: Here We Come!

We...are...going...to WrestleMania! Our calendars are marked for the weekend of April 5, 2013. Individual tickets have not gone on sale yet, so we went with a travel package. The weekend is going to packed with wrestling related activities. There are different level of travel packages. Check them out at WWE.com.

We opted for the Silver, three night hotel stay (sorry Raw, we need to get home). If we were loaded, would love to have a tour of WWE Headquarters. But very happy with our package which includes two sessions to Axxess, Hall of Fame Ceremony tickets and 100 level seating for WrestleMania. For the hotel, it will be 1 of 4 hotels (which we find out later which hotels those will be) and public transportation to the events.

Travel packages are only available through October 31, 2012, so get on it.

Topps WWE 2012 - Part 2

Alright, so we couldn't resist, wanted to search out another autograph. We saw two options on eBay. One auction guaranteed an SP Auto in one pack and a Relic/Diva Kiss in the other. By the way, from our experience, whenever a hot pack gives options with what you can get, it is most likely you will get the low end of what is advertised. the second auction guaranteed a HOF Auto in one pack and a Relic/Diva Kiss in the other. HOF was tempting but went to bid on the SP. The SP list has multiple Mick Foley changes, Triple H and Booker T so took a chance. As you can see we came up with Hunico. I think we may be done with 2012 and be happy with out Miz printing plate because we have not done that great. R-Truth relic is nice but nothing special.

Check out Amazon for buying options.

Topps WWE 2012

Yes, we like collecting wrestling stuff and yes we still like cards. So when WWE 2012 by Topps came out we had to try our luck and buy some product. Hobby boxes were boasting two guaranteed hits, 1 Shirt Relic and Wrestlemania Mat Relic or Autograph so we were hoping for some nice hits.

What We Bought?

• 2 Hobby Boxes pre-ordered from Dave and Adam's Card World
• 3 Jumbo Hot packs from eBay
• 1 Jumbo Hot pack, case hit guaranteed

How Did We Do?

• Between the two hobby boxes we got two base sets complete. This should be a given with a hobby box but is not always the case.
• Hobby box one yielded the expected Shirt Relic hit (Big Show) and Wrestlemania Mat Relic (Chris Jericho).
• Hobby box one also had an extra hit, 1/1 Printing Plate (The Miz)!
• Hobby box two yielded a Shirt Relic (Mark Henry) and an Autograph...of Alicia Fox. Autograph is cool, but was hoping for a bigger name (sorry Divas).
• So after the two hobby boxes, we were still jonesin for more hits and took to eBay. Found a user selling three Jumbo hot packs and won all three auctions
• Jumbo hot pack one gave us a Shirt Relic of...the Big Show, doh! Yes, same card we already had.
• Jumbo hot pack contained a Shirt Relic of Albert Del Rio. Not bad, we sort of like him.
• Jumbo hot pack three produced another Chris Jericho Wrestlemania Mat relic, what!? But wait, this one is different. It is a parallel with a black boarder. No complaints here.
• Still not satisfied, back to eBay we went. This time we bought a Jumbo pack with a guaranteed case hit. Opening it up, we were hoping for a Triple H auto or a Diva Kiss. Got neither, ended up with a black boarder Sheamus parallel. At least it was a bigger name and not a Curt Hawkins. We actually like Curt but won't bring in the money a Sheamus would.

Overall we are pretty happy but were hoping for a bigger auto card. Who knows, we may take a dive back into the well if we get the itch again.

Check out Amazon for buying options.