Royal Rumble Box Break: 2012 Topps WWE

To celebrate the 2013 Royal Rumble, I decided to pick up some WWE cards, specifically, a box of 2012 Topps. Like years past, the set mirrors that of the baseball set from its respective year, which I really like. The last 2 years, they did that with baseball, wrestling, and football, but this year, for some reason, they decided to do something different with football.

Anyway, apart from all that, the other thing I like about picking up a hobby box, is that with it being just a 90-card set,  one hobby box will allow you to complete it. With few wrestling collectors out there, it can be tough to make trades for any set fillers, so it's nice not to have to do that.

Since there are no stats, the backs of the cards include a short paragraph on the wrestlers. In years past, I think, these were written up by Michael Cole. This year, though, they got Mick Foley, which gave it a different perspective.

Topps also did SP variations of card #7, Mick Foley. As can be expected, the variations for this card are of the "three faces of Foley," Cactus Jack, Mankind, and Dude Love. My box contained the Dude Love SP.

 
As with any Topps product, there are parallels, but I like how they kind of toned it down this year. They aren't serial numbered, but blue parallels are inserted 4 per box and gold foil parallels are one per box. My blues were of Daniel Bryan, Natalya, Epico, and Matt Stryker, and my gold was of Alicia Fox.

For the inserts, I got six Hall of Fame cards, which obviously focus on wrestlers inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

In addition to having cards in the base set, the WWE divas also get their own insert set.

The First Class Champions cards are pretty cool looking, but my only complaint is that they use a foil version of the modern "spinner" belt, even if they didn't win that version of the WWE title. It would have been nice to have Brock Lesnar with the "undisputed" title and Mankind and Yokozuna with the "winged eagle." Also, Mankind won the title when he had his dress shirt and tie attire, never when he had the original all-brown, but maybe I'm just nitpicking here.

Another cool insert set is the World Class Events, which is simply a card of one of the better WWE pay-per-view posters from 2011 and 2012.

Lastly, in the realm of inserts, is Top Class Matches, which focuses on current WWE Champion CM Punk's greatest WWE matches.

My first hit from the box was a shirt relic of Michael McGillicutty, also known as Joe Hennig, son of "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig. The relic is a plain black piece of cotton, which most likely comes from his time as a part of The Nexus.

The second hit in the box will either be an autograph or a mat relic from Wrestlemania XXVIII. Of course, I was hoping for the auto, but expecting the mat relic. Luckily for me, I pulled an auto, and it happened to be a pretty good one: Booker T. He is known as the "five time, five time, five time, five time, five time WCW Champion, is the current GM of Smackdown, and is an eventual WWE Hall of famer. Not a bad pull at all.

If anyone is a wrestling fan, I would definitely give this product a look. You get a full set, plus two hits at a pretty affordable price. This really is one of the better value purchases in cards of any sport, so give it a shot.