Booked to Last: WrestleMania Patch Chaos, Cena Bounties, and the Future of Wrestling Card Collecting

Foreign. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Book to Last, the official wrestling card podcast here on the Stacking Slabs Network. Hosted by my good friends Adam and Ryan and brought to you by RBI crew 7. The biggest, the baddest, the best place to buy your wrestling cards, wax, singles, all those things. Adam is back in the mix. We missed Adam this week coming back into the fold, bringing his passion and energy a whole lot to cover. There is so much happening with Wrestling cards right now. Whether it's new products like Sapphire, big sales or maybe even people throwing wrestling card parties at the National. Make sure you you let us know if you are going to be at the wrestling card takeover July 31 of the national at the NBC Suites. We'd love to have you seen so many great emails from all of you come through saying you're going to attend. Email us@booktolastpodcastmail.com get those RSVP's set. 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Respectfully, let's ring that bell and get this slobber knocker on the way. It's episode 20. Yes it is. I'm excited to be here and with Adam has returned from New York. Adam, how we doing man? Doing great. Can't explain how great of a job you guys did last week. Shout out to Kevin. Shout out to you. Thank you. Huge episode. Appreciate congratulations are in order. I didn't get it. I didn't get a chance on the podcast to say it even though we've talked probably three hours about this. But, but congratulations on, on Randy Orton. I mean you guys probably were, were like that was fresh off the auction last week, you guys. I can only imagine what the, what the emotions were like coming into that episode. Yeah, it was coming off kind of a high, obviously, and this happened so we record on Tuesday and ended on Monday. I didn't expect what conspired with the viral. And then while I'm recording, I get word that Randy has tweeted about it and offered up his gear, which, long story short, he did offer that up. I have spoken with him. However, I have respectfully declined because while he was here at our event with Tops the Rip Night, he told the story about what he collects. And basically because his dad never collected anything, he saves all his stuff, his gear, like the thumbnails from Mick Foley match, stuff like that. So I just knew that it belonged in his collection. Even though I really appreciate it, it was awesome to just get to chat with him about it. And so since then, yes, he did honor it and offered it. However, I needed to stay in his collection and so I passed on that. But really cool. All this all conspired. I never thought it would go this far, but big, big moment for the hobby, big moment for my collection and just a big moment for everybody, in my opinion. Yeah, for sure. I actually have a spot. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on. Oh, epic fail by me. My bad. Yeah, he's a little too early, but yeah, I mean, like, it was good to see you guys have an opportunity to chat about it and share. I know Brett posted a reel and stuff like that on Instagram. Thank you, Brett for putting you and your guy putting that together. It was an awesome reel. It was awesome. It was so well done and I'm just like, I'm so excited that you guys got the chance to talk about that even though I wasn't able to join. So we'll, we'll rehash maybe a little bit of it. But in the meantime, it's good to be back. And I. So I was in new. I had some work stuff last week, but I also got to meet with with Tops at the Fanatics HQ in New York. Spent a few hours with them. Great, great team. Like, can't say enough good things about social media team Jeremy. All the guys over at the Combat sports team. Loved talking shop with them. So really excited to have that opportunity and thank them for, for hosting me there. Came back home to like one of the most insane mail days I think I've ever had. It was just like, it was just like, I have a picture of it. Here, if you're following on Patreon, like, royalty chrome, like, absolutely nuts. I had another one, which I'll talk about later as well. Thanks to Jameson and a few others for helping me out with that one. We'll get there. But, yeah, it's like I was listening to the episode and, you know, I'm a little upset that Kevin did so well. I might have a. Might skip my job. I know my job's okay, but your job might be in jeopardy. Obviously. The talent. The talent of this equation. I'm just the guy. He's sitting here in the chair. Gay of doing my thing here. You're the guy who puts these beautiful slides together. You have it all scripted for me. I mean, I couldn't do this without you. So. So Adam's not going anywhere. For those of you that want to see Adam go somewhere, I'm staying here as well. But no Kevin, amazing job again. And we'll be happy to have him back anytime he wants to come on. So. Yeah, absolutely. So we have a special guest joining us here later on. So we're going to hop right into the opening pyro, go through some of what happened on smackdown and Raw. You know, I. I watched. So I was coming home from New York on Friday and, like, got home just in time for smackdown. And, like, the whole time, like, I'm watching this show. Like, what is going on with smackdown? Like, there is like. Like, can it be saved? Like, there is like, I feel like everybody blames sort of like the booking malaise that, you know, plagued smackdown on Road Dogg and then he was gone, and now it's just. It's just there. And I thought, okay, Rhea Ripley is the champion. You've got Cody as champion. You've got all this stuff going on and just. It feels so hard to watch. I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's like, where. Where's the act? Where's the action? Like, where. Where is. Like. I just feel like we're missing something here. I feel like, you know, to be biased here, I'm going to be a little biased. I feel like we were. It felt like we were on the path to an 09. Randy Orton, he'll run. Yeah. I think that would have been huge for smackdown to get that type of Randy Orton. Obviously, things are different. We don't know if he's injured or not injured. So I think that would truly help smackdown right now. I think Cody's kind of past the point right now, so obviously they bring Guthrie over from Raw to Smackdown. To me, Guthr is not going to really put butts in seats in my opinion. Great wrestler. He's an amazing heel. Not knocking him, Chad. Don't kill me. I'm just giving my opinion. We're talking about what can be done to save it. I don't know. At this point, I. Obviously Roman is going to grab all the viewers, all the attention. He's great and you know, you could have put him back on Smackdown, but you know, rals where he needs to be at right now. So I just don't know, man. The product Friday's kind of brutal. I'm trying to follow along. I pay attention to it all, but right now, man, Raw is just. You have Raw and it's just. By the time he gets a Smackdown, I feel like you're just ready for Raw again at this point. Yeah. And like, I bl. Like, I, I think it's really difficult to put on a three hour television wrestling show. Like, I think when Smackdown went to three hours, it just became unwatchable. I think two hours is perfect. Raw is kind of like around the two hour mark, but it's like wall to wall action. And like, I feel like the, the star power on Smackdown is a little bit below where it probably needs to be. Even with Rhea Ripley, who is the biggest star in the company. Like, you know, I. Besides Roman Reigns. Like, I think that's, that's tough, man. And, and like, you have Obafemi on Raw, you have Roman on Raw. You know, Punk is out, Randy's out. Like, you know, as much as I love watching Ria and Trick and all those guys do their thing, like, it's just, it feels like it's slow moving and plotting. So on Smackdown, they had like Gunther and Cody were like going back and forth about, you know, how Paul Heyman was going to give him his favor or whatever. It's always about the Paul Heyman favors these days. And I think like the, the idea to put Royce Keys in a number one contender match out of nowhere was, you know, it was interesting, like, great for Royce Keys introduced this new guy. But like, like, like, you know what's going to happen. So like it was, it bred this like, predictable situation. But, you know, they're, they're really putting these new people, Royce Keys, Ricky Saints, Joe Hendry, like all those guys in really prominent roles. It's kind of like sink or swim. And I, I want to get your take on this analogy. So it used to be when you were drafted in the NFL, you had like a $50 million guaranteed rookie contract. I mean, there were people coming in, hadn't played it down, were making more money than Tom Brady, who's the top quarterback in the league. Right. That has changed. So now it's on a rookie wage scale, which means that you are a slot of contractual money, mostly guaranteed to play out your first four or five years, depending on if you're a first round pick or a second round pick and beyond. And the teams just basically throw you out there and it's sink or swim. And if you don't play well immediately, there are very rare circumstances where they keep you around. Right. And so I think, like for Raw and for smackdown, with these newer people, it is very much in that similar vein. Sink or swim, you go out there, you get the crowd on your side, or you are gone. And we've seen new people get chucked every Friday after Wrestlemania. We've seen people that just haven't been able to do that. There's a lot of things there that I think has changed. Curious what your perspective is on, like, somebody like Royce Keys coming in and being told, go wrestle, Gunther, and you're for the number one contendership. Yeah, that was just very random. That was like, okay, cool. For Royce Keys, if you, if you watch aew, he used to be on there and he dominated, so kind of put him in that limelight, I guess. Essentially now we're, you know, switching to the solo Sokoa, which makes more sense, you know, But I. I don't know, I feel like, you know, you had Ricky Saints come up, he got a match with Cody. You know, I think that was probably more of a quote unquote favor from Cody because him and Ricky go back. Yeah, friends, you don't know. But again, I feel like these young stars, they're now giving them the opportunities. Back then when people would get called up from nxt, they kind of just got buried. So now they're like, hey, like you put it, best time to sink or swim. Fatal Attraction, what a massive boo pop they got. That's big for them. That was. Yeah. Jumping into this role, you need that. That's. That's a victory. That's a win. I'm not a big J.C. jane guy, but I like what they're doing. I think they got a really good thing going and that's something smackdown needs. Obviously. Trick is so over right now, and he's so fun to watch, and my kids love singing. Whoop that Trick. We were playing in the car the other day, and it was like a whole 5 minute drive. Can we play it again? So, but. But again, I think these. These younger talents which you've watched, and they're. You know, what's funny is these. Most of these guys and girls aren't even that young. You know, they're just young to the brand of Smackdown or Raw. So at this point, they need to show if they can make it. So I think they're getting that opportunity. But if you can't get. You can't get the crowd behind you, you can't perform on a match, you're just going to fall to the back of the line because there's somebody there ahead of you, maybe behind you at the time of that, but now ahead of you because you didn't live up to whatever. So I think that they're giving them the opportunity. It's how they grab it and how they perform in it. And that's always been like the whole analogy of the brass ring or whatever Vince used to call it, like, you got to go out there and grab that brass ring. I've never really sort of subscribed to that because I think it takes time in a lot of cases to establish yourself. Obafemi is probably a good example of. Of the opposite of that, where he just kind of, like, through nxt did really good things there, but once he was on the main roster, it was like, get ready and go, like. And I think that's good, too. Stephanie was the same way. Yeah, Stephanie Vicaire. Great, great example. Yeah. But I mean, like, there's. I mean, you go look at baseball like, you got to play in the minor leagues. You got to. You got to play high A, double A, triple A all the way up through the show. And like, then they. They sort of put you into the lineup and they sort of ease you in. In most cases, right? Pitchers may be a little bit different, but for the hitters and like, basketball, like, they draft you, they throw you on the court, and if you can play, you're going to get time. Like, I think here it's like they're now sort