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Tonight's Card Pod - DEBUT EPISODE - Sept 11, 2026 · Tonight's Card

• Cartel: Hobby heroes and hobby hosers, we've got yet another podcast for your ears to enjoy, just what you've been waiting for. I am the Sports Card Cartel, and I'm here with the Toronto Card Collector, SEC, TCC, the acronyms are flying, and we are going to discuss combat, cards, and provide you with some commentary in this wonderful world of our hobby. And say hello, John, aka Toronto Card Collector. How are you doing today? Jonathan Crawford: Doing great, man. Excited to be on here, starting this adventure together. And hopefully we can bring some some fun content, some relevant content, and have a good time. Cartel: Hopefully fun and relevant, and you are a very brave soul to be participating in a podcast with the cartel. There have been others that have tried. It's much like the Spinal Tap drummer. You may self immolate at some point and fade into obscurity. We don't know. We don't know. But I'm hoping that this one sticks. Guys, on tonight's card, that's the name of the podcast. See what I did there? We are gonna discuss hobby news, as you can imagine, professional writing. Rustling news and mixed martial arts news because we are very passionate about everything I just stated there. Isn't that correct, John? Jonathan Crawford: Absolutely. That's what brought us together all those years ago and we're excited to keep the keep the train going. Cartel: That's right. And and so often you are referred to as that wrestling guy. And and I am so often referred to as Jonathan Crawford: I I've been I've been referred Cartel: the guy over there with the UFC. Jonathan Crawford: But that's that's a nice thing though. People come to me, they You got UFC? Like, well I don't, but this dude over here does, so it kinda works out. Cartel: That's right, that's right. We are we are bound to our reputations, so to speak. And and we are again, I'm just getting back to the fact that we are so passionate about this sort of thing. You did not just jump into the wrestling hobby on a whim. You are a professional wrestling fan, as am I. I've been a big fan of mixed martial arts since pre-UFC days. I've got UFC 1 on on VHS on my shelf. I remember the day that I rented it from a jumbo video here in Canada and enjoyed that. In the basement and had my mind blown by what was possible in the realm of mixed martial arts as entertainment. And here we are, all these years later, enjoying it in the scope of the trading card hobby and the collectibles hobby, which is on fire right now. You may have heard, you may not have heard. If you're listening to us, you've probably heard a thing or two about it. And an interesting thing that is happening right now in the hobby as we record. here in early September 2026. Pop culture. is really blowing up in the space. We're talking about rookie cards of key cultural figures, some quick examples, Simpsons cards, the 1966 Marvel cards, the 1966 Batman. 1966 is a crucial year. We'll get to that later on as well. And professional wrestling does sit in the pop cultural world. It's not quite a sport, but I'm sure you would agree it does tend to wave with the flow. of the pop culture market and the the the booms and the busts. what have you experienced as it relates to professional wrestling on that level of this big boom that's happening in the hobby? Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, I mean now it's interesting to see how much attention, how many new people are coming in to the hobby. it's honestly it's crazy to see like COVID two point but it's even beyond that, right? Like just the number of new faces, people starting to collect and I mean, I don't know about you, but like I did not see this coming to the to this extent, right? Like it seems like it's been kind of building for a while now. But I think the level that it's at now, I don't know if if anybody could have really predicted how quickly things have have picked up, especially recently. But yeah, it's been crazy. Cartel: Th these things happen so quickly in the hobby. And some may some may say suspiciously so because there there there is a there is kind of a strategic thing that happens when when when we see these kind of pop-offs. we remember the first days of quarter million PSA 10 Michael Jordan Fleer rookie cards. I think we exceeded that at some point in COVID, and now we're exceeding it again, I'm pretty sure. And it just seems to happen so quickly. Like you said, it's not that we weren't I mean we've always listened you and I dare to dabble as we say. We dabble in all these different avenues. you got into Pokemon recently. Don't don't be ashamed of that. You got into Pokemon recently. Don't don't deny it. And yeah. Jonathan Crawford: I'm not ashamed. I tell every I tell everybody, man. I'm I'm proud. Cartel: And I mean look, you're ex the the