Latest / Tonight's Card / Tonight's Card Pod - Ep 5 - RIP Owl - Record Breaking Sale - Panini - MITB, UFC

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Tonight's Card Pod - Ep 5 - RIP Owl - Record Breaking Sale - Panini - MITB, UFC · Tonight's Card

• Jonathan Crawford: On tonight's card, we discuss dead referees, uni redemptions, historic wrestling card sales, UFC fighter pay and money in the bank, and a whole lot more. And Mr. Sports Card Cartel, how are you doing this evening? Cartel: Your friendly neighborhood cartel is doing quite well, Toronto Card Collector, and I just wanna say hello to our hobby heroes and hobby hosers, as usual. Jonathan Crawford: Beautiful, beautiful. Well Cartel: Let's get into a lot of rustling hard stuff. Jonathan Crawford: Well let's lead off with the headline here that you informed me about. I wasn't too aware of it, but feel free to take that away. Cartel: yes. Yes. The The tragic passing of a referee in Mexico during a lucha libre show. Now you're hearing it eighth hand from me, but it has been kind of the talk of the wrestling world, more death in the wrestling world, very unfortunate that we keep coming back to this morbid element in all of this, but a very well a well-known I I don't want to immediately say well-loved, but a well-known and long-term referee who was nicknamed the Owl. was unfortunately killed in the ring via professional wrestling move package pile driver by someone known as el hijo del fishman fishman that sounds funny I know but fishman is a lucha character kind of a along the lines of Santo Blue Demon who has a lineage so this was the son of Fishman A lot of people recognize his mask. It's one of those type of legendary lucha lineages. And unfortunately Fishman took it upon himself to package pile drive a seventy-five year old man apparently off script. which led to his death. And it's obviously incited a lot of conversation in the professional wrestling realm and it and outside of it obviously. John, as you know, we watch professional wrestling because it's a wonderful blend of entertainment, athleticism. In Mexico it is huge tradition. history. there is a saying. They treat wrestling like sport in Mexico, like tradition in Japan and like a circus in America. But that just goes to show they're pulling from all those elements. And unfortunately when things get real like they got in Mexico just a few days ago, I feel like it happened before money in the bank. sometime in and around that period of time. Things get real like that, it's often unfortunate, and then you have these conversations about the fact that we are talking about people really putting themselves in situations at these wrestling shows, no matter how big they are, because this was not a massive, this wasn't like a big CMLL or AAA show where this happened. But you gotta think immediately of Tiffany Stratton almost getting a career-threatening injury at Money in the Bank. Things can go badly very quickly. And then there's this whole conversation about the script. And going off script. listen, no one's gonna sit here and say it isn't a tragedy that an older man was treated this way. but it invites all these conversations about wrestler safety, the response. they say that there was not very good medical response whatsoever to this guy who was just basically dying in the ring. it made me think of the tragedy with Rey Mysterio a few years back. believe it was Garza that he he was involved in the incident where Musler's neck snapped off the rope in the lead up to a six one nine. And Ray purposefully missed the six one nine. He's he's often attributed as being the killer, but that's of oversimplification and I think incorrect. But that's just another example in recent memory of Lucha Libre of something like this happening. Begs the question of about their standards when it comes to, you know, having medics ready. And response time and that sort of thing. being that you're just hearing about this and you're a professional wrestling fan, what are some of the thoughts that you have? Jonathan Crawford: I mean it's definitely shocking, you know, like the the context of how old the referee was. it's inexplicable. Like I don't know, like what what was the reason for was it just to get like heel heat? Like I don't even know i is there ever a good reason to pile a drive with 70 for what early. Cartel: Yeah. Pr presumably presumably it was a heel doing his thing, which would be a Rudo in in Mexico, the technicos and the Rudos. And they're very firmly assigned to their positions. So if you're a Rudo, you're being very Rudoish. And he body slammed the ref and that apparently was discussed beforehand. But the pile driver was not. I believe it was called a mart martinet in Mexico. Martinet, something like that. There's a photo floating around. Another strange element to anyone who enjoys