of taking that approach, and it's not shocking that, you know, a company like TKO is expecting that because they want to know who the people are that are bankable. Right? Like, they want to know who's going to put people in seats. And like, I don't know, Like, I think some of the times it works out. Javon Evans, Trick Williams, all those guys that we've talked about endlessly over the last few weeks. Great Soul Ruka is another good example of that. But even going as far back as like Roxanne Perez and like, she. She showed that she can wrestle and, and keep people's attention. So Tiffany Stratton and Stephanie Vicaire, I mean, like, all the way going back. These stars are now coming up and the people that can prove it are. Are sticking around. Right? Spot on. You nailed it, man. Then on Monday night, we saw more continuation of Roman Reigns and Jacob Fatu. I. I like this is. It's kind of a rehash because it's kind of like similar to what solo and Roman went through would be when coming up to the Netflix premiere. But it, like, it feels different because Fatu seems like this uncontrollable monster, which is. I know the way that they want him to look and that's awesome. I love the tribal combat stipulation. I think that was what everybo was expecting because the Samoans don't do hell in a cell. They do tribal combat and I love it. I really hope this match lives up to it. I don't think Jacob's going to win, even though I think it's probably going to be like a long, drawn out, violent match, which I think is necessary. But really cool to see them sort of go that direction again. This feud feels good. Like it feels like it should. That's a good sort of start. And. And I was skeptical coming into it. Right. Yeah. No, I mean the. They had a phenomenal backlash match. This. This storyline continues to get better. Fatu just looks like this animal that you just can't contain. He's just dominant. He's getting the best for Roman and again, I think it's going to be an amazing all around match. It's going to be fun to watch. Kind of keep your attention going. Obviously this is during the day here in the states, but it's going on. But I'm thoroughly excited to be watching this match and this, obviously this. This card. But yeah, I don't know. I just think do we get one more match after this or of them two or is this kind of run its course? Is the question at hand at this time? I'm with you. I don't think Fatu walks out with the belts, but where does Fatu go from here is the question, I think. Yeah, that was. And you've got him at the top right now. Let's just not kick him down to here. Let's keep the momentum going. Maybe he then goes to smackdown and builds a rival there. We've got. We've got to pivot here and use him because he's got it. He's got the it to be a more of a heel. He's not really like, he's kind of like in that. In between, like, yeah, he's kind of a heel, but everybody just loves it. I mean, he's just hard not to like him. You just, you look at him like that guy can't do that stuff. And he just does the craziest moves and he's fun to watch. So again, I'm loving the storyline. I think it's great for Roman. I think this run of Roman's title is he's going to be fighting the best of the best. I think they're making sure that he's fighting not some easy competitions. He's getting some tough people to fight to make this look like, hey, I had to. I was a fighting champion and I had to fight some of the toughest guys in wwe. Yeah, I agree, man. I'm excited to see that match. I, I think Clash in Italy, like the Clash pay per views usually, like, they, they wrestle really hard and like they, they put on these banger matches. I remember Drew McIntyre and Roman going at it in Clash at the Castle. There's the Gunther and Sheamus did a couple of great. I think he wanted the Clash pay per views, like, because really the, the, the European wrestlers get a chance to shine in these pay per views and they do it really well. And so these pay per views tend to be like wrestling sort of Matt classic pay per views, which I love. Then from there we go on to like the Obafemi challenge and I'm going to borrow a line from Randy Orton and say like, stupid, stupid, stupid. Why in God's name is Brock Lesnar back? Like, I, they could tell the best story of like, oh, I faked you out. Like, I was going to let Sam and Jacket, you know, all the other, you know, bullshit that they do with, you know, Mark Henry and whatever, which was a great segment that everybody always calls back to every time there's a fake retirement. And because it was great, it was a great moment that was well planned. And Mark Henry deserves all of the credit he gets for that segment. Yes. This is, I'm gonna say it's just stupid. I am sorry. Yeah, I'm not thrilled about it. They had such an awesome moment at WrestleMania. Like you. Brock goes out. Fans who have been lukewarm to him, giving him, you know, the praise and the retirement after a long, you know, illustrious career is one of the best combat sports athletes of all time. OBA established now, as a guy who vanquish the beast, like, you literally cannot do it any better. So then why the hell is he back on TV yesterday? You know, earlier this week, if you're watching this on Friday or Saturday, like, I was dumbfounded by that sh. Insert shaming man song. Here comes the money. Yeah, but he got paid a lot. I wonder if maybe his contractual agreement said that he was supposed to wrestle to something. I don't really know. It's. You said it best. That was the way to go out. That was an amazing WrestleMania moment. I was so happy to be there and thought I was witnessing Brock Lesnar's retirement unexpectedly. So now we get this match. I do. Here's my thing is you've built Oba up, obviously. Last night, Brock caught him off guard, gave him several F fives. You know, do we get Brock winning this match? And then they have a best of three at SummerSlam and that's where he retires at home. I don't know, because I gotta feel the. The only reason why he's back is to wrestle at home for SummerSlam is what I gotta feel at this point. I hate it. It's awful. From a moment just being within there to see it, to just go, wow, this is a wrestlemania moment like no other. That is the way to go out. We saw Brock Lesnar cry for the first time ever. He may have never cried in his life till that moment. And you. You just witness everything. And then all of a sudden, Brock Lesnar's te cancer. Too bad he's never too. So I. I hate it. I don't know. I hope there's a good angle here. Maybe they just realize we don't have anybody that can compete with Oba right now. That the Ober Roman times. Not now. We need somebody that actually could compete with them. I don't really know. I'm dumbfounded beyond belief at this point. But I'm here for it. I guess I'm watching it. So, I mean, like, it's going to be interesting. Like, the Paul Heyman will tell a great story and they'll. They'll cover it up. This reeks of TKO saying we paid him to be here through SummerSlam, so get him here through SummerSlam. And I posted like a thing in our group chat of like, you know, Brock Lesnar going to Triple H and say, you know, oh, yeah, Oba's going to be the one to retire me instead of Gunther and Triple H. With that Jason Bateman means, like the fuck you are. But like, but I Mean like that's, that's basically what this is like. I don't think it's going to be Brock versus Gunther in Minneapolis. It'll probably be of whatever the rubber match is here if he wins. But I, I Oba has to win like there, there's like you can't take that away from this guy anymore. And I'm going to be even more upset if they take it away from him and give it to Gunther. I love Gunther's sort of like approach. I love watching him beat the crap out of people. But like I, I don't want this moment for Gunther. I want Oba to have this. It, it is the career defining moment for a young star that absolutely, absolutely needs it. And I think it's, it's really angle you could go is Guther beats Cody and then Lesnar fights title for career could do that. I don't know. I don't, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And that's where we could be heading. I or we're going to be seeing a third match with him and Oba. I agree the momentum behind Obra right now is you don't need him to lose. But I guess if he's going to lose, lose the Lesnar and then I just don't know. I'm, I'm so confused. You had it done right and it wasn't even done. It was so design was done right. Let it be and then does TK is TKO involved. This is Triple H. Their money is there contract from a wrestling fan. It's just like story ending career. The way to go out now we're going to get a. Oh by the way he's not dead. He's alive here he came back from. He's Jason. Jason for he's over here is like dead retired and then now he's back. So here we go. I'm saddle up to just watch the the run of Lesnar's after retirement run. Who cares. So that leaves we've got Gunther and Cody. We've got Roman Fatou going at it again now we also have Becky lynch and and Sol Ruka and on Sunday night main event. Saturday night main event. I I love Becky and so Ruka wrestling each other because Sol is probably the most athletic female wrestler they have and Becky is the least female athletic female wrestler they have. But and but Becky gets great matches out of people in establishing Soul Ruka. I don't think this is a title match or maybe it is. They haven't really mentioned it yet. I don't think Soul is. Is going to win this one, but she definitely could win a potential future match. I think putting a belt on Sol Ruka is a great idea because she'll have great matches on TV and she'll, you know, it sort of opens Becky up to go and do things with Liv Morgan or whatever. If they want that to be the SummerSlam match for, for Liv Morgan. But now Bailey's involved there, so who knows. We also have Rhea and her crew versus Jade and the Baddies which again it's on Saturday night main event which is going to be pretty women heavy and that should be a fun one. I think the Fatal Influence match or there's. Oh no, there's going to be Paige and Nikki and BRI. Bri Bella vs Lash Legend and Nia Jax. I'm just like I'm not there. As if, as if that Monday night Raw match wasn't bad enough, they're going to run it back like, oh, I'm all over rage. But not, not that match. That's not gonna be. That's. That's what. I'll be using the restroom or taking a break for a little bit. I think every single person on the face of this planet watching their pay per view is not watching that match. Even Nikki Bell is gonna take a break during that. Yeah, Nikki Bell is like, sorry guys, I'm gonna walk you to the ring, but then I gotta go. Yep. Let's move on to some card market high spots here before our guest joins us. So we. Ryan mentioned it before Randy Orton goes tweets he's going to give him his gear or entitled to the gear. Ryan, being the gentleman that he is, declines it. But I just want to like you've seen Sam Roberts from wwe. You've seen every hobby publication. Ones we do like, ones we don't like, covering this. We've seen everybody and their mother going and just reacting so positively and so incredibly to this sale. Like how cool like we're gonna. If we get to the title match topic at the end. I'll, I'll. We'll give you some more time about like the chase versus posting it on social media. But like how did this feel in the moment knowing that you were the center of the hobby universe for your 15 minutes of fame here? Yeah, it was like 30 seconds of fame, but it was still, it was still an awesome moment. No, I did not expect it to go as viral as it did did. I think Karathi Talents is going up against me, Kevin and I Talked about this last week. No, never in a million years. Thought I was going up against him and the bidding. So it was an awesome moment for me. Obviously, I was out to dinner with my family when I won the winning bid, getting in my car to drive home, and I'm, like, waiting to drive off because I'm, like, watching it down to the second, and I was thoroughly thrilled it went for the price. It did. So. But just to see how much coverage chops it on this. How. I think Bleacher Report picked it up. I think Sports Illustrated did an article. Carlton Towns is talking about it. Then you got Randy Orton chiming in. This tweet came at, like, literally, I think five minutes into the. While you were recording, I texted Kevin. I was like, he. I don't know if he has his phone when he. No, I don't. In here, I don't have my phone. The only time I detach it from my body is when we're recording this podcast. My other podcast is always next to me, so. But no. So that was even wild. Like, Neil was putting it on the glass right here. Like, read this as I'm like, Kevin's talking to me, and I'm like, mouth dropped everything. So. But yeah, it's, you know, in my head. So people. The right people got could. Randy and I connected, essentially, and we