interesting thing is you're exp you got in on it during, you know, a a a wave upward and you're kind of experiencing a bit of a lull for now. You and I both know it's probably a temporary lull. but so you're kind of getting a perspective on that, whereas, you know, you've been in your lane and you've just been, you know, riding through it in general, right? as have I with, you know, baseball, hockey, MMA. But But these things happen so quickly and sometimes they fade just as quickly. But I think we're seeing some sustained action here, so to speak, from like you mentioned, new people in the hobby. This is I think a little more accessible than than how complicated it can be when you get into sports cards and you start to find out it's so different, especially if you're in our age group and you are coming back to it, and you find out just how different it is now, how how the market is so is so much different. The cards themselves are so much different. but you're getting people that were into wrestling, you're getting people that were into all these shows. They've got money to spend. The nostalgia there, the nostalgia factor is tremendous, I would imagine. and we're just seeing crazy, crazy prices across the board for these things that are being identified as key pop culture items, so to speak. Off the top of my head, you recall I had that Harley Quinn Batman animated series rookie cart. That's something that was has been bought up and is now being offered for 10 actually 10x for PSA 9s, is what I've noticed is what people are asking for on eBay. It becomes more difficult to acquire. I myself, there sales are booming of stuff that has been sitting. I'm selling a lot of stuff from the 60s that involved DC characters, Marvel characters. I just sold a Gene Simmons rookie card today. Right? Out of the out of the Monty punk rock set. I'm just gonna cover up the price here from 1977. was a part of a PC, but I've got a PSA 9, so I'm holding on to that. and With the wrestling, you've gotta imagine there's good there was a period of time, if you don't recall, what was it, a year, a year and a half ago, people started talking about the Bret Hart and Macho Man rookie cards. Right? You've gotta think people are gonna Jonathan Crawford: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cartel: now start looking into that sort of thing as well. Jonathan Crawford: So first of all, going back to the Gene Simmons card, I remember that was one of the first cards I think that you and I talked about when we first met all those years ago at the expo. Like that's such a cool card, I've never seen that before. Cartel: Probably 'cause k k kiss army b both you yourself and and Jonathan Crawford: For sure, yeah. It's just funny to see how e even a card like that, such an obscure card, now all of a sudden it's become such a hot item. Whereas when we first were talking about it, it was like, it's this kind of cool, obscure thing, and now it's like Cartel: Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: so so in demand or I don't know, it's just kind of crazy. but in terms of Cartel: It's like a a a passing passing curiosity suddenly becomes a popular potential passup. Jonathan Crawford: Right, yeah, exactly. And I mean for me again, it was just kind of curiosity, like I didn't know they had KISS cards, you know, so it was like such a kind of a cool, like you said, a a collector's item. Right? So now all of these things that were once obscure are now getting more attention, getting more prevalent, that kind of thing. but anyway, back to wrestling. I mean I I guess something I've been thinking about too recently is how how collector Focused wrestling is like specifically compared to most other sports, like in in training cards. And you know, you could have you could have a collector that PCs. I mean, just thinking now, like there's Brutus the Barber beefcake, like there's a super collector for him, like there's a super collector for, you know, what's it? Ivar, I think, from the the War Raiders, whatever they're calling that Viking Raiders. Cartel: Yeah. The War Raiders. Triple A tag team champions. Jonathan Crawford: Right, yeah. So no no disrespect, no disrespect. But it's yeah, it's it's very different than you know, your NBA or MLB or NFL. and it's like in terms of like the grails, like the one of let's say like Roman Reigns one of one, for example, you know, like a black prism. If you're coming in from outside the wrestling space, good luck finding that because it's in somebody's collection, you know, or Cartel: That's yeah. Jonathan Crawford: you know, who who whoever your favorite wrestler is, right? Like the best stuff, it just gets put in someone's collection and it just gets held. And so it's really I don't know, it's just interesting for me because I've been in in wrestling card space for a few years now. So I kind of take it for granted. But like now that I'm getting