FIRST LOOK: 2012 Topps Heritage WWE
By Chris Olds | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor
After a four-year rest, the Topps Heritage WWE line is back for another run at the world championship.
And while past years used past baseball designs as the form for the newest retro-styled WWE cards, this year’s edition will do something that hadn’t been done in the four previous standalone releases.
It will utilize the heritage of Topps‘ first wrestling release, the 1985 WWF set, which featured the likes of Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka on the cusp of wrestling’s emergence onto the national psyche. This time, some of those stars return — along with the oldschool design.
Set to arrive in late-November, 2012 Topps Heritage WWE will include a 110-card base set in the style of the original release, a 55-card Ringside Action set also styled after subsets in the original and several insert sets including Relics and autographs whose odds are still yet-to-be-determined but there will be a total of two in every 24-pack hobby box.
It will include a 20-card The Superstars Speak set, a 10-card Fabled Tag Teams set, 10 Family History cards, a 10-card Andre The Giant Tribute set, 10 portrait cards created by Jerry “The King” Lawler, a 30-card Allen & Ginter insert set and an 18-card sticker set in the style of the 1985 stickers.
For the hit-chasers, there will be 1/1 sketch cards drawn by Lawler — at least 10 planned so far — along with event-used clothing Relics and WrestleMania XXVII mat Relics featuring canvas used during the showcase event. While the mat Relics will showcase many top names, the individual Relics will include Alberto Del Rio, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, The Miz, Randy Orton, Sheamus, Batista and Shawn Michaels to name a few.
There will be at least eight signers, according to the preliminary checklist. They include a few first-time signers, too. It includes Vader, Paul Bearer, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, Doink The Clown, Papa Shango, The Godfather, Kama Mustafa (the last three all the same athlete, ironically) and Michael “P.S.” Hayes of Fabulous Freebirds fame.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
NOT IMPRESSED WITH THE AUTOGRAPH CHECKLIST SO FAR
Very cool indeed! I can’t wait until these come out!
Gotta get that Michael PS Haynes auto.. Iused to love The Fabolous Freebirds…
It’s funny that Godfather, Papa Shango, and Kama are all the same guy.
Ray: I didn’t look but I am pretty sure all three are first-time signers, too!
These take me back. I will definitely be buying these after only getting cards of the old school guys I was a fan of back in the day. I bought these cards in 1985 as a kid and I’ve been waiting for them to use this design rather than use the old baseball card designs.
Funny thing about Doink though. He was played by 4 different wrestlers: Matt Bourne, Steve Keirn, Ray Apollo, and Steve Lombardi. Which autograph we getting? Probably Lombardi’s.
not impressed with this.
topps set the bar in 2010 with that years topps release and the platinum release. every since then they have constantly dropped the ball with the wwe releases.
Godfather had an auto in the old 1999 smackdown release. One of my favorites in the pc.
Is there any word on about what price point these boxes will be?
Why do the packages have Andre Giant on them? The whole point is modern wrestlers on old school designs, so it should have CM Punk for example.
A good number of wrestlers on the cards are WWE Legends — not new guys. Also, there’s an Andre tribute set in the product. Overall, it looks like WWE/Topps is aiming to brand wrestling history a little more here.