true crime is that it almost seems as if there was video available, but it's almost been wiped off the internet. Very difficult to find right now. But there is a photo floating around of the pile driver setup. It almost looks like a Kevin Owens type of pile driver. what are you doing holding a seventy five year old man that way? I mean, again, these are some pretty robust guys that have spent their careers as professional wrestlers and referees, but the very shocking element is that the son of Fishman may have gone in into into business for himself and with very tragic consequences and apparently he is not facing charges as of right now. How would I mean, imagine that happened in modern day WWE or AEW? mind you, to say that to say that's pretty wild because would they have a seventy five year old referee in the ring? Jonathan Crawford: While my mind first went back to Mae Young getting power bombed off the stage by Devon Dudley back in the day. Cartel: Absolutely. They man, she took some crazy bumps from Kurt Angle. She took crazy bumps from the Dudleys. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, that's right. Cartel: I mean, wow. She's sh hey listen, I think two time Hall of Famer or something like that. Jonathan Crawford: I d I don't know what the age the age I don't know if the age difference was there, but yeah, pretty wild stuff. Cartel: Yeah, tha I mean listen, that era of WWE almost seems like a hallucination. So I don't even know if it's relevant in today's conversation, but you're right. I mean it's a wild form of entertainment with a lot of wild decision making going on. I guess is one way we could kind of summarize it. but, you know, not too much more to say about that situation other than you gotta hope that something comes from this in terms of rules, regulations. response time, you know. Beyond that, I think we could veer sharply back into the wrestling card world. 'Cause I know you have a lot of news when it comes to that sort of thing. Now and then we'll kinda loop back and get some money in the bank and the and our predictions from last week. Jonathan Crawford: For sure, so I guess just to lead with with the card news, I'm wearing my Eddie Guerrero or one of my Eddie Guerrero t shirts. intentionally today because I woke up one morning earlier this week to a very healthy offer on my BGS nine Eddie Guerrero offer. and it's a car that I've had for about a year, I guess over a year now. And I really wasn't planning on moving it. but then when I got the second copy, the the PSA 8.5 copy, I decided to kind of put it out in the market and see, you know, what offers I get. you kind of put it at a very high price. You know, just to kind of like put the feelers out there and then kind of slowly bring it down if you don't get any bites from there. I had a few people message me asking about the card so I had one guy who said well because there's a comp from January, a comp that I set. I bought that card. And then there's a more recent comp who's the PSA 7. but he said January comp when the overall market is up an average of 4%. It's quite a fair comp to look at, especially when you consider comparing a BGS versus PSA comp. But it it is what it is. I love to make a deal. But it's much more of a five to five point K card over eight point five K. Cartel: Hmm. Jonathan Crawford: so again, you know, using a January comp, saying the market's only up four percent, you know, look at what everything is doing right now, you know, like Cartel: I wonder how that calculation went. That's really strange. Jonathan Crawford: so I mean I'm assuming that they were going off the card ladder index, you know, the wrestling card index. Cartel: Okay. Jonathan Crawford: That's that was my assumption anyway. But again, you know, when you have something like flawless cards going from a thousand to forty five hundred in the span of a year, to say from January to October, only four percent. Like Cartel: I would Jonathan Crawford: You know, it just doesn't make sense. Cartel: I would defer to I don't know if any of our listeners are aware of Pancake Analytics, over on Instagram. I would defer to him. He does a lot of really solid market research and I'd I think he would have something to say about the four percent number. But yeah, I love I love how they're coming at you with a battery of justifications. based on the weather and the the geopolitical landscape I believe this is a five thousand dollar card. Jonathan Crawford: never mind the fact that the seven, which we know who bought it, sold for 5.5k. So if you look at I mean let's just say you know you can't compare basketball to wrestling, but even just say a Jordan Flea rookie, a seven versus a nine, even PSavers VGS, like the delta is substantial, Cartel: Yeah. Yeah, ne never mind the fact that it's an incredibly condition sensitive card. Jonathan