Card Foundation Ep. 283 - 2026 Fanatics Fest Preview!

We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the gametime guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy and more with GameTime. Download the GameTime app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase term supply. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Now get the guards the drugs from my generation I'll take the flow the sage across the nation idiots are sex the cops to face the fraud they're messing with me Come on, come on, come on let's get it out Move to the music Then I can move that Move it to the music Move to my music. Well, we are officially live. Welcome to the Card foundation podcast. This is episode 283. I'm your host, Annie Tancredi here with Johnny Tan, our other host and this I mentioned, it's episode 283 and we're on Spotify and Apple. Anywhere you download your favorite podcast, leave a five star review. Do we get anything on Apple? Probably not, but let's check anyway. No, Nothing. Still at 4.9. Yep. And we're still at 86 total reviews on Spotify. So help your boys out. Let's get this number up. 2 seconds. Leave a 5 star review. Don't even have to leave a comment on Spotify. Just click five stars and you're moving on. So nothing better than that. So easy. And end us up on Apple as well. We're on the socials on Instagram and X and Tik Tok at Carination Pod on those platforms and Patreon. Patreon.com Caration Pod Sign up today. Get access to our Facebook group the live edition of the show which is streaming right now via YouTube and Pro Wrestling te.com carbonation yeah, let's. Let's get right into it. No wrestling news to really talk about this week. Although Raw was pretty good the other night. You had the Whole Seth Rollins and, and Roman Reigns, I guess, face off or you know, promo. That's kind of been Roman Reigns's MO now is like leading up to the big match. He kind of has his, his style of promo now that he's been doing. So him and Seth are kind of building up for that big match. He had a bunch of stuff going on with Oba and, and Lesnar getting ready for that match. Also, Chad Gable won the Intercontinental title gauntlet to face Penta at SummerSlam. He is from Minnesota, so we all know how much Danny loves when the hometown tail as old as time, the hometown guy gets his title shot. We all know what's gonna happen there. I don't, I don't believe Gable's ever won a. A belt. So. He has. Well, not individually, no. I believe he has. I don't think so. Are you sure about that? I feel like he was like US Champion. You could fact check me, but I don't think he did. His individual title, if you want to count it is the Speed Championship. Yeah. So yeah, two time RAW Tag Team Champion, WWE, SmackDown Tag Team Champion and NXT. He has the trifecta of tag titles. Kenny F and Powers, welcome in. Not that I know of that we're related to those guys. Nope, nope. We're just the Card foundation podcast brother. That's it. So, yeah, so that's kind of everything on the WWE front as of right now, everything's the lead up to SummerSlam. So let's get into some card news because there's a whole lot to talk about this week. And coming out this week, obviously it's Fanatics Fest week. That's what we're going to be talking about in our Card Corner segment this week. All the biggest hobby news will be coming out this week. There, you know, any announcements for, for new product or any announcements for the hobby, I feel like, or, you know, this is a big week for the hobby, obviously fanatics owning tops and you know, kind of being in the forefront, but it's really an event for sports, for the, for the hobby, for memorabilia, for merchandise. I mean it's, it's kind of grown into this, I don't know, this like national on steroids type event. And we're gonna be there, we're gonna be there pretty much all weekend long and all week. So we're gonna talk about our plans and you know, what's going on for wrestling fans, for the WWE fans, what else is going on and then what we're going to be doing with all that. So That'll be coming in card corner. And yeah, some, just a couple more pieces of news before we get there. It's going to be not the longest episode this week, kind of more condensed, but just to the point and, and full of information. So the next bit of news was from psa. So PSA didn't made an update on their backlog and they are currently at 11 million cards to go. Well, which is really 6 million to go before they open up because I believe they want to get down to five. That was the initial goal when they had shut down right in July. So now the shutdown, what was that? The shutdown was in June or July. June. Time's playing now. So you know, some of the news that has come out of Fanatics Fest is that PSA will be there. They will have a booth this year. They did not last year, but they did the first year. So they took a year off last year. This year they're back with exclusives and they announced they will be taking submissions. Cards, comics, magazines, ticket stubs. What do you think of this? Because. With, with an 11 million card backlog, should they really be taking on any more, you know, cards at this point? Well, it's to be determined what they're gonna allow, but it's gonna probably be the same tiers as what they already have. Still official. Like you could still submit Express to psa. It's not