just started chatting about the card, essentially. Am I okay to talk about this here, or do you want me to say this for later? Talk about it? Okay, I didn't know because you said we talk about more. I'll just speak real quick. So we were just chatting a little bit about that, about Kara Thinning about, you know, the bounty he had put out and just kind of just shooting. And then he brought up, hey, so I tweeted this out, you know, because you were the winning bidder. You know, the gear is yours. And, you know, my response essentially was like I talked about earlier is, hey, you know, I'm a collector, essentially. Collect your stuff. Collect a lot of things. And I respect one collector to another. I know you collect your own stuff. I just wouldn't feel right taking it. I think he was. His response was, wow, thank you. Essentially, kind of like on the lines, I owe you one. I'm like, you don't owe me anything, man. You know, thank you. And it's just a great conversation to have with him. And. And that's all. Go into about it again. There was just a little couple things we chatted about, but it was just the opportunity to kind of run back talking to him, I think he was more in shock that he felt when he found out that I won. He was like, no effing way. You actually won this. He won it. And then that's kind of his words to me. So it was just cool. And again, we may never. We may or may not chat again, but I. It belonged home with him. And it would have been so cool to have something like that. But I got what I wanted. I got the card I wanted. I got to meet my favorite wrestler of all time. I got to have him in my shop. I got to have him spend time with my family, and I got to him, it just. How much more do I really need? Do I really need? Like, exactly like, I got everything. And I then some. And that was all, again, thanks to tops fanatics and the team there, the marketing team who really made this possible. And I. And I thanked him over and over. And I've been talking to him while this story has been going on because I've been getting hit up from the. Well, when this went down from those people and they were just like, congratulations, we just found out. I know it's hush right now. You haven't made it public. And then I believe it was Zach from the Twitter, the X. Okay. Braining social media team. He hit me up while I'm in Dallas and was like, hey, congratulations. Is there any way we can promote this? That it's, you know, that you got this card? I was like, sure. He's like, do you have a picture with it? I said, I do. It's actually from when it first got signed. Holding it. I'll have it any day this week. So he's like, do you care if we post this? Like, not at all. So it's awesome what they wrote up about me. Very small, big collector about it, but again, just 30 seconds of fame. We're good. I'm. I'm myself. I'm happy. I. I got the card. It's coming home. It's. It's been a full circle. It's by like, the trash sisterhood, the traveling pants with this card, I guess, is traveling the world just to get back home to me. So, again, awesome moment, and it's just great to get into chat with Randy about it. And I'm glad. He was just so cool about everything, man. Really was. Yeah. And I so happy for you in that respect. And so on the heels of this, then everybody else starts to recognize, okay, maybe. Maybe we didn't put like, like, let's. Let's we. You and I. Let's take a step back. You and I have said for a long time these cards are going to be exceptionally important cards. I don't think people really recognize that until last week there were a handful of people that agreed with us like oh yeah, this is going to be crazy and whatever. But like the general wrestling collector I don't think really had an idea of how important these cards were. These, the historic moments that these cards are tied to. Now. Granted, Randy Orton had a match with Joe Hendry. It wasn't exactly his crowning WrestleMania achievement, but it was still a big moment at his 20th WrestleMania. So on and so forth. So after all this goes down, the bounties start flying right. You've got CM Punk at 30k. You've got Rio Ripley at. I think it was like 50k or something like that. Then you've got John Cena. Jameson put out one for 75k. Then it was increased to $110,000 by neighborhood card Shop. Shout out to nature loves you like that's the top bounty for John Cena. I think we all agree that that card is, is the card of the product. Now that it's up to $110,000, it's a hundred thousand cash and ten thousand in credit from Neighborhood Card Shop. They're a big breaker on Fanatics Live. I, I think it'll continue to go up. I think it'll continue to be something that if it makes it to auction with fanatics or with golden or with another auction house, this could set records. And I think you've mentioned before you think it will. I think I'm absolutely on that train. I'm just curious what your thoughts are that. Yeah, if this goes public to an auction house of any type, may it be Fanatics Golden. Crazy. We sell the Horton on ebay, but ebay, you know, something like that. That. Yeah. Yes. I am confident that this will break the rocks record as well as the quote unquote Hogan record. I think this will be the highest selling wrestling card in history. And one thing to put in perspective again there, this is the closest thing that you're going to get to a type of a logo man. Essentially because obviously there's no, no such thing as an MLB logo, NFL logo, NBA hockey, etc. These are revolutionary. It is the first of its kind. Yes, we know we're getting many every year. We're going to get SummerSlam, we get debuts, we're going to get all that. But this is the first of its kind like you alluded to, wasn't A big match. It wasn't to me it wasn't about the match. It was about what this is. First of a kind obviously sign in front of me. But back to the Cena is that this is the only WrestleMania patch match fought that we're going to get. I would hope that we're not going to have one that he put on his suit because he was there from the WrestleMania this year. But this would should be the only possible patch to ever exist of Cena on top of the fact that it was his last WrestleMania, on top of the fact that it was the record breaking 17 championship. So I got to think this is going to beat both those. I know several people that I are close to are going to be bidding. Maybe I'll even go in on it. I don't know. I'm not a huge scene the guy but I respect and understand what this stands for. When the background that you and I have and Adam collecting other sports for all the years. We know how rare logo men type cards are logo men, women at this point. Yes. And because this is the first of its kind, think about zero, three or four exquisite. Think about that stuff. Think about ultimate when it first came thinking all these other things when they had logo and what those worth now of even some of the lesser tier people. This again is something that will be replicated. But this is again at the end of the day first of its kind. I've held this card. I know what they look like. They're beautiful cards. They are amazing. They did a great job. I'm excited to see what the Cena goes for and I hope it gets a chance to go auction because it needs to go to auction. Yeah. And I, I, I have to believe that. So let's, let's play the game then this way. If you pulled Cena now, you and I have differing perspectives on this because you've said this is a card you're hunting. It's, it's not. I only collect one person. And so if I pulled Cena, I think there is zero chance I send it anywhere but one of the major auction houses. I let it play out in the public eye. I would get offers from anybody. And unless somebody blew me away with like a quarter of a million dollar offer like it's going to one of the big auction houses, it's going to get marketed to the largest degree that a WWE card has ever gotten marketed to before. So even if it sells for less than the offer is that I get it still puts that card at the front and center of everything that is going on in that premier auction for that time frame. Right. So I want to see this go to public sale. I want to see it go to just for the publicity of it. Um, obviously if. If it was a card in hand and somebody throws a crazy offer at me, it's going to be for that type of money. Really hard to turn down. But you know, I'm curious you. You've. You may have a different perspective on that. Well, I. I am now buying some cena spots and breaks. I ripped a couple more cases yesterday. I don't want to talk about it first roll fight clubs. You don't talk about it. I ripped several cases now. I finally took me. I'm not going to talk about it. But yeah, I don't. Things I don't tell you all the time. But obviously if I were to pull this card, it would not see auction. I would keep it. I would. And if I pulled any debut patch unless it was to somebody, I'm a sorry debut mania patch. If I pulled anybody that it would probably keep it unless I knew that person I was friends with. That's a true collector. I mean just. I would think it'd be cool just to say I pulled one of them. I mean that would be the coolest thing ever. That's why I'm ripping it. Obviously I know what I'm getting every time I rip one of these boxes. Nice kick in the nuts. But I'm trying to pull one of these cards and that's the gamble we all take when we're ripping or join and break. So different in my set. I think I'd keep it because I think that card will be worth more long term. I think all of these will be worth more long term because in the sports world compared to the wrestling card world, it is apples to oranges. There is no comparison. Wrestling cards are here and other stuff is up here. This gap is so big that it. It'll never be that like this, but the gap's so big that these should be worth more money. They really should. This is. I mean you mentioned. Yeah, you mentioned that these are kind of like the logo men type of. I think that's the way Top sees it too. Yeah. And I think that's the way collectors will eventually see it. Because I have to believe more are coming. I have to believe that, you know, it's the SummerSlam patches are not one offs. Right. Like we already know that those are coming because they wore them on the boots and we saw them. So we know that they're happening and they're cool. Like these cards are cool. And because WWE gear doesn't have kind of like that logo that MLB jersey and NBA jersey and NFL jersey has like, that makes this very much the premier experience for a collector to own. So I agree with you there. All right, let's move on to Sapphire. I was very skeptical coming into Sapphire because last year you and I have talked about this on the podcast before and you mentioned it Last Week with Kevin 2025 Sapphire was was not great. And I think the lawsuit with WWE and fanatics no, I'm sorry, WWE and Panini I mistaken. That pushed the Fanatics license up a year. So they were maybe scrambling to get sets like this. Online exclusives to to to market did not work out. This year, on the other hand, feels completely different. What are your thoughts so far on Sapphire having now a week of it under your belt? Well, I've ripped some with the family. We the cards are beautiful. First off, the the cars themselves look amazing. I I'm way better than last year. 10 times better. Oh, there's of course Becky just randomly a Sapphire card sitting there like he was prepar. Yeah. So I just opened my mail way it's way such a big step up. The autograph content's much better. The case hits are much better. The overall feel when you're ripping it 10 times better. So they definitely knew they had more time to get this prep to get this to be a better release. It's doing great. It's breaking great. You said Blez had a really good case last night that we were in that we got I think Skunk from what it sounds like I didn't get to watch it yet. But overall you were naming some of the stuff that came out. I was like, damn, that's a good case. So again, I'm loving it. I, I, I'm not kind of this year. I think the only thing that I'm not hip on is exalted and I think is because it just got buried. I just don't think it got the opportunity. But everything else they've made, I love it. I love Universe. I love all the chrome. I love the logo Fracture Royalty. I love it at a half the price price point. But we all would at this point. But I'm loving everything at this point that they've done in Sapphire did not disappoint. Compared to last year where I take the approach of like it's got to get better. I got to rip this. It's got to get better. It's got to get better. And it didn't get better last year. I don't feel that way this year. I mean, the names overall again are a lot better in my opinion. Yeah, so last year it was just red brand, blue brand, and like the, the Legends autographs I think were the three sets that they own, nxt. So they had four of the autograph