Wednesday, July 28, 2010

2010 Tristar TNA The New Era

Wow, the pack ripping just continues here @ APTBNL! I'm back with another pack of wrestling cards - 2010 Tristar TNA The New Era. If you're not a wrestling aficionado TNA is a smaller professional wrestling circuit. The roster of athletes consists of former NWA, WCW and WWE personalities as well as new talent. TNA doesn't stand for what you think it does either - Total Nonstop Action. Yeah, it is rather cheesy if you think about it. TNA however got a huge bolster earlier this year when Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair joined the TNA family. This New Era trading card set tries to capitalize on each of these legends of the squared circle.



Other than a random pack of minor league baseball cards I've not had much exposure to Tristar product, but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened a pack of this earlier this year for a first impressions look on my blog, Cardboard Collections. I've got a fresh new pack so let's rip it open.

Photobucket

Photobucket
#8 Ric Flair

Come everybody, let's say it together. Whooooo! It's the Nature Boy. Stylin' and profilin'.

Granted Ric is a wrestling legend and he calls home my home town of Charlotte, NC - Ric is really starting to show his age. I've only seen a few episodes of TNA Impact with Flair so far and I can report he is still "the dirtiest player in the game". I like the character and it's good to see him still in touch with the wrestling business, but I wonder how much longer he can last.

Photobucket

Photobucket
#23 Sting

He hasn't been around as long as Flair has, but Sting is still a legend of sorts. Ever since the old WCW and NWO days he's dressed in black and hung around in the rafters of the buildings, attacking randomly with his black baseball bat. When he came to TNA I hoped he'd actually wrestle again (Scorpion Death Drop anyone?), but it's been more of the same.

Photobucket
#16 Mr. Anderson

Mr. Kennedy, I mean, Mr. Anderson joined TNA in March 2010. I'm guessing he had some sort of dispute with the WWE and had no where else to go so off to TNA he went. As you can tell from the photo he still has the same ring entrance where a microphone is lowered from the ceiling into the center of the ring and he does his own ring introduction.

Photobucket
#50 Rob Terry

Photobucket

Photobucket
#87 The Band: Off Key

It's the core of the old NWO from the WCW days. Syxx-Pac (or the 1-2-3 Kid as I remember him) , Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) & Kevin Nash (Diesel). Apparently Syxx-Pac and Scott Hall think Nash has sold out as he doesn't want to be associated with them anymore. I don't keep up w/ TNA so I can't say more other than all 3 of the guys look like they need to hang up their boots.

From what I know TNA is having a hard time competing with the WWE and I wouldn't be surprised of they go under at some point - or bought out as the WWE seems to do to their competition, but Tristar has produced a very nice trading card set. Sure at only 5 cards per pack and a MSRP of $1.99 it can be expensive to hand build the 90 card set, but I like the base design. There are parallels of some sort serially numbered to 1, 10 & 30 along with the popular OBAK inserts that are short printed and round off the base set (10 cards). Autograph cards are also randomly inserted and from what I've seen on eBay some of them are very nice. Overall a great wrestling set. Topps could take a few pointers here in my opinion.


1 comment:

SpastikMooss said...

Great pack rip here - I grew up watching the WWF back when Bret Hart and Yokozuna were the big thing, so seeing Scott Hall, Ric Flair, and the 1-2-3 Kid on cards this year is really crazy. Blast from the past.