like you can't, it's just you can't submit value stuff right now. Can you submit value level of tickets and magazines and whatever else that's left to be seen. I, I don't know what they're, what they updated and what their policy is on that other than the cards, but they have done a good job of getting the backlog done. I mean they posted on June 9 that their, their backlog was 14 million cards or 14 million items. So the fact that they've cut that by 3 million in a month, that's pretty damn impressive. And we knew that was going to be the case. We knew that they just needed a strict catch up. If you keep accepting submissions that was going to be the case. Even though PSA's words, not mine, they said they would never do this, but they ultimately chose to. And look, my stuff is flying through the submissions now. I got, I think I sent in at a little higher level than value. I think it was like maybe the 32 mark for bulk. It's in grading already and I sent that in last month. So they're moving. It's good to see that they're moving. I don't mind them accepting submissions as long as they keep it structured the same way as they have it on their website at Fanatics Fest. Well, hopefully that's not a whole lot of eights and nines there, brother, because that's the one thing I think I'm afraid this is, this is the money, the money shot right here. It's, it's, we know it's not the sports cards people that cause the backlog, it's tcg. So you know, maybe they, maybe they're able to clean up on the Pokemon Magic and the one piece a little bit. Yeah, I mean I think ultimately that just needs to be a separate entity at this point. They should really just have a sports cards kind of section and then a tcg. They should make a new factory just for tcg. Yeah, they should because the demand is there and yeah, it would keep the non TCG collectors just, it would keep things moving, it would keep it fluid. Yeah, you know, we really shouldn't have anything to do with what's going on with them. Right. And now I would even say the grading has to be different of those. You know, a chrome style card or like even a tops regular base is going to be a different paper, different material, different cut than it is the Pokemon and trading card games. So why even keep that under the same umbrella? Just open up a, a new factory. They said they were ready to invest millions and the brand itself of the owners of, of PSA was it Collectors. Collectors is making billions. So there's no reason why it can't be put back into setting up some new either factory lines or a new plant to be able to upkeep for tcg. Yeah, and, and listen, I mean they have a separate kind of team that's doing the comics and the magazine portion of it. They have a separate entity that goes into the tickets that they're grading. So it's not like it's out of the question just to have, you know, subdivisions within PSA to take care of different collector bases and, and different products. Because at the end of the day you're right. I think it is different enough where, you know, that can be warranted. Yeah. And it would just keep kind of things on the sports and moving, which would be good. So. Yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll see how this weekend is with the turnout. I'm curious to see like what that looks like physically being there and you know, if there's gonna be a line, if people are going to be you know, kind of running to to go and submit stuff in person or if you know, like you said, the higher end levels really haven't stopped. So people that are looking to grade may have just been doing it this whole time. So I guess we'll just wait and see what that looks like. But yep, then some A little bit more news. Huge sale happened. It was like a day or so ago. The stone cold Steve Austin Rock Dual Super Fractor auto from Topps Chrome has sold. Yep. And it sold for just about $83,000. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building you you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog. H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. That just knocked me a little bit lower. I didn't expect you to get, you know, someone, someone commented on, I think Instagram mentioned that. So that popped me a little bit. I was laughing, but I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. This, this card to me would have at least been. I would have ballparks probably 50 to 75. The fact that it got 83, though it's really no surprise, means the only time we've ever Gotten a Rock Austin dual signed card and it's the one of one. It wasn't a sticker. I believe they're on card autos and it's a perfect card. It's the, it's the biggest rivalry in pro wrestling history. Rock and Austin. Maybe outside of McMahon and Austin, that would be a dual one of one I would love to see. But the way it's going for Vinnie Mac these days probably, probably will never happen. Yeah, I mean listen, the, the only bigger autos could have, you know, potentially have been like Hogan Macho which will never get, you know, Hogan Andre which obviously will never get. Hogan Warrior, which we'll never get. So taking all the, you know, those guys out of the equation. Yeah, I mean I, I think this was the, was and is the, the biggest dual auto that you could possibly have other than like you said an Austin McMahon on card dual auto would be pretty crazy. I