Crawford: Correct, right, exactly. So I mean, I haven't seen another nine for the Eddie Auto like ever in my life. I know they're out there. There's some on the pop report, and I know there might be maybe three BGS nine fives, but there's no PSA tens. and so yeah, I just held firm. you know, batted away lowball offers, and eventually I got an offer that I felt was fair. and so yeah, it's it's sold. It's currently the highest public sale for an Eddie auto. and yeah, I mean it it kind of coincided with you know Eddie's birthday was maybe like a week ago. so yeah, R.I.P. Latino Heat, Eddie Guerrero, never forgotten. Cartel: And that's right. And in my opinion, I think I think you did very well. I think the buyer might have slightly overpaid, but They slightly overpaid because it's an impossible card. This buyer's not going to get an opportunity at it anytime soon, again. So why not overpay for it? And we are talking about cards that are going to be put away and locked up for quite some time. there's no way that this this is someone who's looking to flip it. this is a card that in my opinion most likely is going to disappear. And so sometimes when you know the circumstances of a card. and the buyer has the means. If you're someone out there on on the sidelines, you know, Arguing with yourself over w should I get the card? Should I get the card? Get the card because someone's gonna be willing to overpay because of these circumstances. That card is not going to show up again anytime soon. And then people like Jonathan are going to be monitoring the situation even if they do. So it's not gonna be easy. But sometimes you have to overpay on on a special card like that one, especially in the market we're we're looking at right now. Absolutely. and that kind of segues quite nicely into a discussion about all of these panini redemptions that are now flooding the market. So let's talk a little bit about that. Jonathan Crawford: Absolutely. Yeah. I I heard another podcast recently. it was a book to last podcast. They they had somebody on that was mentioning apparently Panini fulfilled something like twenty thousand redemptions somewhere in that in that ballpark, which is just a crazy insane number of redemptions to fulfill in the span of like a week or whatever it was. Like, I mean, just the logistics alone is absurd. And it was just crazy to see so much flawless, immaculate, all this nice stuff, you know, showing up on Facebook. People saying, I had this sticker auto for you know insert random wrestler here, and instead I got a flawless gem of somebody like where Cartel: Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: you're complaining about getting flawless replacements, like Cartel: But that's kind of what makes things interesting because you've got with so many of that, I don't know what percentage would be actual replacements, right? Because they're redemptions, but so many of them were actually replacements for cards that couldn't get made or were not made. And so you've got people with this situation where they're starting to do some mental gymnastics where they're saying, Well, I didn't get, you know, the I mean, what is some of the stuff they didn't actually that they weren't able to make? I didn't get this John Cena. One of one, I got all this other stuff. You know what? I want to sell it and try to, you know, get myself to a point where I I think I'm getting something back on that original card that I wanted. And they're not as connected to it. They're not as connected to that redemption that they were waiting for, that they were expecting and excited about. So, I mean, would you say that's kind of part of it? Is that's why they're just getting them out there because they're I didn't want these to begin with, it's kind of gravy. Here we go. And I think you could probably get a lot of great deals. Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: I think that's a very good way to put it, honestly. which I mean, you know, if if you're only collecting one or two wrestlers and you get somebody else, they're like, Yeah, I don't want this, which is fair, like I understand that. But at the same time, these cards, I mean, you know, I've I've mentioned this before, there's only one year of flawless. And the chances of there being another year of flawless wrestling, like at this point, slim to none. so the market's getting flooded right now and it just seems like such a waste. Like just wait, at least wait like a few months before the market dries up if you really want to move something, right? But it's like I'm hey, listen, I'm happy to be buying flawless on the cheap right now. You know, I have no problem with that. but it just seems like I I worry that people are offloading their flawless or immaculate, whatever. For dirt cheap just to buy into breaks for the wrestler that they want. And it's