sets. This year it's like a full product. Now there's not as much of it, right. Because I think there's only about 1,000 cases versus like 3,000, 4,000 cases of each of the other configurations. So it's much, much more of a limited run. But man, these case hits look awesome. The Infinite Sapphire or Sapphire Infinite, whatever you want to call it, those cards specifically. And they are impossible to pull, but they are absolutely gorgeous cards. The Sapphire selections finally make their debut in wwe. We don't have the autograph versions yet, but you can't sort of like jump from 0 to 100 really fast. Hopefully next year they start ramping things up even further. But I thought Sapphire this year was a thousand percent better than it was last year. They have the marks of champions, they have main events, they have the Legends autographs, they have the base variation autographs which were so rare last year that you could barely pull them. And they've got full, it's like a full checklist and it's great. It's great. So that breeds my next question. Rank the five configurations and we could even say six because value boxes and mega boxes. But rank the five, Hobby Delight, Retail, Logo, Fracture and Sapphire. Where do you rank each of those configurations on the chart here? So I'm going to put this perspective when I think about this is the product overall and the cost of the product. Okay. Logo Fracture number one. Logo Fracture dominated at the price that came out, even at the prices, still was number one because the content was loaded with all the one on ones. It was probably one of the best pound for pound rips in almost history of wrestling cards because they just did not make enough logo fractures. One Delight would be number two for me. Love the delight. It's a little more pricey, but I mean I'm, I've had boxes where I'm just like, wow, all three of these autos came out plus this number to two, all this stuff. So July would be two for me. I want to give Sapphire number three because of the look right now because the way it's trending. So I'm going to go three on Sapphire. It's still early. I want to See more of it. But I'm going to give a notch over hobby. I love the hobby, but the problem is about hobby. And I've been in a lot of mixer breaks lately with like delight Hobby royalty is man. Some of these hobby boxes, I'm like, really? Those two autos were in there, but I've seen other ones. I'm like, holy crap. Like James Jameson. Yes. With the rock in his box. I'm like, what the heck? Like, I'm watching these cases. I'm seeing Chad Gable and no offense, like a jade cargo come out. Not awful, but like. But then I'm seeing, you know, other crazy boxes. So I'm going to give royal to hobby there. And then obviously retail just because it is a lot harder to pull. But the retail, don't get me wrong, could give hobby run for its money. From the content I've seen between super autos coming out between garbage pail kids case hits numbered, not number ones. Overall, they're all great skus. This year I still want to give logo fracture number one because I got to rip some. We've carried it. The price point, what I've seen come out of it, all the autograph variations were in there. Super fractures. Sorry. Wow. So to me, that would be my ranking. I love to hear yours. I. So I'll. I'll consider it from the same perspective here from price versus content. And I think my only difference, give or take, is that I put delight number one. I think even though it's crazy expensive right now, like just the ripping experience alone of ripping a delight box and I ripped the case. So like I. I know what it's like. Like you can, you can easily walk away not feeling great at the price that it is, but it is still so much fun. Speaking of delight, before I get on, one thing about the delight that the other ones don't offer is something you, me and Brett talk about a lot. The G Black geometrics. Okay. That's where I was going. Oh, look at that. Look at our heads. It's like linked. I'll be talking about everything. Yeah. So I think my favorite cards, my favorite cards in all of chrome. And I just got in the marks of champion out of two as well. The black geometrics. I call them the black finites because that's basically what they are. Beautiful cards are just. They are as like. Like if you go back to elite, back at the beginning of 2023, they had those sort of like cracked ice black cards for one on ones. The one year I think these are. They're so nice. And like, I think these black geometric cards from. From Delight are just some of the most gorgeous cards that Topps has ever made. I am a fiend for super fractures. I collect super fractures. I just got my 19th of the MIN for Becky Lynch. I'll talk about that here in a minute. But like, those black geometric cards are so cool. And so that alone combined with the ripping experience, I don't think the cost is out of whack as much as it used to be. So I'm putting Delight number one. I'm going to put. Actually I'm put Sapphire number two. I wasn't a humongous fan of logo fractures. Just kind of limited autograph checklists, even though I think the cards look really nice. And like we're, we're splitting hairs here because all of these are some of the best stuff that Topps makes. So like, don't. Just because retail is number five or whatever here doesn't mean it's not absolutely awesome this year because everything here, it's like the best of the best of the best. I loved Logo Fracture. I think Sapphire. The cards I love Cracked Ice. Sapphire just does that so well. The blue looks really good. The autographs look great. The black Cracked Ice looks awesome. Out of tens, like, I love what Sapphire. The. The case hit Infinite Sapphire, one of the best case hits. Design wise. I think that the tops makes. I love the look of those cards in hand. And then I'll go Logo Fracture hobby and then I'll go retail for the same reasons that you did. I think Hobby. If none of these other configurations existed, I would have been happy with Hobby. Like, I don't want to make it seem like it's a. It's a shitty configuration because it was really fun. I opened I think six boxes of it. It was great. But nothing compares to Delight. Nothing compares to those black geometric cards. Even I like. I almost like them better than the Super Fractures. But I'm not gonna go that far. If, if you're listening to this right now or whenever you listen to us, keep in mind right now, ripping the Hobby more or less and ripping obviously the retail skus. Good time to rip right now because the buyback program is still going on. Yes. With Roman and live that way where it makes like, hey, go rip a blaster for 30 bucks. Pull one of the base. That's 20 bucks right back there. Plus the chance. What else you get? So something. Keep in mind that's added value until that promotion runs, which I think it runs to July sometime. I'd have to look at the data closer. So keep that in mind because it's a good price point hobby. I think it was a little bit like 3 to 350 a box now and add a bonus because in a year from now they're going to be 500 plus and you're not going to get that buyback. Yeah. And I went to Bleecker Trading, one of the shops in New York just to see what is down the street from fanatic. And like I got a blaster there just to, you know, support the cause or whatever. I pulled one of the Roman Reigns or two of the Roman Reigns base cards in one blaster and duvet money for another blaster. Yeah. And then he's probably lost some of the other blasters. Yeah. So let's, let's move on to some big sales here because we have our guest joining us here in about 10 minutes. A double, a triple dose of John Cena here at the top. We'll start with the two big ones. One, the Super Fractor John Cena. One of one Chrome from 2025. This is the one where he has the microphone in his hand. He's dressed up as a doctor of thuganomics. I think this is the base one. It might be the base. I can't remember which one. Yeah, I think this is the base one. Went for $5,000 via best offer. We know who the owner is. I'm not going to spoil it right now, but I'm sure they will make themselves known on Instagram and they're close to us. So I think like a huge, huge number on the what I believe is the base. John Cena. It's a great looking photo. Great. That was sold via Best Offer on ebay. Then very shortly after that, another super fracture. This one was a PSA8 sold via best offer very shortly after $3,800. We had one go for 5,000. That was the base. Then you have the variation that went for 3,800. That's the one where he has the spinner title. It looks like one of the later spinner title victories that he had. Still a great looking card. But these have gone up about a 1300 bucks or 1400 bucks for a variation. Because I had one of these and I sold it for like 2500 back at the end of his retirement tour. They've gone up even more since then. Yeah, I actually have one as well graded. It might be an 8 as well. From my hidden. A blessed pack along really hard for it in my national Stash. So I will have mine available at the National. I don't remember which variation is but yeah, no, this is great to see. Obviously, these things are getting, these cards are getting more love. The variations were super hard to hit for the base and then the only parallel they had were the one on one super fractured. So I think, you know, obviously the name Cena, but yeah, I mean, I, I, I kind of get behind these for what they are then very, very quickly after. So this happened yesterday as we are recording. The one of one foil fractor was sold via auction out of China. That's how it ended. Yeah, it ended. Oh, I was watching this to bid. I didn't realize it ended. Yeah, it ended yesterday. I was going to bid on it too. Epic fail by me. Way to go, Ryan. So it was. Now I will give the caveat. It was won by an account with 46 feedback or something like that. So you may get another shot at. Was being auctioned out of China. 2650. This is the foil fracture one of one with the inscription the last time is now John Cena autograph out of 2026 tops universe or 2025 tops universe. This is probably one of my favorite Cena photos. Favorite Cena inscriptions. Like, this card is absolutely gorgeous. Somebody got a steal. Somebody got to get in my opinion. Yeah, I think the China like having to import the card into China. Short subject. Serenity now. Serenity now. The having to import this in is probably what kept it. It ended at a weird time too. I think so, yeah. Steel for sure. This was. I expected this one to go. I thought I had a couple days left. So I was going to bid on it and try to add it to my collection. And I epically failed. Yep, you did. We also had a big Roxanne Perez sale. It's labeled as 3250. It's not. It went for her super fractor red brand autograph with the prodigy inscription. Amazing looking card. Sold for $6,100 via auction. Again, caveat here. Won by an account with like 56 feedback or something like that. So I don't know if this was a real sale. I assume it was. It hasn't been realisted, but it sold two days ago as we're recording $6,100. Huge, huge sale for Roxanne Perez. This is her biggest ever. You mean talk about it. It's like you looked at me like, oh, my God. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's a big sale. We'll see if it actually gets paid for. If it's one of the hacker accounts, wherever you like to call them. The what? The. Now the terrorists are. No. Yeah. Beautiful. Carlo. Love the inscription. Just looking at these, it just. I really appreciate what tops did this year by giving all that white space to really encourage more inscriptions. Every time I see one of these, I'm like, yep. That was used to its satisfaction. Yep. I don't know if Chad actually ended up with this. I want to say he might have. This is the Gunther. I don't remember. This is the Gunther. One of one. Crowning achievements. Acetate auto one of one. He's holding the crown from King of the Ring. Awesome looking card. There is another one with an inscription. Another one of one that I believe he did get because I. I saw him post it. But Gunther3250 via best offer on ebay sold about a few days ago. One of the bigger sales in Royalty so far, I believe outside of. That's not a Wrestlemania patch, obviously. Yeah. But these tastes look beautiful. The platinum on them. These really pop. Love this. Chad, kudos to you for getting in front of Gunther years ago because right now I feel like every week there's somebody in this space that wants to buy Gunther cards. So if you won this, congrats. If you didn't, I think this. I. I just don't know. Like, I don't. His markets change so much. So again, Chad would know it best than anybody. So I don't know if this was the right number, the wrong number. I really don't know. On this one. I. I feel it's right where I. Where I would put it. It's a great looking card. I think the. The acetate cards in Royalty only have the one parallel, which I think is the one of one. They don't have like all the. The gamut of parallels here, but like. Like I have you. You pulled one of the Becky lynch ones you sold. I. I have a couple of them now. But those cards are absolutely awesome looking. You have them like acetate for me when they were in Immaculate in the Panini era. Like, I. I loved those cards. When acetate is done well, it's really hard to beat. Yep. 100%. Right. Big card in. Not just in the price, but in the size of it because it is an oversized card. The 2019 transcendent dual cut autograph of Macho Man, Randy Savage and Sherri Martell. If you're. If your name is Steve and we know a Steve, this is. This is a card for you because it is the cut they used is Inscribed. I think that these oversized cut cards are going to have a disadvantage on the market because they are oversized. They're five by seven, I believe, or maybe even I can't even remember. But they're bigger than a more normal card size. They're the size of the Garbage Pail Kids. Sketch cards. Like, all of them are generally that same size. I have the transcendent one from 2021 with the Four Horsewomen on it, the 101. So all of these oversized cards from Transcendent traditionally don't sell as well as the single sort of traditional cards. But that doesn't mean they're not valuable because this one went for $3,000. Best offer earlier this week. I think this is probably one of the biggest ones in the entire set. I think the fact that it's a dual cut makes it a little bit less so than just a single Macho man, because there is a single Macho man one as well. But, like, I remember when these came out, we were floored by these cards. They are beautifully done, though. I mean, I'll give them that again. I. I wish the cuts would have been a little bit better on them. I get. You know, it's. It's challenging at times to find some of those ones, but I. I will give it the fact that the autographs outside of good old Steve getting cut off is they're both within the center picture. Right. And you've got the imaging, so pretty rare card. Obviously, these were box toppers back then when they did 2019 transcendent. So to me, 3000 bucks seems like a fair buy. I mean, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty good. I mean, it's going to be probably the only dual autograph card ever made, I would assume, even though it's not the size of a card. But I got to think that's one of the rares. I don't think Macho Man's going to have cards for a long time, if ever. I know, like, if. If they're going to do cuts in Dynasty or if they're going to do cuts in a future version of Royalty, like, I really hope they pony up the dough to get the Macho man license back because, like, we need more Macho man cards. We do. And because he's just such a, I think, iconic figure in wrestling, like, as big as Hulk Hogan was in the 80s. Like, macho man in the 90s with the slim Jim ads. Like, he's still on the commercials. It's 2026, so like, it's like, those are the types of things that I think, you know, define professional wrestling in the earlier eras of time collecting and stuff like that. The WCW cards, obviously, enormously popular. His card is probably the most expensive of all of them. Eddie Guerrero's up there too on that one. I think Eddie might be a notch higher. I can't remember. I do have. They're varying quantities of all of them. Yes. Rarer, the more expensive they are. I know I'm not. I. This is not my favorite set, so I don't know a lot about it. But, like, the. The Macho man card goes for a ton in high grades. I. I have a PSA eight, if I'm correct. I think it's an eight. I don't think. Yeah, pretty sure it's an eight. So I have one in my collection. I still need Eddie Guerrero. I need a Mr. Perfect. There's a couple ones I like to get added that kind of fit the mold of my. Because I'm like, I don't want to cut of those guys. Like. Like, I got a Rowdy Piper heritage auto for like, 05. But I'm like, I don't want a sticker one. Years later. I don't want a. A cut. So cool. Our special guest has just joined us, so we're going to pause and introduce our guests. We'll come back. We're going to go through everything. Mike from MC Sports Cards is joining us. Can't wait to have this discussion. There's a lot of reason why he's going to join us beyond just having a consignment business that aligns to a lot of the things that we're talking about as wrestling collectors now entering a space where consignments are going to be a big thing, but also because of his relationship with Ryan and sort of what they were able to achieve. Really excited to have him on. Then we're going to also talk about some of the awesome sponsors that we have coming up for Wrestling Card Takeover. So I'm excited to have that on. We'll be right back. All right, so here we are. We're back with our special guest today. This is a longtime friend of mine. It's somebody I'm very close to in the hobby and been very close to for a long time. It is unfortunately, my honor joking to introduce my great friend, Mike Cancer of MC Sports Cards. Mike, thanks for coming on the show today, man. How's it going? Appreciate you guys having me excited. So I gotta ask, what's your favorite wrestling match? Of all time. Next question. This is great to listen. Like, all right, I'm done with this guy, so. All right, I, I enjoy, you know, I see clips on Instagram reels and everything, but I, I can't say I've watched much wrestling, unfortunately, but it does look very, very entertaining. Okay, well, it is. And, and you know how my much, my love is for wrestling, so I think you appreciate just a little bit. So. So we got Mike here today again. Mac and I go way back. I don't know how many years I've known you now. 13, 14, I don't know, ever since you were a teenager. I'm getting old now. You're getting old, but as you are as well. But let's hear go a little bit back. How did you get in the cards and where did you start your business from? What, why you got into this space? You know, let the listeners know a little bit more about you. Yeah, so I, I always collected cards as a kid. You know, I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I would just build sets, go to, you know, Target, Walmart, buy the retail product to build the base set. Just kind of got obsessed with it since then and slowly grew it into doing some shows and online wheeling and dealing and then, you know, ebay and the national and, you know, just kind of like a big snowball effect over the last almost 20 years or so now. But yeah, I mean, ever since I got into it, I've always been obsessed with cards. You know, a lot of people take a break for a few years or they get back into it like during COVID but feel like I just never stopped. And I've been obsessed with it since like 2005 or 6. But yeah, I've known Ryan since, I want to say at least 2012 or 13, but almost 15 years, give or take. Yeah, it's been a long time. So I, I say this about Mike and I tell anybody this, and not just because Mike's here right now. You are the hardest working person I know. Not just in this industry, in life, nobody works harder than you. Again, that will change one day when you, when you have children with your wife. I'm telling you it will, it will one day. But I, I, I praise Mike all the time because, man, I thought I worked hard for years. Mike makes me look like I don't do anything. So again, kudos to Mike. You've built your brand up. You now have NC sports cards, which is what you've been known for for a long time. But you have your consignment business now, which has really blossomed on ebay for, over the past, I don't know how many years you've had it now. Why don't you tell a little bit more about, about the consignment business and more about what the listeners can know about you in the business. Yeah, well, appreciate the nice words. I know, you know, on camera you gotta be nice. So I can. No, I appreciate it. So, yeah, I've always been an ebay seller. I've had the account since 2008 when I was 13 years old. So, oh my God. Had the account for over half of my life. But, you know, always just sold my own cards and casually bought and sold. And then in about say 20, 20, 20, 21, you know, eBay came to us and said, hey, you're doing some really good numbers and you know, let's try to get to this level and this level. And we realized the only way we can get there is through consignment. So we just kind of did it on the side with some of our friends and just people we deal with a lot and saying, hey, do you want to send us some stuff? And you know, it ended up really taking off from there to where we made a whole platform and a website and you know, have thousands and thousands of clients. And basically our, our specialty is usually more on the high end side for ebay. You know, we do handle a lot of volume as well. And in bulk, you know, we're running about a thousand to twelve hundred items a night. And you know, average sale price is about $300, which some competitors in the industry, you know, some people focus more on the bulk, which they're better at. And you know, we try to take that high end approach. And, and by high end, you know, I mean, a couple hundred dollars and up is usually better to go with us there. But you know, in us offering more services on the high end side, it allows us to process people's cards way quicker. And you know, Ryan can agree with this. Like every package he sends us is usually up within two or three business days. And you know, we, we've always kept that standard over the years and really push to try to keep that standard. So, you know, there's lots of options with consignment. And we're good in a lot of areas. We're not the best in certain areas. We're not the worst certain areas. We try to just kind of grip onto our strengths and turnaround time and customer service and everything is some of the stuff that we really focus on. Yeah. And I think, like, so from my perspective, because Ryan and you guys have had a great relationship. For somebody like me that's been a collector more than somebody that does a lot of selling, I. I haven't been exposed to this space as much. And I think, like, it's totally interesting to me sort of how this all works. And I think in a space like wrestling cards, we're just approaching the fringe of the mainstream. We're just getting to that point where, you know, auctions that are on ebay are on the major auction houses are just reaching that public visibility side where, hey, maybe me as a guy with a thousand feedback isn't the right vehicle to sell one of these cards. Maybe we want to go with somebody who has this well established business model. Tons of feedback, tons of great positioning, great marketing. Like, for somebody like me who doesn't know a lot about how consignment works, doesn't understand the process, like, what would you say to introduce people to this format here? Yeah. So I always like to say, you know, first of all, let me preface this as people will come to us and say, why should we sell with you instead of do it ourselves? And I'm never one to sit there and knock all the reasons why you shouldn't do it yourself. Some people enjoy it all that. But with that being said, basically, with the payout rates that we offer, if your card is over 150, you're actually getting more money from our 88% payout than if you sold it yourself on your account. Because I, I think huge. Well, 0.9% versus 12 right there. It only gets better on, on our side as you, as the value goes up. So that, that's like the biggest thing that I tell people, because that is black and white. There's. There's no opinion or anything there. It's. Yes, you would get more just by default. And then from there, you know, you don't do any work, any shipping, any listing. All the only work you do is put them in the box, fill out a quick thing on our site, and ship them. So, you know, when you factor all that and if you have a hundred cards, you know, doing it on your own when you're casual, it takes a while. Yeah. Might take you, you know, hell of a lot longer than it, it would for us. So, you know, there, there's all the benefits from that side. And then on top of that, you know, we do have tens of thousands of buyers who regularly check our store and know kind of every night there's going to be consistent volume and cool stuff. So you know, a lot of those people are always going to look at our store but they're not always going to see somebody who may only do once a month auctions on their page or randomly auction stuff. So that's kind of the selling point I use of like you just get paid more by using us anyways and. Yeah, and it's gotta be pretty easy, right? You see, you may. I went on your site, I was gonna send some cards your way. I don't, I, I'm not sure if they're gonna reach the $300 level but because most of the stuff that's above that, I'm, I, it's on the shelf behind me. But it's like, you know, I think for people