would say that would beat that card. I think that The Vince Austin 1 of 1 if it ever were to happen is a hundred thousand dollar card. Wow. How can it not be for the rarity that Vince McMahon signs even we, you know we used to say that the Rock was rare. Vince. I think at this point in time and where we're at right now is even rarer. Yeah, I mean we had Rock signing tops, finest. We don't have Vinny Mac doing that. He's only ever signed I believe for in recent years at least transcendent and somehow they were able to get him for what was the singular card fully loaded. But other than that, I mean Vinnie Mac stuff is non existent. Yeah, yeah. And you're right, so that could be the rare car, that could be the bigger card at this point. But yeah, I mean it's great for the wrestling card hobby. Yeah. To have a sale like this, you know, in the public eye, you know it's really going to get the attention of a lot of big time collectors and, and people within the hobby that you know, call Spade of Spade have kind of looked at wrestling as like you know, a B or a C tier level entity in the hobby over the last however many years. I mean yeah, we were not getting many five figure sales over the last 10, 15 years. So. But even look, this sale is huge. Look at what WWE cards have produced over the last two, three years. Randy Orton 1 of 1 debut patch or the WrestleMania patch 42,000. Bianca Belair 295 Tiffany 22 J USO 18 6. Those are not numbers to you know, to be slacking about. So look to me it's a, it's a double edged sword. The more attention that wrestling cards gets ultimately will be a good thing because you get more people producing content. Maybe Topps takes the next step to say look, wrestling is popular. We're doing great in selling cards. So now we want to do more for the WWE fans and maybe produce either, you know, new card lines or they expand on what they're doing with Chrome and you know, potentially stadium club or heritage or whatever else they want to do. So it needs Fanatics knows the, the value. Look at, look at fanatics. No, I know they, WWE is the one that always sells out. You know, maybe a couple athletes here and there, but it's always WWE doing numbers. They have the, the most popular installation of the weekend. Everybody hangs out in front of the, the entrance ramp and wants to do their entrance and wants to watch who's going to come down and I mean it's one of the more popular areas of the show floor all weekend long. It's a staple for the fanatics games. It's the, the WWE fan. The WWE talent sells out of all their meet and greets. Some of the biggest podcasts that are going to be going on all weekend involve WWE talent. So yeah, I mean they know this is legit and I think from now, you know, going forward it's just going to get bigger and, and real and just bigger. Yeah, I was gonna say the double edge part though is that there's more scamming, more not so, you know, safe collectors to deal with. You're gonna territory anyway. You're gonna start to get away from like the collectors like us and our group of friends and our group of people that listen to the show and you're, you're going to be getting more of the, you know, YouTube influencers that want to get their hands on, you know, some of this stuff and take a shot because at the end of the day a lot of those guys, you know, the bigger and the higher end dealers and the bigger personalities within the hobby, they are chasing those five figure cards, those 10 to 50000 cards. So if that happens to be wrestling, you know, they're gonna try and get their hands on it. So. Right, yeah. But yeah, no congrats to the seller, congrats to the buyer. Monster sale. I mean awesome to see and hopefully we get a couple more of those coming up in the future. And it was Raw. Yep. So I again with one on ones like that the PSA 10 doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. But you would think like if you had an eighty thousand dollar car, you, you know, wouldn't have been a slab just from the protection point of it. Yeah, the auction house might have been the one that says like it's got to be in a slab. So really that's their call. Yeah, no, I think just for me, if, you know, I pulled a card that big, you know, when you're pulling it right off the bat, that that's not a, you know, five thousand dollar card. I probably would have thrown that in a slab just to authenticate it and you know, protect it. But yeah, real quick, we're in Long Island, New York brother. East coast. Shout out to New York Knicks. All right, so let's get into the last bit of non fanatics fest related news with Russell Khan. Minneapolis. So WrestleCon typically puts on, I guess, what is it, two events this year. Two events at this point, like a SummerSlam event and then like a WrestleMania event for what? WrestleCon? Yeah, as a WrestleCon kind of coincides with those two events typically around that. And then I don't know if it's wrestlecon themselves. I know there's always a North Carolina one and then there's that Indianapolis show. But those aren't Russell Khan, I believe. No, I'm saying like the Russell Khan. It's like the Russell Khan name. Yeah. So this year SummerSlam show is no different. They're going to be in Minneapolis for SummerSlam Weekend July 31 to August 2. A huge list of names so far. I'm going to read the majority of them. We got Nikki Cross, Eric