more, like you mentioned, right? Getting kind of more into Pokemon, getting back into NBA, like dabbling a bit more. It's funny to see how different the spaces are. And I mean, wrestling, you know, it's it's getting bigger now with tops now that they've taken back over a lot of nice on card autos, you guys like Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H like we didn't really have much of before. and then the accessibility, I guess, too, of like now you can get a on card Stone Cold Auto for, you know, a few hundred bucks or Undertaker for a few hundred bucks. So I think it it's helping in terms of accessibility. but like the the true Grail stuff, like good luck finding it, you know? Cartel: Yeah, that's that's a great point. And it it's always it's always felt like some of these niche markets are definitely more collector driven, UFC among them, wrestling For sure. It's it's it's it's people looking for that really, really nice stuff for their collections. They're very passionate about it. You and I know we know a Charlotte Flair super collector. I'm sure you know a ton of other super c super collectors. I'm trying to make it sound like I know them, but but yeah, it it it's always seemed that way. I never really Jonathan Crawford: Well you you you know that one, yeah. Cartel: Yes, we know that one, for sure. Jonathan Crawford: Ha ha. Cartel: and and and I I mean even I myself I've got my my small I first of all I'm I'm I'm just I've too many PCs to begin with. I should probably cut it down, but I g I have a Pete Dunn PC, which is interesting now 'cause where what happened to Pete Dunn? Where where did he go? I have a little mini Vader PC, the Vader rookie card from the eighties. I I'm almost afraid to pinpoint cards for people. Do the research yourself but cards are gonna blow up but yeah it's it's always seemed that way and I guess that's that is something that you are still seeing though now with some collectors that are coming into the hockey world they're really putting aside the big pieces because they're beginning to realize just how special some of these cards are like a Goldie Howe Wayne Gretzky Dual Auto for example I'm not even I'm not even pinpointing a specific one that's a special card and there's only so many to go around and there's people that want to grab those and put them away. Basketball is really is bumping right now obviously you're wearing the Michael Jordan t-shirt today which is which is apropos there is a lot of love coming in for 80s, 90s, even going to the OOs now. It's really wild. I'm seeing young people looking at Rodman stuff and Hakeem Elijahwan. And there's so much good stuff to like on any level. You can get in on some cheap raw rookie cards or you could start to go for the autographs. Shaquille O'Meal recently blew up, which again makes sense. That's part and parcel with that with our age group, is it not? I mean, it makes sense, right? So and I and sometimes you you even have to readjust yourself. I'm so old, I'm sitting here, you know, you and I are talking about Austin and the rock, but some people maybe even yearning for a period past the attitude area. But for me, the attitude era isn't even that old. For me it's like the golden era. Like let's talk, you know, Ricky Steamboat. Let's talk you know, guys guys from that era, but when you were stacking the Steve Austin autographs, it kinda blew my mind because you were so ahead of the curve there. it made so much sense. He he's the guy who saved professional wrestling, in my opinion, in the late nineties. I guess you could say alongside the NWO, but it was Austin first, in my opinion. And you know, like so let me pick your brain a little bit about that. Where were you just saying to yourself, this is cool? I really like Steve Austin, because that's I'm gonna see like Austin and The Rock are your guys. You know, like arguably my guys are like Bret Hart, ravishing, Rick Rude, that era, but those are your guys. And so were you just like, this is amazing that I have access to this, that there's an amazing product that came out, National Treasures, right? That had the on-card autographs. Man, people are gonna be going back. back to that side, aren't they? But Jonathan Crawford: flawless, flawless. Cartel: flawless, right? Sorry, I apologize. I I live in my Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cartel: base card world. But what was going through your head? Or or were you, you know, and again, there's no shame in it. I'm we are not going to be shaming the flippers, the investors. They all have their place in the hobby to a certain extent, obviously, but I'm not gonna shame those people, but there are people out there looking for the opportunity. Maybe it was a combination. What was going on in your head as you were buying all those Steve Austin's and I I was sitting there you know, like a pylon watching you and saying that's really cool, but not really doing anything about it. What was going on? Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, I mean it's a good question, honestly. I think for me a big part of it was the fact that I was you know, I was getting heavy into basketball cars at the time and just looking at stuff like flawless, NT Immaculate, you know, for guys like Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, that kind of thing. And, you know, prices obviously very high for that, you know, caliber of card, that player. And so it was like, what's another option to have that nice stuff, you know, the flawless? And it was it was kind of like the perfect storm of you know Panini when they're in their last their last run with the with the license, WWE license. And they just they hit it out of the ballpark with flawless, like just the the design, everything's on card. I mean the the relics, they're not, you know, worn relics, but you know, they're just such beautiful cards. And so it was like, I can get a a a stone cold flawless Star Swatch for under a thousand dollars. Like, that seemed like a no brainer. They and if you're gonna get a curry of the same Star Swatch is gonna be what, ten K plus easily, most likely. And so it just seemed like such a good opportunity to get one of my favorite wrestlers, nicest cards possible. And, you know, again, Panini lost the license after only three years. So and they only did flawless for one year. So one year flawless, only one year Star Swatches. and yeah, like the the prices when I was buying it's like how can I how can I not get as many as I can right now, you know? So Cartel: so that was a big driving force was the fact that you said to yourself, given the quality, given what this is, given who this is, these are, you know, like you said, they weren't cheap, but in in your mind there was a lot of space. And I think and you mentioned something that I bring up a lot, which is that comparison to some of the the big the the bigger sports. Is it the big four? Is that what they call it? but you Jonathan Crawford: Sure, yeah, yeah. Cartel: but we got we have to be careful with that ultimately, because of the fact, you know, I say to people with Patty Pimblett's last performance, I wound up, you know, I certainly made money on Patty cards that I had, but it wasn't easy and it wasn't at the level you would think that a player performing in football or basketball that had that sort of crowd reaction and international attention would have been much, much more. But that's I guess that's also why it's important to keep a look at the top of the industry, top of the hobby. For those big players and their big cards, because that can kind of trickle down potentially, and get people to pay a little bit more attention to the disparity. The disparity is there for a reason. Basketball is what it is, football is what it is, etc. Hockey seems to be catching up, but that's always been the that something that people have mentioned. But Wayne Gretzky rookie card getting disrespected for too long. certain players that are now catching the attention of Americans like Macklin Cellebrini. starting to raise up hockey in that way as well. New collectors, I think something like Rustling is gonna benefit from. Celebrity collectors we're seeing now get involved, which sometimes is cute because they're collecting. Sometimes it's less cute in my opinion, because I see the names coming in, former players, celebrities that seem to be very business driven, business minded, equity minded, investment minded, which again, no problem there. No there's nothing wrong with that, but it's quite obvious in my opinion. You had an experience with Dominic Mysterio and I wanna get that in for our debut podcast here because it's awesome and we're such a big fan of Dominic's here at Tonight's Card and we we just wanna get closer and closer with Dominic because 'cause Daddy Dom is is just a a walking magnet for everyone. Men, women I don't know where I'm going with all this, but the guy is magnetic, the guy is charismatic. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah. Cartel: What was your experience with Dom? Jonathan Crawford: I mean men, women and children, you know, he he met my son. Cartel: I I I didn't wanna add the children part, but the children is true. It's they they love I won't call Daddy Jonathan Crawford: Well yeah. Cartel: Dom, but they love Dominic. Jonathan Crawford: Maybe maybe Uncle Dom, you know, maybe Uncle Dom. You can be that for Cartel: Uncle Don. Jonathan Crawford: my son. That's a bit of a stretch, but anyway. yeah, I mean, it was not something that I had in my bingo card for 2026. I mean basically I have a friend who I met at a previous national, kind of kept in touch with him over the past couple of years, and he had mentioned that Dominic was looking for a certain card that he wanted to buy, an Eddie Guerrero autograph card. And he knew my friend knew that I had one. Cartel: From that from the from the legendary WCW autograph set. Jonathan Crawford: That's right. Yeah, absolutely. The one the set that has, Macho Man autographs, it has Hollywood Hogan autographs. Cartel: Is that ninety-eight w d WCWNWO? That's a it's a topps product. We should be on top of this child. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah. Yeah, n the nine Yeah, yeah. The ninety eight is the Eddie Guerrero. The ninety nine is the Matro Man. So two years, two years of the set. Cartel: There's two sets, okay, so we're I didn't even know there were two. I th I I thought they were all the same set. But there you go. Okay, so Dom Jonathan Crawford: That's that's why we're here, man. That's why we're here. Yeah, yeah, you're good. Cartel: is looking for Dom is looking for his uncle Eddie. Or his daddy Eddie. He's looking for Eddie. Jonathan Crawford: I mean depends who depends who you ask, you know. I like that he's playing into that though, the the father, Eddie is his father. But yeah, so he's looking for the card. Cartel: I need to get we we need that t shirt. We need the t shirt of Dominic as a kid that he was wearing and Liv Morgan was wearing. We need that. We need those T shirts. Jonathan Crawford: I I I tried. I looked at s I looked at all the merch at SmackDown. I figured they would have some not for sale. Not for sale. Cartel: I feel like they I feel like they just I feel like they DIYed it when someone's gotta someone could make some money bootlegging those. Jonathan Crawford: Not a bad idea. That could be our first official merch. Or not so official merch. Cartel: That that would be amazing. We're we're gonna look into it. But sorry, I keep interrupting Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, yeah. Cartel: you. You are you are moments from from meeting Dom or talking to Dom? Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, so so yeah, my s my friend mentioned that he was interested in the card, so I you know, reached out to him on on IG. We're kinda chatting back and forth. we didn't end up getting a deal done because I I told him from the get go, I'm like, listen, I have this card, I don't really wanna sell it, to be totally frank with you. I'm only entertaining this Because of who you are, and obviously the storyline between Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero and their famous match at SummerSlam. so we didn't end up didn't end up getting a deal done, which is fine. But Dom was nice enough to say, you know, offered to send a quick little video just saying hi to my son, which I thought was amazing. And you know, he he didn't have to do that, obviously. Like, you know, he d he he offered that and he ended up sending that after after triple a and then i kind of reached out to him kind of later on in the week and i was just thinking like because he he was gonna be in toronto for smackdown on the friday and i was like what's you know what's something that he wouldn't have access to you know like what's something that that I have that maybe I can kind pass along to him and I had Eddie Guerrero What is it? Eight eight and a half by eleven, I think is the what it is. So like a just a side picture. Cartel: I would've I would have just said eight by ten, but if you want to get into the specifics, yeah. Yeah. The eight point five by eleven Jonathan Crawford: A by sure, eight by ten, let's let's go with that. I'm measuring it with my with my ruler. Cartel: and three quarters. Jonathan Crawford: Hey the the dimensions matter, man. It's very important. Come on now. so yeah, so Cartel: It's true, it's true. Especially when you're framing, yes. Jonathan Crawford: that's r exac So I have this this PSA authenticated photo that I've had for a while. Just kind of been, you know, sitting in my in my room here and I was like, you know what, that would be cool. Just just to Just to give it to him as as kind of a thank you for, you know, sending the sending the video to my son. You know, have a chance to just kinda meet him briefly. and he was, you know, excited to to get that. So we ended up meeting up at Relics. Shout out Relics, a great shop here in Toronto. Cartel: Relics, the best in the GTA, servicing all of your hobby needs with a tremendous staff and excellent service, anything that you need for your sports car collection, you can get. At Relics, a wonderful shop here in the GTA, the best. So, go ahead. Jonathan Crawford: Beautiful, beautiful. And so yeah, we we met we made up a relics, you know, I gave it the the signed Eddie photo, which he was excited for, and then got some pictures with him and he signed my son's replica championship belt, which is really awesome. So I I think that the best part though, like after we kind of met him and everything he said to my son, he was like, Make sure that you tell people that I was really mean to you. You we've got to keep keep that