to understand like this is a pretty easy process. It's literally just a couple of questions on the website. Put it in a box, send it off and your team handles the rest. Yeah, I mean that's it really all you can even just put the quantity. We have an option that you don't even have to type out each card that you're sending. You just put 50 cards or something. So as long as you have 30 seconds to count and fill it out, it's pretty much all the work you gotta do besides shipping it. Yeah. You've got a user friendly website where the seller can watch all their listings through your website. It's very friendly. You installed this, what was it? Well over a year ago. Two years ago. When did you install your website again? I can't remember. It's been over a year. I know that. Yeah, it's, I want to say going to be two years in July. Okay. And this links to ebay directly is what this is. Yep. So pretty much the, the user experience we're aiming for and you know, we're really getting there. There's, it's a lot, a lot of work and a lot more to be done. But we basically want it to be like when you're using us or you're on our site, it's the same as if you're using ebay, but you're just piggybacking through us. So like our fixed price program, I know Ryan has used it many times before and like you know, you can go on our site, reprice your item and it instantly changes the price. On ebay, you know, you get a best offer, you get a text and an email saying new offer, you clear the link, you go on the site, you accept the offer, accepts on ebay counter, you know, decline all that. So really like the goal is to make it so there is no difference to you guys using us versus your own eBay besides not doing any work. Like some people don't like consigning because they're missing out on doing things as buy it now or they're missing out on instantly knowing where when an offer comes in or not having to wait for somebody to tell them or things like that. So we're, we're trying to bring all of that into like a all in one service. So what, what would you say like for people who may not as be as familiar with the whole process, like what is one of the biggest misconceptions about consignment that you guys deal with on a regular basis? Like what is if somebody comes to you and says, you know something that they don't really grasp about the process, what would you sort of point out? Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand like the fee structure and that there actually is a service that can provide better payouts than you doing it yourself. So I think a lot of people assume there's like fine print or there's some hidden fees or it's just too good to be true. You know, that that's more on the consignment side. And I think there still is a misconception that some people don't like ebay. Some people think ebay is not the best option for certain cards. And you know, there are cards that are better on other platforms and there's cards that are better on ebay. But I think people just you know, assume ebay means shillers and fee and too many fees and non payers and too much bs and in reality like you know, our unpaid rate is maybe less than 2% or something. Wow. Yeah. And that's become a big, a big problem for us in wrestling. They vet pretty well to eliminate. No, you're good. I was just praising how you guys do a good job of vetting to make sure that majority of your visitors are legit. Like they have to get through, they can't have certain things on their account strikes or whatever. So you know, we do a lot with Mike and we actually had a really big ebay top seller account not to anywhere near Mike's but something we were proud of. We built for years. We got rid of it. We don't even use it. We just sell in shop website and then I send a bunch of stuff to Mike. I try to send stuff out every week, week and a Half. And then I put some better stuff on and it's great. I don't have to deal with the messages. I don't deal with anything. They deal with it all. I, it's great. The money just gets thrown in my account. So again, I want to say they do a really good job of getting rid of the, as Adam would call the terrorists is what he would like to call them. So yeah, yeah, the messages, you know, alone. If you dabble with ebay yourself and sell a decent bit, the messages alone should be your, your motivation. Worth. Yeah, worth. Worth going through you guys so you don't have to mess with it. So yeah. So then once the auctions are done, there's an account that you create as part of the, the website experience. Money gets deposited into that account or I believe it's like sent out, right? Automatically, if that's the option that you choose. Yeah. So basically you, you know, I'll walk you through quickly on the process here. So yeah, please go on the site. You create a submission. Kind of like if you were sending cards to get graded, you know, you print the paperwork, ship us the package, we receive it. You get notified that we received the package usually within a one to three business days. You get notified that your items are scheduled and that's when you could see them on the site and you could see the start date and the title and you know, you have the ability to view and edit your titles and submit requests and everything and then the items go live, usually for seven day auction. So you'll get notified on that via text and email. You track your items in real time. You log on right now and if Your item's at $84, that's it. You get a, you get a bid for $85. It's going to update right away, so there's no lag there, which is cool. And then once your items end, it basically sums up all your fees and your sales prices and you just log on, click the submission and all the math is done, you know what you're getting. And then you could see the statuses of like what was paid and what wasn't paid. And then the funds just get released throughout, you know, usually about a week. It's, we do partial payouts now to get people money quicker. So usually in about a week you're completely paid on your submission. And anytime along the way, when you have funds in your account, you can go on and request a payout straight to your bank, PayPal, check, wire, really anything. That's awesome. So one of the reasons that we wanted to have you on as well is because of a recent situation that you and Ryan found yourselves in. Do you guys want to talk through that? Yeah, I mean, basically, yeah. Why don't you tell us a little about wrestling cards while you're here, Mike? Yeah. Yeah. So I know about one. You do know about one. Yes, you do. So I again, I have a. Ebay's fine, you know, but you have to get approved sometimes when it comes to building a higher price. That happened years ago. And because Mike has such a great standing ebay account and I can sign with them a lot. So basically I have funds in there at times or I go negative or whatever based on what he bought me at the time. Because most time I don't cash out. He gets my money for either whatever one way, shape or form. So basically I knew I was going to feel comfortable having Mike place the bids. Preventing any issues may have been like, you can't bid on this card or just anything. I wanted to prevent anything because I wanted to win this card. So called Mike about it, told him, he's like, sure, whatever you want to do. So we put a bid on that Saturday before it closed the Monday. Luckily that bid was enough. And then I gave another bid on Monday, which was way more. He thought I was crazy. So luckily it did not go to that limit. But. So Mike essentially handled the purchase of this particular card, which we've talked about tirelessly at this point. But Mike, do you by chance have that card on hand anywhere in the close to you? I do. Should I say show it for me? Hold it up to the camera? Yeah, there. There he is. It showed up today. It is the Randy Orton WrestleMania patch auto that I am now the proud owner of. Thanks again to Mike for making it possible in MC Sports Cards. So essentially, in a way, we did kind of a cash advance on this. Essentially. Even though I had some money in there, I'm consigning more with you every week. Why don't we go a little bit about how that works with you and stuff like that. So the opportunity that you gave me and now that you're like here, don't even worry about wiring me. You're just going to consign with us. Yeah, so we, we do offer a service. It's. It's not, you know, kind of publicly posted yet, but we've always done it and behind the scenes and, you know, basically we called. It's called funding, I guess is the formal term now and very, very. So, you know, we do have people who approach us and say hey I'm looking to buy this item for this price and can you guys front the money and in exchange I'm going to consign X. You know we have a lot of people who do that with us and it allows them to buy cards that they might not be able to buy on their own for various reasons or you know people who just want to turn cards they don't really care about into something that they do care about. So like in Ryan's case the cards that he's going to turn into this card are just not anything special to try to use the right word. Trust me, it does be no good here. Essentially things like that. It's, I'm literally like it's my goal when I'm not traveling to get you a run out every week. I'm getting you another one this week actually auctions going off tonight. I've been watching with you. But essentially I could easily have paid Mike the money. I told him hey let me just pay you the difference. He's like don't worry about it like you'll have this paid off in like two weeks, three weeks as much as you do. So it was nice to know that A it didn't get to the number I was really willing to pay but B that it was like cool. I can it more or less it's like a, like a trade essentially over time, you know, let them make some money, let them get rid of some stuff that does us no good in our store to go out and buy some stuff because I'm always big on. I let my money try to build up with mc. MC was a big part and I've talked about this, of why we have the building we own right now. I, I raised a lot of money. I built up for I don't know, eight months I think I saved in there, had a really good amount of money and then you guys cash advanced me that rest to buy this building and I gave you and Matt all my LeBrons. You guys went out and sold them and basically I traded cards to buy a building thanks to MC Sports Cards again there's, there's a long history here. Thus now he's just not doing that for anybody. There is a relationship here. It has been a long time. Heck you even lived under my roof for three months back in 2015 or 20. I was 2015 when you were doing an internship here. So. So micro are super close unlike any other. But I'm honored to call him a friend. He is, he's one of a kind. You're one of a kind, Mike. And I say that in the nicest way, but you're genuine. You have a big heart, and you. You look out for your friends, and you're always willing to do anything for the people you care about in life. And you're always about, hey, what can I do to better this hobby? You know, what. What is it the MC can provide that others aren't? And you've got competitors out there, and you get along with these competitors as well. But I think you guys do a really good job distincting yourself from them to you guys and what you're doing with the website you built and you're always innovating. We were talking today. I'm not going to talk about what we talked about, but I was just like, wow, okay. Another step for MC Sports Cards that puts them more to the top, in my opinion. I'm not just saying that because you're a friend, but love what you guys are doing. You have a great team under you. Some we don't get talked about. I've known Moody for a long time, just as long as you. You've got great people under you, and I think a business is always good as the people around them. And I know you stand by your people all the time, and I'm there with you. I love your team and. And I'm proud of you. I really am. And I don't think I've told you enough. I have told you enough. I am generally proud of what Mike has built because I have seen Mike from where he started. He's seen me close to where I started, and him and I have built everything by just working our ass off. And again, I'll stand by it. Nobody has worked their ass off more than any human being on the face of earth that I know than that guy right there. Mike's gonna leave. He's gonna leave this podcast. He's gonna go into another room and expect theme music and stuff. This. This is gonna. This is gonna cost me. I know. I've known. Like I said earlier, I've known Ryan forever. And, you know, to have a friendship with somebody that long and, you know, to consistently be really good friends means a lot. And, you know, obviously, Ryan's great guy and great team, and, you know, him and I just, basically, since we first did that