Redbeard, Taylor Rotunda, Dexter Loomis, Sting, Kurt Angle, Megan Bain, the Berserker, Booker T. Scarlett Bordeaux, Harley Cameron, Alexis, Celine, Andre Chase, Mike Chioda, ciampa, Christopher Daniels, DDP, Demolition, Ted DiBiase, Ted DiBiase Jr. Spike Dudley, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Katie Forbes, Greg Gagne, Francine, the Godfather, Chavo Guerrero, the Hardys, Julia Hart, Headbangers, Mark Henry, Honky Tonk Men, the Inspiration, jbl, Killer Cross, Killer Bees, Jerry Lawler, Jujun, Thunder, Liger Lita, Rick Martel, Maurice Kevin Nash, New Age Outlaws, Papa Shango, Shake the Snake, Junior Sandman, Microtunder, Jinsei Shinzaki, Mina Shirakawa, Shotzi, Blackheart, the Steiners, rvd, Tecla and more. It's gonna be a strong show which looking at the names, I think it's like, you know, it's the, the, the, the guys and the gals that are typically at all the shows at this point. They kind of do the Circuit. They go to all the big autograph shows. He's into one. Well, because now he's not. No, I know anymore. Mick has done a decent amount, but he's gonna be on the circuit more. I mean, getting the new age outlaws together is a newer thing now. They haven't done that in a little while, but yeah, no, it's gonna be a great show. Yeah. So. And remember, just because we get them for the big event typically doesn't mean that the rest of the country does. So, like. Right, that's true. To us, it. You know, Harley Cameron's been on a few east coast shows. Megan Bain has. But like for the Midwest to West coast, not necessarily. I mean, a name that I saw that, that stuck out immediately to me is Jinsai Shinzaki. I don't know if I've ever seen him on a show, at least the one that I've been to. So that's, that's kind of cool to see that. And obviously Jujun Thunder Liger is not. He's retired now, but he's still coming here to do the, the, the shows. So that, that's cool to see too. You had a few of the wives. What was that? You had a few of the Wyatt six. They're gonna start five or six. Yeah. So, yeah. So if you're in the Minneapolis area for SummerSlam weekend and looking for something to do July 31 to August 2, definitely hit up Russell Con. I know you've been to the one, the one around WrestleMania in Philly and in Vegas and it's. I mean, it's a pretty well run show from what I heard. What I hear it is. Yeah, it's usually a breeze. No lines are never like too, too crazy. Although for top talent they can be. Yeah. But yeah, ultimately it's. It's a really nice show. All right. Some purchases, I think. Well, did you pick up anything? Well, this will be the quickest purchases we've ever done because I didn't get anything, which makes sense with Fanatics Fest coming this week. I'll. I'll have some purchases for next week. I'm looking at the Facebook group. In the chat, only Russell posted his purchase. I think everyone was sleeping this week. Yeah. So, Russell, the. The spotlight is on you this week. Don't know what I posted, but I got HBK from Royalty woods out of 50 and a bass from Exalted Kofi out of five and out of 99. Exalted the Kofi out of 99 from Chrome and a Jerry Seinfeld redemption from series two blaster. That's wild because getting any hit out of a blaster from series one, series two or update is like, it feels damn near impossible. Yep. So congrats on that. I mean, that's a big car. That's got to be at least a rack or so. Yeah. Not only is it hard to get a, a, an auto out of a blaster, but to hit an auto like that, which was a redemption. But I mean, those, the, the first pitch celebrity autos are super hard to hit and of a goat like Jerry. So shout out to. To Russ for that. I know immediately there were a couple names in our Facebook group that were looking to purchase it. So if the price is right, I know Russell probably end up moving that card. Yeah, that's, that's. See, like that. And that's a car. That's an example of a card where it's like if you're a med fan, a wrestling fan, or I'm sorry, a Mets fan, a baseball fan, a Seinfeld fan. That's like a must have. Yeah. That's an insane, like, sane poll right there. Yeah. And then shout out Ryan box. Listen, we'll still shout you out on the show if you're stacking up on the Nikolai collection. No shame in that. Teach their own. Yep. All right, so, wow. Fast flying through the news, flying through the purchases. But we knew that this episode is going to be the meat and potatoes, the preview to Fanatics Fest. We'll take one quick commercial break and then we're going to be back right after this. Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, Filters ready to clog. H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for The ones who get it done. Yeah. Welcome back. Welcome back to already the final segment of the show, but it's a big one and this week it's all about Fanatics Fest 2026, which is best quickly become one of the premier events in the hobby I'd say since it's inception. This will be the third year of Fanatics Fest. Danny and I have been well been to all three. We went the first year. Last year we covered it for the pod and now this will be our second year covering it for the podcast. So we kind of just wanted to talk about what's going on, who's there, who's doing what, some of the different segments, some of the different parts of the show that are, you know, pretty cool to see. We want to talk about