heel character alive, so exactly, exactly. Cartel: the Kfabe, yes, gotta keep Kfabe. And he appreciates that as a student and a child of the game, I mean at the end of the day. that's it was th what an incredible sequence of events and obviously like, you know, I was you know, getting texts from you and riding along with that whole experience. And Dom was literally traveling between Mexico, Canada and the United States and took the time to make that video unreal. Just Unbelievable and and you can tell he's passionate about collecting. He's into Pokemon 2, I believe. and just amazing stuff. that really was amazing to see. And and that I think we're gonna hear more stuff like that. with more of the wrestlers and the athletes collecting their own stuff, collecting stuff that catches their eye. we're probably gonna be seeing a lot of lot more of that, right? So with the time that we have here Mr TCC, let's get a little bit into the news in y the UFC MMA professional wrestling, 'cause that is a big part of what we want to be doing here. I am a known UFC prognosticator. usually goes pretty well for myself. I once tried doing a subscription service to my picks, it did not go well. and I did not hang around long enough to to let people get to some wins after taking a l a few losses, but I'm I am a big prognosticator in the UFC. And obviously a big viewer of I'm the kind of guy that watches the weekly Dana White contender series, which has been incredible this season. we just had a UFC in Paris, which was highly enjoyable, some great knockouts. Michael Venom Page did his usual thing, which I think has led to the end of his UFC career, which is to say he wins spectacularly badly. We saw the coming of Saladin Parn Parnas, maybe butchering his name, who came over from some other fighting leagues. He'd recently been in Jake Paul's MVP promotion, came into the UFC like a ball of fire and kicked the liver out of Dan Hooker. so that was that was tons of fun. We've got UFC Noche coming up this weekend. It's a very Mexican weekend when it comes to combat sports, because we've also got triple A. Triple Mania coming up. We've got the Raw in Mexico that follows, which is gonna And I'm and I'm making a fearless prediction right now. Cerro Nedo is going to become world champion. Jonathan Crawford: Woo, hot take, I like it. Cartel: I if if Sammy can get a little bit of shine With the belt, Penta can get a little bit of shine. We we've got I don't know the the current storyline is so chaotic with everyone going after the bloodline and the remnants of the previous bloodline. S there's gonna be some wackiness, there's gonna be some shenanigans, and I think Penta can take it. And he doesn't have to run with it very long. That's a big deal in it in and of itself. They're pushing triple A, they're they're pushing Lucha Libre so hard right now. There's promos promising C. Punk potentially wearing his old straight edge society mask or maybe a new mask. So it's not that caught of a take in my opinion, but I do think they're gonna give a little bit of shine to Penta to pay off the tournament, to pay off what's going on with Triple A. Doesn't have to run for it very long, doesn't run with it very long. They can move it on, potentially to someone that Roman can chase. Potentially. I don't know. I don't even know if Roman's a heel or a face. What is he right now? Is he a baby face? Is he a heel? Jonathan Crawford: Hmm. I think I think he's meant to be a heel but everybody still loves him. Cartel: I mean like people were reacting to solo in a very babyface kind of way, but now they're both getting beaten up by Royce Keys and Jonathan Crawford: that's true actually. Yeah, okay. It's complicated. Cartel: but it's all very exciting stuff. AEW recently officially crowned Will Ospreay. you can you can say that they started a new era with Will Will Ospreay taking the world title. He had the incredible walkout. I don't know, you're not a big AEW fit guy, neither am I. I don't know if you saw it, but he had this incredible entrance that sort of like reflected his history, his journey through professional wrestling. my favorite Will Ospreay moments were his series with Ricochet. Back in the day before they both went on to the big league, so to speak. And he also wrestled Vader in one of Vader's final matches. And that was based on a Twitter feud. But that was so cool to see. It was kind of a bridging Jonathan Crawford: wow. Cartel: of bridging of generations. This is where I nerd out. But that's what we've seen. So there is a lot of exciting stuff going on in the world of wrestling that is relevant in terms of the hobby. If we want to see some big waves in the hobby, we we need to see some good stuff coming out of the big leagues, AEW, WWE. triple A and that sort of thing. and also they're they're catering to the nerds like myself quite a bit because they recently brought in Horomu Takahashi to