deal on the Machado Bowman Platinum Gold, throwing a flashback still in a little bit about that, but basically, since then, you know, been really, really good friends. And I've got to watch him Take his business from where it was when we first met to where it is now. And I remember the trade nights at in Florissant, Missouri at the shop. Yep. Yeah. Looks how is there any room for it? Trade night there wasn't. It happened but it wasn't. So no. Again Mike, thank you again for, for being a part of this story on the ord and thank you for, for all you do. Another big announcement we wanted to make while Mike was on was Mike is going to be one of our sponsors at Wrestling Car Takeover at the National. So Mike, thank you for being a part of that. We're happy to have you. You'll be our only consigning company that is a part of this. So if you want more information about that again you can tell the listeners a little bit about where they can find you at your website. We kind of talked about what you do but again you will be there some way ship or form. You'll also be set up at the national as well. So just tell the listeners a little bit about that. Yeah. So happy to be a part of the the event at the national and we're going to have some special rates for people who can say I don't know yet if it's going to be just wrestling card related or just consigned because of the event. So there, there will be a benefit there. But yeah to use our, our service you basically just go to mcsportscarts.com and sign up and pretty straightforward from there. You know, if you know how to nice. Follow simple directions. You got it perfectly. Yes thank you so much for, for, for being a sponsor and I you know like for, for a space like this. Right. So you admittedly you're, you're not. Most of the consigners are heavily dominated in the football, basketball, baseball type of space. I think like getting more wrestling collectors exposed to some of the peripheral hobby businesses that really do add a considerable service to. To this is. Is so important. That's one of the main reasons we went to Mike to be a supporter of the event. Not just because of the relationship with Ryan but because I think he offers something that as. As a new growing space and obviously I've had a ton of experience outside of wrestling but others may not have like having the experience of, of understanding the consignment area. Understanding how cards move within this hobby, you know, really improves a lot of experience. We've always said don't collect on an island. I think this relationship that you guys have formed helped and benefited both of you and and the relationship that we'll have as part of this event hopefully will benefit more of the collectors that listen to our podcast. Mike, thanks so much for. For being a sponsor there, and thanks for your support there. Go to Mike's website, mcsportscards.com I actually am a newbie at this, but I figured it out. So if I could figure it out, you guys can as well. Yeah. You also could find us on Instagram if you have any questions along the way. You know, MC Sports cards on Instagram, as well as consign with mc. You know, the team is always monitoring the messages and aims to get back to everybody fairly, fairly quick. So, you know, happy to be a part of the event. Happy to be on. On the show here with you guys. And, you know, the. The more wrestling cards that get sold or consigned just creates more exposure in the space too, because now there's more. More buyers seeing the cards who might not be into wrestling, but they might, you know, find a card cool or, you know, things like that. And we do have a few pretty big wrestling collectors who do consign with us. Most of. Most of them do all sports, so we. We don't see a lot of wrestling from them because they keep that stuff locked away. But we do just sell it. Yeah, we did just sell a really cool. Finest Black out of 10 auto of the Rock yesterday. Wow. Finest set and that. That did about 6,000, which I. I believe our clients very happy. Wow. It seems like a big number. Was it Graydon? It was a PSA8. It was. Oh, wow. One that was pulled at Hobby Rip Night by. Oh, yeah, yeah. The chrome one that Miz pulled. Yeah. Oh, was it. This was at Burbank. This was the actual one. Okay. Did it have the label on there too? The actual. Okay, that's. Okay. That's awesome. You guys ran that? Yeah. You talking wrestling cards. I'm proud of you. Yeah, See, I fit right in. The consigner was, you know, every time the consigner would share on his Instagram page or story, he would, you know, put a slide of the ebay auction and then slide of the miz, like holding the card up that hold it at the Hobby Rip. Right. So pretty. Pretty cool story. I mean, kind of similar to how this guy was signed, you know, at Hobby Rip Night. You know, I guess the. It did something good for the wrestling community and did some different areas that. Creating some chatter. So every card's got a story. Everyone does. So again, thank you, Mike. I appreciate you taking the Time out of your busy day to come on. Have a wonderful vacation because I know you're on that. Take good care of my Randy. I would like him here asap, back in my hands. So. But again, it's been great to have you on. And Again, check out MC Sports Cards, mcsports.com on eBay, Instagram. Hit them up. They're amazing. Mike's amazing. Thank you again. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. All right, huge thanks again to Mike from MC Sports Cards joining us. Love hearing new exposed sort of parts of the hobby that most people in our space maybe don't know too much about. Like we, you heard during the interview, like, yes, these guys may not have direct ties to our community, but obviously now we are getting to a spot where we're going to start making waves and we want to expose these people to Wrestling Cards. We want to expose Wrestling Cards to them. And I think that's one of the main reasons why we're going to be doing a lot of the things we're doing with Wrestling Card takeover. Speaking of which, as one of our sponsors, MC Sports Cards, thank you. We want to acknowledge all of our sponsors here. This is the first time we're announcing them and we're going to try and do this for every one of them. So hopefully as more weeks pass, we're going to have our sponsors join the podcast, talk a little bit more about what they do for for the hobby and what they do around Wrestling Cards. Huge thanks to Chad at Sportscard Junction, another one of the sponsors, as well as Card Shop Live. You guys are on Whatnot and Fanatics Live. Huge Wrestling Breaker, Brando and John and Jessica and all the guys over there love them and I'm very happy that they're supporting us as well. Thank you to Chad at Sportscard Junction, one of the original committee. He is the OGs. Yeah, he is the OG of the main event, which happened a couple of years ago. I'm glad to have him back on board. I also want to say thank you to Chris and Christina and Josh and everybody at Card Ladder. They're going to be supporting us as well. I use Card Ladder literally every day and it is one of the best data tools that exists in the hobby. I know there's a lot of ways you can get auction results, you can get everything, but nothing, in my opinion, does what Card Ladder does. Also a huge thanks to BCW Supplies, who's also going to be supporting us. I use a ton of their products to house my collection. I know Ryan sells a bunch of stuff for them in his shop. So thank you to BCW for supporting us as well. Stephanie and the Mama breaks team. Love their community. Love what Stephanie does. She's been on our podcast before and I can't say enough good things about what she does and she's going to be supporting us. She's also. Ryan, I were laughing about this because we, we're going to plan this very nicely. She's going to try and do it like sort of a cosplay contest or so. We've, we've sort of started planning for Wrestling Card Takeover. So she's going to offer some prizes. I believe it's going to be amazing. I haven't decided if I'm going to come as Paul Heyman or as Paul Heyman. So I Wait, I thought it was Hulk Hogan. Yes, I or Hulk Hogan. Yes. But it's going to be Paul Heyman. But like you've got to come dressed as your favorite wrestler. We're going to have prizes. Thank you to Stephanie for supporting us to and then Nick and everybody at Blez Online. Brian and I are big supporters of theirs just for their wrestling card. They are the only online digital repacks at the moment that that offer wrestling cards. Can't say enough of good things about their platform. Just want to acknowledge all of our current sponsors. We're going to be bringing more on as the weeks progress. Wanted to spotlight them here as our announcement for book to last as part of Wrestling Card Takeover. If you're going to join us, make sure to email us booktolastpodcastmail.com let us know. Get on the list. You just made the list and we're gonna die. Well, it wasn't very good. You just made the list. There we go. It wasn't my best effort, but our sponsors are the best. Ryan, any. Any feedback from a sponsorship perspective? Dan? I'm just looking at this list and it just makes me smile because these are some of the best people and top brands in the hobby and they're on board for Wrestling Guard Takeover, that event that you, Brett and myself have put on or putting on for this year. It's just, just, it's an honor to have these people. Hey, we're in. We love what what you guys are doing and we love what you're trying to build for the wrestling car community. So again, this list isn't finalized yet. We have some people in the limbo and the wings that we're trying to finalize right now, but it's going to be awesome. And we're kind of letting all these sponsors decide what they want to do there as far as what they want to do for giveaways. But again, we thank you enough to all our sponsors. I've got some relationships with some of these people and some I have not yet. And I'm looking for forward to building those relationships with these people as I get to meet them at the national at the wrestling card takeover. So again, thank you, all of our sponsors to this point. Thank you, Adam, for kicking butt and staying on this. Thank you, Brett. And we're ready to rock and roll. It's going to be here for, you know it. There's a lot of things moving pieces happening behind the scenes. But again, we can't thank the national Committee, more importantly for this opportunity that we're given here. And we're going to make sure we knock out of the park to where they hopefully look at it. Say run it back. Let's. Oh, sorry. So let's run it back. Is that how you do it, Dave? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. The first and last time I'm gonna do run it back in my life. So I think, like, so we wanted to offer this event for free for every wrestling card collector to come and be a part of. We can't do that without our sponsors. Renting a room during the national week at the convention in the meat of the district is like impossible. So I think, like, we were just really excited to get this on there. And huge thanks to our sponsors. Absolutely. All right, we're going to wrap this up with our title match topic. I had two ginormous mail days this week. I was able to secure the one of one garbage Pail Kids, Becky Lynch Super Fractor. Similar to the one that Ryan revealed on the podcast a few weeks ago. So happy to have that in hand. Huge thanks to Dylan. Thanks to Jameson for playing middleman for me. Did a tremendous job accepting all of that. I was also able to work with a seller on TikTok See Nasty's cards to get the marks of Champion Super Fracture autograph. Huge thanks to them. But my question is this because we've both now gone through humongous acquisitions in our collections because these are the two biggest ones that I've, I think I've ever paid for in terms of Becky lynch cards. They aren't my favorite cards because obviously some of the ones I've bought a long time ago probably would be at this level if they were sold today. But how much of the grail acquisition like thrill of getting that card is driven by getting to own the card and how much of it is driven by sharing and showing it off with your friends and social media stuff like that, in your opinion? I mean, I think it's everything. Here's one thing. I'm glad we're talking about this because I was thinking this earlier today and the one thing I want to talk about beforehand is just because you're quote unquote super collecting or trying to collect a particular wrestler or player, whatever it may be, doesn't mean you have to own everything. It doesn't mean you have to own every one on one. If you don't feel comfortable buying something at the price, then walk away. Because I want to reiterate, I think this space is going to continue to grow. And with that, what Adam alluded to is that he paid record number prices. Obviously, I