our plans, what we plan on doing and then kind of just we'll kind of end it with like do have, you know, how do we feel about the show? Do we think it's worth the trip out? Whether you're from within New York, greater tri state area or. I have to get on a plane to get here. Yeah. So I guess we'll start off with. I was going to take us through the rundown of each day of what to expect for wwe. Okay. So before we do that, I'm gonna run through the talent that's going to be there. Please do I have the full list of WWE talent. Obviously there's countless amounts of celebrities, NBA players, mlb, NFL. Every sports represented soccer, but obviously being a wrestling show, we're going to focus on the WWE aspect of this mostly. So for WWE talent we have Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Brie Bella, Bron breaker, Charlotte Flair, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes Danhausen, Don Mysterio, IO Sky, Jacob Fatu, Jade Cargill, Jay Uso, Jimmy Uso, Joe Hendry, John Cena, L.A. knight, Liv Morgan, Logan Paul, Nikki Bella, Obafemi Penta Ray, Rhea, Ripley, Roman Reigns, Stephanie Vicaire, Tiffany Stratton, Tommy Dreamer with the podcast. With his, his podcast, Trick Williams, Trish Stratus and Undertaker. You. Well, you forgot one name. WrestleMania 41 Main Eventer Fiend Fiend Travis. Travis Scott will be there. Yeah. And yeah, it also was former WrestleMania 14 star and main eventer Mike Tyson. He is. Yep. And I don't. Was he ever on. Oh no, he was on WWE actually. WrestleMania. Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal contestant Shaquille O' Neal and Gronk. The stars are out. They are out there. They also Saturday night, which earlier is Saturday night's main event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, literally what, five or six blocks away from where this whole thing's going on. So New York City will kind of be very wrestling and WWE centric over the next couple days. So why don't you take us through those days? And yeah, so now this stuff that are gonna be going on, what I'm going to run through right now is all the live programming, the panels, the podcast that are going to be featured. This is not photo op or autographs, but the schedule was released for what's going to be going on throughout the weekend. So Thursday, July 16, only two live panels for WWE, which the first one being called WWE now, which is going to be located at the Home Team village stage at 2pm that's going to feature Sam Roberts, Megan Morant and Trick Williams. And then at 6 o' clock that night is going to be a massive one, a live streaming of what do you want to talk about with Cody Rhods and he's interviewing Tom Brady. So that's going to be at Center Stage at Fanatics Fest. I'm sure there's going to be a monster crowd watching that one. We get into Friday and First Take Live is going to be at 9:45am they have not announced who's going to be there. It's just mentioned WWE Superstars. So that's going to be Friday morning, July 17th at 10am Then you got the Impulsive podcast and that of course features Logan Paul out in special guests. No other. Nothing else has been announced other than Neon attending, who's a a streamer and influencer also. Oh, okay. It's Puka Nakua and then Logan Paul back at it again at 1pm on the Stephen A. Smith show. And that is at the Home Team Village Stage. And Logan Paul's Impulsive will also be at that same setup, the Home Team Village Stage. We head into Saturday, July 18, and we got a lot of WWE happening that day. What's your story with Stephanie McMahon? 10am at the home Team Village Stage. Again, that's going to feature NFL legend James Harrison and WWE reporter or interviewee Chris Van Vliet. He's gonna be there. 12:00pm we have the Impulsive podcast yet again at the Home Team Village stage. Also at 12pm you can see me now a live Q A with John Cena. That's going to be at Center Stage and that is only advertising John himself. 12:30 at the Dick's Sporting Goods Podcast stage. We got Chris Van Vliet and Insight interviewing the Undertaker. So interesting that they would put those on at the same time, for people not being able to make it to either side, you're gonna have to pick one probably, if you want to view. And then 5pm Once again, WWE now, which is going to be at the Home Team Village Stage. Sam Roberts, Megan Morant and La Knight. We get to the final day Sunday, and only a couple things lined up, but the big one's going to be the matinee in the afternoon. We're starting at 10am what's your story? Stephanie McMahon podcast interviewing Michael Cole at the Home Team Village Stage. Busted Open is going to be at 11:30 at the same thing. Home Team Village Stage, we're gonna see Mark Henry, Bully Ray, Dave Legreca, Tommy Dreamer, and special guest Jade Cargill. At 12:30pm, we're gonna have the Bellas podcast. They're gonna be the Dick's Podcast stage at the show. And then finally the WWE SummerSlam Kickoff event at the theater with multiple special guests, and it's being ran by Michael Cole and Peter Rosenberg. That's at 1:30. So that, that's an event where we actually were there last year. We were in what, I think the second row for that. And it was live on Peacock at the time. And that's a big event where they kind of run through the card for SummerSlam so far and they'll bring out the Superstars, talk to them about the match. They, you