Cartel: Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: like you already have the hit. So you know what I mean? Like Cartel: Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: just be careful what you're doing. Cartel: And the thing is people aren't gonna be careful and that's when someone like sli Jonathan Crawford: Which is fine. Then then I'm gonna just buy the cards for cheap and you know, it is what it is, but I I'm just trying to try talk some sense into people. Cartel: Yeah. Yeah, and they're and they're yeah, and they're and they really are amazing cards. They're really nice looking cards and Kind of spilling into the UFC category, I'm out there picking up a lot of the royalty stuff. Now, when those when the when the royalty product first came out, it was very expensive. I was not sniffing at trying to open the product or buy into a break. I wanted to wait for the singles, and that's what I'm doing now. And these are really, really nice looking cards, on card autographs, very similar to the concept of the flawless and immaculate stuff, but that's the as well, immaculate UFC, that stuff is amazing. as well. And I'm starting to look at sets in addition to the fighters themselves as well. as a result of that. And something that's really kind of kicking that off in me is seeing, you know, these your pickups of some of this wrestling stuff is kind of what inspires me there. I'm like, chrome's great, you know, on card chrome autographs, but I mean, the next thing you know I've got this piece of mat with an autograph and it's numbered to 25 and it's just it's so much better. I mean it's just so much nicer aesthetically. And And you just start to appreciate it more and more. And I think that it's important. In the UFC and WWE, that kind of connection. the the game used pieces, on card autographs, really nice looking cards, it makes sense to me to the collector of that kind of stuff, especially with WWE. Right? Just kind of the mentality is they want something extra special featuring their their favorites. And that Eddie Guerrero, I mean, on card autograph back when there were no on card autographs. And it's an iconic design as well. So these all these all speak to collectors and the people who are passionate about these what are generally considered niche kind of sport areas, which is WWE and UFC. I feel like we lag a little bit on the UFC content, Jonathan. It's something that we're gonna keep working on. There hasn't been a ton of UFC news or you know, new card releases to get too too excited about. there are gonna be some great fights coming up. Volkanovsky's fighting again very soon in a couple of weeks. the the Volkanovsky Evloev and then of course the Peter Jan and Marab Valeshvili trilogy. I believe it's the third one. I think it's a trilogy. And so a lot of great fights coming up. And the big news tends to be cyclical, which is to say, I feel like we're always talking about fighter pay. It comes about one way or the other. In this case, the carrier, the flag bearer is Sean Strickland, very controversial fighter who has his fans, and those that don't care too much for him, I kind of waver on Sean depending on what he's doing, depending on what country. He's in when he's in Canada, when he's in the States, depending on what mood he's in. But he's never been necessarily one of my favorites. His fighting style is efficient, but not very exciting. and he is again bringing to light that UFC fighters should be paid more, which they should. That being said, I believe his contract was signed not too long ago. So for him to be bringing this up on the second or third fight of that contract seems strange to me, but he's a strange guy. He has signed a contract. I would say fight through it and then move on to whatever it is that you think is more lucrative. He talked about fighting Jake Paul. He talked about, you know, some of these other organizations. Michael Venom Page is claiming he is making tons more for the Misfits Boxing organization. Than he was making in the UFC. More power to him. I myself don't go out of my way to see the Misfits boxing shows. So on the whole, there's conversation to be had there. But if Michael Venom Page is happier that way, then then we should be happy for him. Fighters should get paid more in the UFC, in my opinion. I don't know enough about goes on with some of those contracts, why certain fighters don't seem to say much, others do have something to say. It's a whole conversation. If you have something to contribute, please like, comment, subscribe, comment down below, subscribe down below, comment up above, and and let us know your thoughts on that. Other than that, Jonathan, there was money in the bank which was countering the smaller UFC show that went on. Some great fights. By the way, anytime you hear people poo-pooing these smaller shows, this was