hang out with Shinsuke Nakamura. not a huge crowd reaction to that, unfortunately. How do you feel about that? I you probably don't know much about Heromu. You obviously know Shinsuke, but how do you feel about that? It's kind of random? Jonathan Crawford: I mean, I'll be honest with you. I didn't know who he was, so I kinda learned more about it from you. So I feel like if I was in the crowd there I would have been like, Who is this guy? He seems kinda cool. I don't really know who he is though, so which is unfortunate, but that's that's the honest truth. Yeah. Cartel: He has a history with some of the wrestlers in WWE. He had an amazing series with Dragon Lee, who's one of the Lucha guys that they're really pushing right now. Because there's a big crossover between Lucha Libre and Puraisu. a lot of Japanese wrestlers will go to Mexico to hone their craft. And there's just a big crossover and mutual respect there. So they've got some cool options for Horomu. I can't even tell you the name that they gave him. I'll read up about it later on, but they've given him a different name and they've given the tag team a different name. And now they have them going up against the the my family tree, the MFTs, with Haku, which is super cool. I don't know if you've seen that yet, but Haku's hanging out with Jonathan Crawford: That is cool, yeah. Cartel: his kids and that's kinda cool. weird, it's kind of a double push. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, they they were they were there at SmackDown when I was there with my son. They had a lot Cartel: Right, right, yeah. Jonathan Crawford: of heat. A lot of heat for sure. Cartel: and yeah, and and and like I mentioned, the Noche UFC card is a low-key banger, for sure. they just announced, I'm just very quickly making sure that I've got my facts right here. They they've announced Tommy McMillan and Marwan Rahiki, Freaky Rahiki and Tommy Guns. That is gonna be an incredible match. That's kind of like a braun breaker obefemi situation, if I were to kind of Jonathan Crawford: Mm. Cartel: e equivocate to wrestling. I I personally as a booker or or a matchmaker in the UFC, I wouldn't have put those guys together so early, but it is gonna produce an incredible matchup that hopefully leaves them both coming out looking better because you can sometimes look great in a loss. anything that you're looking forward to upcoming from that stack of stuff that I just went over? Jonathan Crawford: I mean definitely like the the Penta Roman match is gonna be super interesting. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of Penta going over, but I mean why not? You know, like in in Mexico after the Cartel: Everyone's dismissing it. Jonathan Crawford: tournament. Right, right, right. It would be such an amazing moment though for for Penta, for the crowd, for everything. I just I just can't see Roman losing, you know? That's that's that's the tough thing. Not to say it won't happen, but obviously there'd have to be some extra curriculums going on. just so Cartel: He ha he has to lose sometimes, you know, he has to lose sometimes. And I think it's kinda cool, you know, the concept that, you know, look, the Triple A has had its main title, the the Mega Championship, on the on the shoulders of Dominic Mysterio, a WWE wrestler for so long. Let's have a world championship of WWE kind of legitimize what's going on with AAA. So I think that would I think that would be cool. I think that would be an interesting scenario. we'll see if I was on point with that. other than that, there is of course a little bit of hobby news going on, and it definitely relates to the wrestling hobby. we are we are of course talking about the John Cena patch. we don't wanna get too too deep into the muck that is the controversy. man, past few weeks, a lot of people just like arguing with one another over multiple things, a lot of anger, nothing nothing really new in the hobby that way, but just very punctuated lately. Everyone's either breaking or fighting, fighting while breaking, breaking while fighting. There's a lot of it going on. For me, and I obviously wanna get your perspective on on on this as well, but for me Just the basic point being that when you are breaking, I'm not very much into that world. I think you do some breaks. I'm very much not into that world there and and and all of the risks, the inherent risks that come with it. you obviously want to find people that you trust, but in this case, this is an individual who people did trust and had a following and still has a huge following when it comes to breaks and the whatnot stuff. get into these days. But in my opinion, if if there is insider knowledge of a huge hit and you're selling spots based on that, you are in a way defrauding people. People come back with, well they might get a different John Cena. But the bottom line is the the John Cena that they're looking to get, if