know, face offs and stuff like that happen. So that if you're a wrestling fan, it's definitely worth. Definitely worth seeing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was all the stars came out last year. We saw, I think Triple H, John Cena, Tiffany Stratton, Seth Rollins, Bron Breaker. It was a who's who of your top WWE stars. Yeah. Remember he. Yeah, this is gonna be fun too. The, the stuff with CBV interviewing Taker is gonna be a good one. Yeah. And it's cool that Steph is doing multiple days, you know, sit down, podcast style. I'm excited to kind of get up and close for that. Yeah, you know, Steph is, I mean, one of the biggest names in, in wrestling just in history. And, you know, if you're a McMahon, you're, you know, I don't really have to say much, but it's cool as they see her kind of get involved in and doing stuff like this. So, I mean, I've had a couple friends meet her, just running into her like different things. And they've always said like, she's the best, like always very friendly, interactive. I mean, that's always great to See, you'd hope that a lot of talent acts that way, but I mean, and with the stuff that we didn't even announce, there's going to be stuff popping up all weekend long too. Like last year, Jacob Fatu randomly came to the Tops booth. We ran into DJ Khaled, Eli Manning, Tom Brady doing their WWE entrances coming down the ramp. So you never know, like, what's gonna happen on the floor. Like, there's just gonna be random pop ups throughout the whole weekend. That's the most overwhelming thing, I think, is like, where is everybody? Where is anyone gonna pop up? Like, all of a sudden you'll be like standing and looking at a booth. You'll turn your head and you'll see like 50 people running in one direction with cameras and. And all of a sudden it's like, Cooper Flag is shopping at a, at a card table. Yeah. And it's like, oh, okay. There was a point last year I was looking for Danny and I bumped into Nikon, and all of a sudden I took my phone out. I was like, oh, I wonder what's going on? And then Michael Rubin walked over and then was kind of like, everyone was kind of like conglomerating in this one part of the show floor. And I'm like, oh, wow, all right. This is, this is pretty crazy. So, yeah, I mean, you're gonna run into stuff like that the whole weekend. So I think it's a good time to talk about the setup of the show, what to expect. It's not a card show. It's not a. It's not a trade show. It's kind of everything. So you're gonna have installations from the biggest entities in sports. Mlb, NFL, NHL, NBA. You're gonna have, you know, wwe, obviously they have the other entrance ramp, espn. You know, all these different companies have these big installations where you can go in, you're gonna have people there, you can, you know, participate in like different activities, throw, you know, baseballs, do batting practice, shoot a basketball, like, stuff like that. You kind of just walk the show floor and you can do these different things. Then there is a portion of the show floor which are card dealers. So I think they're going to have 250 tables of card vendors setting up as if it's like a random, you know, card show. Like you and I and everyone that's listening to the show is used to walk up to a table, they're gonna have dollar boxes and, you know, cases and slabs and all that kind of stuff. You can go shop and look, you know, for different cards. A lot of the bigger names in the hobby and a lot of the bigger shops in the hobby are going to be represented there. So you're going to have like, you know, your card collector two, your Roth cards, your Santiago sports, all those kind of YouTube personalities, they're all going to be set up there and then you're going to have your bigger shops. So you're going to have Bleakers is going to be set up. Bodega cards is going to be set up. They're actually the two of them are doing the trade night on Friday night. Yep. You know, you're going to have that kind of stuff so you can go around and you can, you know, look at your cards, buy your cards and all that stuff. Companies within the hobby are going to be represented. So you're a PSA there. You're going to have fanatics live doing breaks. The entire show you're gonna have, Tops, obviously is gonna have one of the biggest booths and installations in the entire show, which makes sense being a fanatics company. Mitchell and S Lids, Mitchell and Ness and Lids there, there's a 46, 000 square foot merch village. That's just the merch where every entity that we just discussed, all the sports leagues, all the different, you know, media companies are all going to have their merch. So you're going to be able to buy a jersey of basically any athlete you want. You're going to be able to get exclusive T shirts, hats, pins, all that kind of stuff from all the sports leagues, from the wwe, from Mitchell and Ness, from. I mean Target has a booth. I think this year Disney is having a thing this year. Yep. Disney is doing an exclusive with the NFL where they're going to be doing a. I think it's Roger Goodell and Taylor Rooks are doing a Disney fantasy draft as of in like NFL style. So like who would be the number one pick in Disney if it were an NFL draft? And then they're doing a kind of like a exclusive merch drop that coincides with that. Yeah. So yeah, I mean it's, it's