the Brendan Allen main event this past weekend. the undercards always perform. There's always some great fights. And if you're a big UFC fan, you don't need me to tell you this. they've been putting out some some great product recently, some criticism of the matchmaking going on, but there's Been a lot of great knockouts. And like I said, there's a lot of great fights coming up. If you want to counter me on that, you can comment below, subscribe above, or take a walk sideways. and Jonathan Crawford: All of the above. Cartel: that's right. And other than that, I did want to obviously touch on money in the bank, but the holy cow, the the Monday night raw! After Money in the Bank. Holy cow. Fantastic Raw. Chad Gable. And Phoenix. Did you watch this? Am I geeking out alone? Did you check out Jonathan Crawford: Yeah. Cartel: that match? Jonathan Crawford: it's fantastic. Yeah, I definitely I saw the the announcement for that. I'm like, this is gonna be a banger, no question. And it did not disappoint. Cartel: I've I've watched it twice and I'll watch it again. my goodness. And enough has been said about Chad Gable. He's a rustling machine. You watch him, you have tears in your eyes 'cause it reminds you of Kurt Engel. But Phoenix really took it upon himself, I feel that match specifically. He took it upon himself to this is a guy that puts a lot of pressure on himself. He screwed up a lot in AEW. He was almost he was almost like what was Mystico when he came into what was Mystico's name when they when WWE gave him a shot? Do you remember? I can't believe I'm blanking on this man. But but you know, he was messing up left and right under the pressure of the lights. Sincara. Sincara. Okay, and not the Sincara that then replaced Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, there you go. Cartel: Mystico. But when Mystico first showed up and they had the little trampoline where he'd jump into the ring, it was a disaster. He was messing up left and right. Phoenix kind of looked like that in AEW sometimes, but in WWE in this particular run, alongside Triple absolutely on point. And he did a lot for himself and the brand, Triple A, Lucha Libre and WWE, with that amazing performance. Goodness gracious. Money in the bank. We were both wrong abo with our predictions. We we really liked Sol Ruca. They gave her a great spot. I really liked Braunbreaker, they gave him the majority of the match. And I think we both agreed Penta probably would be winning. We just I didn't believe it. And who is your male Jonathan Crawford: I just thought it was too obvious, honestly. I thought it was too obvious. Cartel: Who was your male pick? Jonathan Crawford: I went with KO. I didn't I mean it just because like he's Canadian. I'm like I think it'd be cool Cartel: right, right, right. Right. Jonathan Crawford: to see him to see him win. You know what I mean? Like s they gave Sammy the championship. Kevin Owen should have won the championship when SmackDown was in Toronto. He got screwed over, so I was hoping but Cartel: going with Penta does make sense with the Triple A push and the Lucha Libre push. it's amazing to see them have that confidence in Penta and ha him having proven himself, mostly through that Roman Reigns match. And the one thing I wanna say, I know you like her, but I was shocked by the Tiffany Stratton pick. I'm gonna leave it at that for now and let you talk. Jonathan Crawford: I defin Yeah, I Cartel: Cause I know you like her. Jonathan Crawford: mean, yeah, I don't dislike her. I just didn't I didn't think that they were gonna give her another Money in the Bank briefcase. because it was what, 2024, it was in Toronto, her first one. So it's yeah, she skipped one year. I don't know. And then she almost killed herself too at the beginning of the match. So that Cartel: Unbelievable man. Just like moments away from faces of death. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, that was terrifying, man. I was like, the match is over. Like the match is over. We're we're calling it quits. And somehow she still finished the match and won. I mean, kudos to her for even continuing after that. did you hear like did she get a concussion at least? Or what like what happened? Cartel: Man, all I heard was she said her head hurt. That's all I heard. But I I gotta imagine I gotta imagine that she's at least in the protocol right now, for for concussion. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, this is how the CTE starts, literally. just the headache, just the headache. Cartel: There have been a lot of spots lately that I've noticed actually. even in the main event of Raw with Jada Parker where Some of these performers are not getting a jump off of their position when they're way up high. They're just falling. I open myself to up to people saying, You're not a professional wrestler, you don't know what you're talking about. I have watched it very closely for decades. I like to think I notice patterns, I like to think that you know I can recognize from the best in the game, like say a Jeff Hart. or you know an any any of the guys we grew up watching Jonathan Crawford: I was about to say he's still he's still doing his thing to this day. Yeah. Cartel: but you know I'm just noticing people are just falling and that throws off the physics because when you have your gaggle of rustlers waiting to catch you They're kind of calculating for you to push off. Like even like Charlotte Flair's gonna push off her moon salt, so there's gonna be this, you know, space. But if Tiffany's just gonna fall and you're expecting her to kind of bound, not leap, but kind of like, you know, a little bit of spring as opposed to just falling. I've just seen it a lot the last few weeks. It's something that I've noticed. Maybe the luchadores can can teach them a thing Jonathan Crawford: Totally. Cartel: or two. But you know, in a match with the type of talent Jonathan Crawford: She should go talk talk to Chad Gable. Cartel: sure, I mean there's a guy who catches on to any element. You know, you had Roxanne Perez, who fans quite like. You've got Lola Vice, who they've been pushing as a new member of the roster. JC Jane, I mean, they love her. They've been giving her a lot as well. There is this kind of thing I notice with Triple H's booking where everybody gets something. It's like Oprah Winfrey, you get this, you get this, you get that. And I think that Tiffany got the briefcase for some reason. I think she is a liability, mostly to herself, with all due respect. I I don't know if you ever saw that backstage footage. It wasn't backstage, it was training footage where she almost killed herself doing a jump, kinda practicing. I don't know what more you really need to see in terms of the fact that, you know, something could but very badly can go wrong, mostly for her, but you know, all maybe even the other wrestlers around her. And listen, I have really bad flashbacks to the WrestleMania match with Charlotte Flair, which was awful. I don't blame it completely on Tiffany, but it was awful. And for me as a fan, she's not someone I like to follow, just in general and and root for. And of course earlier in the card we saw Stephanie Vicare, someone I do like to root for, who I'm very impressed with, loses her title to live back to Live Morgan. What did you think of that? Jonathan Crawford: I didn't see that one coming either. I don't know what the booking reason was for that. I mean I kinda figured Vicara's gonna retain, honestly. I don't know. I mean I'm not one of these people that like hates Liv Morgan. I know there's a lot of people that really like despise her. I mean, I think she's a good heel, you know, but like I don't know why she got the title back so quickly. Cartel: Some strange booking kind of marred the show for me, on the whole. but nonetheless, it was a WWE offering and there was there were some good spots. We continue to see the rise of Obafemi. so help me out here. Brass Nux. what two times brass nucks and the dre the Jonathan Crawford: Twice, twice. Two shots with the brass nucks. And then tsunami. Cartel: dreaded tsunami, no go. Jonathan Crawford: Yes. No, no. Cartel: So I think there's a risk there that you're doing a little too much in building up a guy. There has to be some vulnerability. I know they've shown him vulnerable with the beatdowns, but you know, by the way, this might sound crazy, but they book Oba a lot like they book El Grande Americano in Triple A. Because there was one match, there was a tag team match I think where Al Grande got like a belt shot, he got triple teamed, he took two finishers, Al Grande still ended up on top. So they do like the the concept of the superhero babyface lately. Triple H booking, I don't know. Jonathan Crawford: I mean it's very it's very Hulk Hogan, but like next level where they just Cartel: Yes. Yeah. Well we sa Jonathan Crawford: hulk up and like getting the shit kicked out of them. Cartel: We do forget sometimes though Hulk Hogan some of Hulk's booking was really like demigod status. He was really unbeatable. which I mean that was a fun part of the golden era, so Jonathan Crawford: Just just quickly, like if anything, that that match with Bronson slash division, I'm like, Oba's winning the Royal Rumble. Like there's no question in my mind right now. Like if he doesn't win the Royal Rumble, I will be shocked. And you know, he's gonna go on to face Roman, presumably at WrestleMania. Like it it he's just getting pushed so much. Like there's no other outcome that I could possibly see. Cartel: A lot people also are bringing up the fact that Oba was supposed to get a title shot with King of the Ring and he just never took the title shot. Jonathan Crawford: This