paid a record number price for this card, but it meant more to me than the card itself. And I just paid record number before that with the ordnance inscription auto. But I've been offered other things since then, before then and even today I was offered something and I just was like, no, I'm good on the price, man. Like, I just don't have to have it. So it's sometimes the best thing you could do is walk away. Just walk away, move on. There's plenty out there. There's got to be more products to come. The relationship with TOPS and FedEx and WWE is amazing. And we're going to continue to get great cards. So I want to give our listeners that. But yes, when it comes to a particular card, they're like, hey, when I saw this card on the sell sheet or when I knew this card was made, I'm going to go all in for it. And that would be the advice I would take is maybe back off the 3, 4, 5 other cards that you're like, hey, be cool to have these, but this is the one I want and go for that one. Get the one you want. I'm not saying overpay, but at times, yeah, overpay to get it. If you know it's going to your home because you want to have that card. And obviously, like you said to share it with your friends, I got to share my story. Thank you for first off for Stephanie and Eddie coming out here for the Ordon thing to get the video because there was obviously some scene footage that has never been posted because I wanted to be hush about that moment I had until it came to fruition. But again, there's just so many great things about cards that I Love. But I just want people to remember you don't have to own it all. I know that Adam knows that at times it's. It's tough to walk away, but I want you to know you can walk away because there's a lot more people that are going to continue to gouge and expect these record breaking numbers. And sometimes it's best to stand your ground and know that I'm willing to pay you more than anybody. And if you don't want to take my offer, shop it around. But I may not be here when you come back. Just some advice I want to give while we're talking about this. Yeah, I mean, like, that's a really interesting talk track and I, I think it's like, obviously we're in a space now where there's a lot of competition and the competition is going to continue to be more and more rabid. Like if you think about the way things traditionally go. I had to jump on some cards recently that I knew were not within my expectation of their value. But thankfully, because of the way that I've established relationships, I've been able to work through deals and stuff like that to ensure that I get these cards. Jameson and I traded to basically offset the cost of this garbage Pail Kids. He got a Roman Reigns card that I had that he really wanted. I got this card. We're both very happy. I know that the seller is very happy because I traded him some cards as well. So like, even though a lot of these deals are, are such a thrill and stuff like that, Ryan does make a really good point. I had to walk away from the WrestleMania patch. It's just too much money and you know that happens. Like I posted a long sort of read through of that. You can go on main event and see sort of my thought process. There's. But you know, I'm not going to end up with the card that Ryan got to end up with and that's okay. Like I'm totally fine with that because I got to own some other cards as a result through trades and stuff like that that are very special and more aligned to my collection too. Like if you were to go through my video that I posted on Instagram, all of my cards are super fractures and black one on ones. Like the shiny stuff really dominates my collection. So does Immaculate and so does National Treasures and stuff like that, but nothing like the chrome. So getting these two cards is huge. And I was talking about this with Ryan because like the, the thrill of being able to be at the center of the hobby for 15 minutes this week was probably awesome. And for me, like, being able to share this on my socials and with my friends was a huge part of it for me. And I continually ask myself, and I think they were talking about this on the crossover. That's where I got the topic for this question is like, does this really matter? Is the thrill of announcing it just as important as owning the card itself? And to me, like, I want to say no, like I want to say, like, it's. It's not a huge factor, but after what I went through this week and all the support that I got from my friends and my social and everything like that, like, it's a re. It's become a big part of this. It's become like your identity online is driven by the benchmarks of your collection. And we've talked about that before of like, how do you become the guy for this particular thing? I think it's moments like this that really drive those relationships and start conversations with people. So, like, you may not, like, Ryan may not have understood the impact of buying this Randy Orton cards, but I'm guessing he met a few new people who are probably interested as a result because they've messaged him. They're like, oh, this is cool. Maybe some relationships blossom out of that type of an experience, right? Yeah. I think the key word and everything you said is the favorite word you said was relationships. And this, this hobby is really built on relationships and it does go a long way. And again, my relationship to Mike helped me get this, but it was just every relationship in itself and the amount of people that reach out congratulating me once this went public and obviously didn't they got to have another conversation with Randy Orton. But here we are. You know, I had another one with him and hopefully that sparks into us maybe talking more down the road. He knows now that, hey, this guy is my card collector. Which is really cool to me to, to know that, hey, that I'm out there getting his cards. And I think he respects. And he. He doesn't understand why cars do what they do, but I think he's getting a little bit of better idea just from the conversation. And it's just awesome, man. It's. But again, that. That only happens because relationships and I think that is the biggest thing. And don't live on an island as you've always said. I think that is. Yeah, wanna. I don't want to give you toot your horn here too much, but you don't. You say some stupid stuff. But no I'm joking. And don't live on an island is probably one of the best advice I think you get to anybody in the card space. Enjoy this with other people, enjoy this with friends and family. And as I have again, that's why I dove back heavy into wrestling, was because of my family and my friends. You know, Neil is a big Finn Bauer collector. He has a wrestling past. His dad used to wrestle with Glenn Jacobs, otherwise known as Gabe. His dad's in the two wrestling hall of fames here in Missouri. You know, I mean, he has a wrestling background. My staff, most of them watch wrestling. I get to enjoy this hobby with people every freaking day of my life. And then I get to go, by the way, I get to go home with my kids and now my 5 year old every day. Can we listen to Randy Orton song? Can we listen to Trickle? Can we rip cards? Can we watch wrestling? Like, that's what it's about, guys and girls. This is what it's really about. And I'm grateful that I get to do this every day, but I'm grateful that we have this podcast now that I really get to let my passion out and I get my phone away from me and I get to talk for almost two hours today. This might be a record breaker podcast, so if you stuck with us this long. Thank you, thank you. Oh, thank you. So great segment to end on, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, you've seen the video that Topps has posted of Randy signing it. You can see the RBI crew thing that Ryan's sitting in front of as part of that. And like, even, like we've shown this slide now, like 20 times. Like, we've done this on 20 episodes. And you can see, like, I had that moment with Becky as well. And like, I, I gave her like a, a package of cards for her daughter. I was like, hey, I don't know if you collect your cards, but here's a stack of stuff that you can give to Rue. She was like, over the movie, she's like, are you sure, like, these are valuable cards? Are you sure you always wanted. I'm like, yes, absolutely. Like, I have plenty. So, like, I think like, those types of moments really spread the, the thrill of collecting. And I think, like, when you get these grails in and you get these things that you get to put on your shelf, because I, I, I say if a card is shelf worthy, I go really, really hard for it, right? So, like, if that card ends up behind me in one of these cases that I have in my office, like, I go extra hard and part of it is because I get to share in that with all my friends and social media and stuff like that. And that's really cool. Like, I think that's a really cool experience. Now, luckily, I didn't have to give any money for these cards, but the value of, of all of them have are the biggest that I've ever done because I have a lot of brand equity that I've built up with people like Jameson and like Ryan and like Blez Online, who has done a tremendous amount of work with me to process some of the things they get from breaks and stuff like that. Nick, like when we talk about everything that's going on with, you know, the, the different consignment and what Mike and everything is offering, like, those are ways to get money out of your collection and it's part of acquiring these other things. Like, I may not have spent any money to get these cards that I didn't already have an equity in my collection. But without working with Swish, without working with Bless Online, without working with Mike, if I, if I needed to consign something or if I needed to process something through Ryan or whatever, those things wouldn't have been possible. So again, don't collect on an island. Be a part of the community. Do the things that we do every day. We're here to help you guys more than anything. Also wanted to give a shout out to Baby Face and Sour Face on their new podcast. Really good job there. Good job, guys. I tuned in the other night to listen. I got to listen for a little bit while I was doing some work and I enjoyed it. It's a great shout out to them. Great job on their podcast. Yeah, it's always good to welcome new content creators to the space. Babyface. Not really. A new one. A new podcast. And go listen to all the other podcasts that are out there. There's a lot of them. I know Tony and Paul do stuff Card foundation, like we mentioned them a lot here because it's a community effort. Right. And as we get into the wrestling card takeover and we are running super long on this, join us, be a part of that. Be a part of the community. Come to Chicago. My family is going to be there. Ryan's going to be there. All the people that we talk about all the time, they're all the Ryan family. I thought you were about to say that. I knew this family. That would be the worst experience of your life. Terrible though, because of all the busy. It's hard to that week is. That is a hard week on me and I just, I don't have the time for it. So. Yes, go back call the Chlorville. Sorry. No, no. So we're just wrapping this up. Thanks again to all of our sponsors for the event. Thanks to Mike for joining us today. We're going to have more of our sponsors on next week. We'll talk more about Saturday night's main event, Clash in Italy. We've got a little bit of a break until cosmic I believe. So hopefully we can go a little bit deeper into some collecting stuff for the first time in like weeks because it's been rapid fire. But yeah, this has been wonderful, man. I'm glad to be back in the chair and we will. Yeah, we will see you guys next week. Ryan, any closing thoughts before we wrap up here? I will be holding the Orton I guess when recording this. I guess tomorrow on the next day it'll be back home. So again we, we can beat the the Orton is the horse has finally been beaten. I think everybody knows now that it's, it's coming home to me. But I'm again grateful for everybody along the way that had a part in it of any way, shape or form may have been getting him here. Maybe the aftermath may be documenting it, may be bidding on it. Again, I'm very grateful for the people in my life and again, it wouldn't be possible to do the things I do without those people. So Alberto, has a wonderful week. Adam, welcome back. Excited to get back on the horse with you next week again as we talk more about wrestling cards like we do every week. And we will see you next week. Big oops. See you later. Great conversation. Love that the duo is back together. Shout out Mike at MC Sports Cards for joining the Dam podcast. Appreciate all of you for supporting Book to Last. This has been an awesome addition to the Stacking Slabs network. Big reason is because of all of you. Take care. Talk to you soon.