all of that stuff plus your meet and greets, which is on a separate floor. So on the bottom floor you have your meet and greets, your photo ops, you have more of like local sports kind of section. So like the Mets, the Knicks, the Islanders, the Giants, all the local New York teams are going to have their booths downstairs where you can go and you can meet players and you can listen to different podcasts. WFAN radio is going to be there broadcasting all weekend long. You can listen to, you know, live radio shows that you're used to listening to on the radio. They're going to be there in person. There are different stages that are going to be set up throughout the show. There's center stage, which is the biggest stage. Those are going to have the bigger shows. LeBron James is doing something, Tom Brady's doing something. I think they're doing like the FIFA. The, the championship game is gonna be broadcast there on the final day and then it gets progressively smaller. So for instance, there's like a dick stage where it's probably the size of like half of an installation. The stage comes up to like my waist and they bring in town all week alone just doing live podcasts from there. The Bell Twins are going to be doing something there. Last year they had like a Mets thing that we watched and all while this is all going on, you have athletes popping in and out, walking around. We saw James Harden walk up and just start shooting basketballs right next to us where we were standing. Libby Dunn, remember, we were just standing there like trying to figure out where we're gonna go next. Libby Don just popped up, we said hello and yeah, that's it. It's crazy to, if you're a sports fan, if you're an entertainment fan. I think it's become like a must attend show at this point just because of all the different things that you could, you can do and experience now. Yeah, like to me this supersedes the national by far just for the athletes they're able to bring in. The fact that you still have the entity of buying, selling trading cards like it's a card show. The interactive games that you could play, the, the content that you get to consume throughout the weekend. There is no convention like it on the planet. It's number one, top of the food chain. And no disrespect to the national, it's great. But the National, I would say is for like the true collector, which at the end of the day we are. But if you're not there solely for cards, there's really nothing else for you to do there. You're just looking to buy, sell, trade, that's it. The meet and grease that they do have, they're nice and all, but it's the same legends on repeat over and over again. They don't get any modern athletes to really come over except maybe a couple for like the city that they're in. Yeah, so I think Chicago this year, I thought there might have been like A couple of Cubs that were coming. I can't remember if it was last year, this year, but Giannis appeared at the show. But other than that, like, it's not a great meet and greet show for like the type of talent you could meet at Fanatics Fest. Like, where else in the world do you get to go meet, you know, Justin Jefferson at an appearance or, you know, Cam Schlitler, rising star pitcher for the Yankees, like, he's popping up. He's gonna be doing photo ops and autographs all weekend. Now, it's the usual for wwe. We're used to these style of events where like, oh, like it's WrestleMania, so there's a million photo ops and autograph opportunities. So WWE has become the staple of that. But in terms of being fans of multiple sports, like, we are, like, we're not just WWE fans at the end day, but we watch baseball, basketball, football, even soccer for the World cup. We're watching that. We watch golf on the weekends for all the big tournaments. Like, if you're a sports fan, there's no place like it in the world. Yeah. And I think that, you know, with the national, obviously we've been to the national and, and the national will always have its place within the hobby. And that's a great show too. It's, it's awesome. I love it. But I think you, I liked what you said about if you're not there for cards and strictly just buying and selling and trading and whatever, there really, really isn't much else to do. They have panels and stuff like that. But in my opinion, they just never really got to the that point where like, it's like must see kind of stuff. Yeah, but I mean, you're basically taking like WWWE World at WrestleMania where they have all these meet and greets. I mean, you have. Everyone that I just listed is basically anybody that's in WWE at this point. You know, all the champions are going to be there. Obviously it doesn't hurt that, you know, they're having a big show there on Saturday night. But I was all based around Fanatics Fest. But yeah, I mean, you're going to be able to go from meeting Cody Rhods to meeting Mike Piazza to meeting Justin Jefferson to meeting Victor Wanyama. Then you're gonna, you can go watch LeBron do a podcast. You go get a bite to eat, go walk around the shops, come back and see Cody Rhodes and Tom Brady do a podcast together. Like, where else are you ever gonna see that? Right. You know, Sunday they're doing, there's like, stuff in the morning, a Travis Scott concert, and then you can watch the final game of the, of the World cup all in the same room. Yeah, you're