is true. That's very true. Yeah. They're kind of like keeping him away from the title for the time being. Until until it's gotta be Rumble, right? It has to be Rumble. Cartel: So that was a strange one. I almost wonder if I mean had Braun not been injured, maybe Braun would have benefited from the King of the Ring title, because if they're gonna give the Royal Rumble to Oba. But anyways, this is all kinda fantasy booking scenario kind of stuff. but and you also might think if Penta does cash in successfully, Braunbreaker's probably not happy about the fact that he he's the one who had to take the Mexican destroyer and get defeated in order for Penta to win, so you do have a bit of a storyline there. Now, what do you think of the concept that Penta will further put Triple A into the limelight by cashing in the money in the bank for the Triple A mega campion title? Jonathan Crawford: Ooh, interesting. Who's the champion right now? It's Al Grande, isn't it? Cartel: grande americano. Could see a heel turn. Jonathan Crawford: I mean it would be cool. Cartel: Could see a heel turn from Penta? Jonathan Crawford: I don't know, he's pretty over right now though. Cartel: so very over and that briefcase that shoots missiles is really cool and Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, that was really cool. I had to double take. I'm like, what is going on right now? it's the briefcase. It's like a it was like a kiss, kiss briefcase. Cartel: It's the briefcase. Yeah, absolutely. The one thing I wanted to just quickly say about and this really dawned on me after the Monday, which was Ray versus what's that big lug's name? Cass Jonathan Crawford: cast, yes. Cartel: and and the incredible Phoenix match and the Penta promo. Correct me if I'm wrong here, this is my take on this, because you've got a company like A AEW and they are they present themselves in a way where equal opportunities, very kind of socially progressive. I'm I don't mean to be flippant or making light of it. I'm saying that I I believe that's kind of the way they present themselves. And I was never impressed with how they used Mexican talent. To me it was like very much adjacent to WCW using Mexican talent back in the day. But that's a whole other conversation because that was the first time we saw something like that. It was important and it was positive and beneficial. What I'm the argument I'm gonna make here, to try to stir up some potential controversy and conversation, you can comment down below, subscribe, etc., is that The way that WWE's integrate Triple A right now is fantastic. It's respectful of the product. It's equating. Does that make sense? the worry across the board was the way they were gonna use these luchadors. Are they just gonna present them as these, you know, lightweight guys that are jobbers? And we did see a little bit of that, but at this point you cannot deny with the way that they've been using Mysterio, Dragon Lee, Penta, Phoenix. It's fantastic. And it's creating an environment where someone as obscure and niche as mini Viking go can get over and get very popular, probably get merchandise going, and that would have been unthinkable a year ago. So I'm so impressed with the way that they've integrated AAA and Lucha Libre Wrestling, they couldn't be doing a better job in my opinion, right? Jonathan Crawford: That's a fair point. Yeah. My my my thoughts first went to I don't know if you remember back when they tried to do ECW brand in WWE Cartel: Mm-hmm. Jonathan Crawford: and how terrible that was. Cartel: Yeah, I mean Jonathan Crawford: obviously different beast entirely, but just that was just so bad compared to how Triple A has been going. Cartel: You're right. Well, that is a good example, and that was a very political and and Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon clashing. But, you know, that is a good example of how you destroy a brand. But they've done nothing but enhance Jonathan Crawford: Mm mm. Cartel: AAA, in my opinion. And there was so much anger in the deep, deep fan bases of Lucha Libre. There's, my God, WWE bought them, now they're just gonna destroy them. But What's the weekly show everybody talks about? The Triple A show. It's fantastic. I never want to miss the the YouTube show. And who won Money in the Bank? Penta. And they're like, he's not they're not gonna treat him as as well as when he was in AEW. He's not gonna be a title contender. Boom, here we are. Fantastic. So really impressed with that, and a lot of people were wrong. So with the time we've got left, let's do a little bit of showing off, some show and tell. We always try to reserve a period of time where we can kind of show you some things we picked up or maybe that we've sold or is on our radar. What do you have for us, TCC? Jonathan Crawford: just quickly again talking about flawless. So I mentioned last week how the Undertaker, StarSwatch, the Amethyst out of eight did a crazy number. I was just kind of searching late night on eBay for flawless cards, and then I saw an Undertaker out of twenty-five StarSwatch at a very, very, very fair price. And it had it had the option to make an offer. I'm like, you know what? It just got listed. I'm not gonna take a chance. I just bought it. I didn't make an offer, just bought it. Cartel: Love it. I love a smash smash the bin. Love it. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm not gonna mess around. You know, I I learned from my lesson, you know, I saw it and I bought it. and then another one was a very nice Seth Rollins out of ten patch auto. Again, flawless, you know, just a beautiful card, on card. And again, I think it was a very fair price. so you know, people are just trying to offload their things and I'm happy to pick them up. Let me just show it just in person here because I have it. I just got it in. The the Stone Cold PSA 10 right there. Cartel: Unbelievable, unbelievable. Jonathan Crawford: Just a beauty. That's that's gonna get a nice little slab mag and it's gonna go away into my PC over there. So no, I'm not taking offers. Leave me alone. Cartel: Here we go. Here we go. Jonathan Crawford: Don't don't DM me. Don't DM me. What about you? Cartel: not not too much. It's been a it's been a very busy week for So not not too much going on there. Funny enough, I I did I did create a boomerang with this card here that again is just so un undervalued. The Islam Makachev Optic Hollow Autograph. That is a first year auto, rookie auto. In a PSA 9, not a very high pop card whatsoever in any grade, I don't think. And I just like owning it. It's a nice clean autograph as well. Sometimes his autographs are a little too screwed. and faded, but we're talking about the potential top guy in the sport right now. I mean if you put that on basketball or football, how is this card only worth a few hundred dollars? You guys know that the cartel loves a cartel card, and cartel cards are usually very obscure, and obviously TCC loves this one as well. It is the Boogeyman, and he's coming to get ya from the Chrome 99, 98 set, a very famous set. There's there's Benoit Eddie Autographs, I believe, in this set. And it's a PSA 9. Jonathan Crawford: But Benoit, yes. Benoit, yes, I didn't know. Cartel: Eddie wasn't in that set. Kurt Angle was in that set. Bobby Heenan was in that set. Angle's in that set. He's in that set. and just kinda Jonathan Crawford: Nice. Cartel: like the heyday of the first, you know, rustling autographs out there. And it's a PSA nine, there are no tens, it's the only PSA nine. Yeah, two thousand and eight. No, two thousand and six. So we're going way back as far as As far as wrestling autographs go, the boogeyman is still with us. I think he still makes appearances. fun little part of wrestling history. Can't say no to a card like that, can you? Jonathan Crawford: And a great grade too, honestly, for for that card, like for that set. I feel like that's a great grade too, honestly. Cartel: Yes. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And it's a fun card. I'm gonna enjoy owning it however long I do. And a shout out to Relics for that one, buddy. so yeah, that that would be it as far as the show off goes for today. like we mentioned there are some big UFC fights coming up and I will be hoping to bring some more UFC content to tonight's card. Do we have any closing words, TCC, before we sign off? Jonathan Crawford: yeah, just quickly, we are gonna be at Run the Hobby this Sunday, October eighteenth. so we'll be TCC, SCC, and CSCI. We'll have the the Montreal Buds back together again, wheeling and dealing. So come stop by and show us some cards. We'll like to look in the buy and sell and trade. And then Cartel: Yes indeed. Jonathan Crawford: we're also About three weeks away from the expo, the Toronto Expo is gonna be fantastic show. We have PSA grading on site for the low, low cost of $229 per card for end-of-show service. Cartel: maybe a hundred dollar increase from last year, but whatever. I mean don't don't pay too much attention to that folks. Just get your slabs. Jonathan Crawford: keep in mind though that that service level sold out at the national and then it went up to four hundred, whatever. so I don't know if that's gonna happen in Toronto. It very well could. So if you want to grade, get in early, find a bulk submitter maybe. but yeah, it happened at the national, so we'll see. Cartel: We shall see how that madness goes, guys. And we will of course once the expo rolls around, we will try to give you our best report on the WWE wrestling UFC MMA outlook on the expo. I picked up some cool MMA stuff last last expo. You picked up some great wrestling stuff. Nonetheless, guys, for tonight and tonight's card, we are over.