not gonna see that anywhere else. And I think that that's one of the coolest things is also the element of surprise, of like, yeah, these are all the people that are listed, but that's nowhere near who's going to be here. You know, there were people making. Random people popping up. There were people that we saw last year that were like, I didn't know they were coming, like, they weren't on the list or whatever. And yeah, there's people even, like, today we saw. Let's come out of. You know, some of the names are going to be doing stuff. And it was. We didn't hear about that last week because I think as this gains traction and, you know, more people are getting involved, people want to get involved and do certain things. And, like, we're seeing a lot of athletes come and make announcements. I wouldn't be surprised if LeBron announced this weekend where he's playing next year, because he's going to be in front of. He's going to be in front of hundreds of thousands of fans doing his thing, like what ESPN is doing. Sports center and first take live from the show floor. You know, where else are you going to be able to make an announcement like that and get the reaction that you want to get? I mean, how cool would that be? So, yeah, I mean, it's, It's, It's a huge event. It's certainly grown from the first one. We were at the first one, and I would say the first one was a lot more like a. A national. Whereas now this has just grown into, I mean, a show that's very hard to describe. So, yeah, I, I think obviously New York, greatest city in the world. Don't have to say that. Home of the New York champion, world champion New York Knicks. That's all I need to say at this point. Everyone knows how we feel about New York, but if you need another reason to come to New York, this is definitely one of the weekends to do it. Yeah, I mean, it's. They said they were going to take Fanatics Fest on the road, which they haven't yet. I remember they announced Pittsburgh and it was gonna be a thing, and then it kind of just like dissipated. Yeah, I, I see this. We might not have it in New York too much longer. I could see this thing making its way out to, like, la, certainly. You know what? I think logistically, it's also just very tough. Like, you almost have to see this show to understand how tough logistically this would be anywhere else. Yeah, you need to. This is not an acc. Yeah. Center is a huge convention center. Yeah. So I don't know. But, you know, for us, I know Danny has a couple of meet and greets that he is. That he's planning on doing, but we will be getting as much coverage for this event as we can. We're going to be at all the live panels and podcasts, taking video, taking pictures. Danny's gonna be making tick tocks all weekend long from the show floor. Stay tuned to the Instagram account. We're gonna be posting just as much there. And yeah, it's. It's gonna be wild and. And just. I don't know, it's just gonna be crazy. So. But you and I are gonna be kind of documenting as much as we can for fans of the show and our listeners and just to kind of show everybody what this show really is. So, yeah, yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna shoot our shot and try to get talents lined up. We've reached out to wwe, we've reached out to agencies to try to get content set up. Hopefully we're able to this weekend, so be on the lookout for that, too. We're trying to make it as, you know, fun, entertaining, kind of like you're alongside us with the show this weekend as possible. Yeah. And if you're going, definitely hit us up. We'd love to meet up somewhere on the floor. If there's any of you guys that are going to be there, we'd love to, you know, see what you're picking up, see who you're meeting, what your plans are. Again, it is Thursday to Sunday, so it's July 16th to the 20th or 16th to the N. 19th. Yeah, 16th to the 19th. Yeah. So if you're not going to be there, definitely tune into all the social media accounts. Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube video will probably come later on. We're all different once we get put together all the stuff that we're capturing. But if you want immediate kind of coverage of what's going on day to day, that'll be on the socials, so keep an eye out for that. Yep. All right, so that's gonna wrap up this week's episode. Appreciate everybody, as always, if you watch the live episode today. Thank you, all of our Patreon members. You guys are the best. Appreciate you being a part of the Facebook group, interacting with us, buying, selling, trading, and just being a part of the wrestling card community. Make sure you're following us along. Apple, Spotify, wherever you download your favorite podcasts. And if you enjoy, please leave a five star review. We're on the socials again. Follow us all weekend long at Fanatics Fest on X Instagram and Tick Tock Carbonation Pod. And if you want to support us, buy a t shirt pro wrestlingtees.com CAR foundation pot. Yeah, and not much else to say. I'm gonna go get some rest because my feet already hurt, so we'll be up early and ready to go for tomorrow. Tune in all week and we'll see you guys next week for episode 284. All right. As always, don't get caught looking. Start collecting. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-granger clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.