it's not available, they they they're not aware of it. That rubs me the wrong way. Jonathan Crawford: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's everything I've been reading online and it's a very unfortunate situation because you know, it's most likely gonna be the most expensive wrestling card ever sold to this point. You know, you've got WrestleMania, it's John Cena's last WrestleMania, he won this the title for the seventeenth time. You know, just everything about the card leads to it's gonna be the most expensive card ever sold. So to have these allegations kind of swirling around it, it just sucks. It just sucks, honestly. And it kind of puts a bit of you know, a sore spot on something that should be kind of like a a celebration of like almost like a coming out party for for wrestling cards, right? So it's yeah, it's it just sucks. Cartel: That's a good point from that perspective. It's a big deal and it's meant to have a lot of eyes on it, but now it's got eyes on it and all the controversy accompanying it. Although I'm pretty sure a lot of people who don't really follow the pulse of the hobby or the news are really going to know that much about it. I don't think much is going to come out of all of this, by the way. There have been legal threats. There's the fighting that you've seen on social media and Instagram. You have defenders, you have accusers. I don't think much is going to come of it. And even in scenarios where we know that people were defrauding others or using third party services that people weren't aware of or any of these scenarios, people just walk past it and it gets swept under the rug. But that's the point that you just made is that it was sad that that was so tied up with what is such an important card. But it's also good that the people who are on the pulse of things and who are involved in this sort of stuff are aware of the risks and I don't have the answers for this sort of thing. showcase every case, make sure it's taped properly, you got to showcase every box. You can't get past the concept of what if there's insider knowledge about big hits. People want to charge as much as they can for their spots, they want to make as much money as they can possibly. That's really the bottom line and it's all a rather unpleasant situation and I know it's lame and know it's a cliche but all I can say is as buyer beware and just you know do your research make sure you're working with people that you trust take a deep dive into people's past so often you will see hobby heroes out there to this day who seem squeaky clean okay. so you know we get the big news story, we get the big controversy, life rolls on, the hobby rolls on. And with that said, let's enjoy the hobby to close up our first episode here of tonight's card. And on tonight's card, we've got some some sales, some pickups, and some cool stuff that will show off, hopefully. So I wanted to share this topical WWE card. We've got the, and hopefully one day we'll we'll be able to like pop it up on screen or something. But here we've got the Brawn Breaker Silver Prism Rookie Card PSA 10, which remains. Now you know about this card because you used to own it. It remains a pop one. Because I'm pretty sure they super short printed the silver prism autographs. I think they did. maybe not as sexy as a as a colored prism autograph, but it's a Pop one to this day. Breaker is obviously someone that they're looking at as a big star, a big breakthrough star along with Obafemi. And I think they're doing a pretty good job starting to insert those guys into the frame of a main eventer, that sort of thing. And touching on the some of the other pop culture stuff that we talked about, we've got This really cool, never mind the sticker, it's old. Supergirl 1966 Tops Foldees card, which is technically a rookie card. These cards you punch them out and you can kind of sit them upright and fold them. This one is unpunched. Those cards are gonna have a lot of demand. That's been sitting in a box for a long time. No one's ever asked me about it. And the first time I post it, it gets purchased right away, which tells me I probably sold it for too cheap. Here we've got someone that I get asked for more than more than Georges Saint Pierre, more than Hoyce Gracie. We've got Zabit. Magomed Sherepov. Everybody loves Zabit. He's a big what-if who retired early, but recently participated in, I believe it was a jiu-jitsu match or possibly grappling. So he might be getting the bug again. but people have always loved that guy. Zabit is a big big name. And this very cool Bobby Or canvas. This was pack pulled from 2011-2012. Another card that I probably sold Jonathan Crawford: That's a nice one. Cartel: for two low, so. Anything you want to show us that you've picked up or that you've sold? Jonathan Crawford: Well, just going on the train of Braun versus Oba, I'll give you a little oba here. I'm gonna Cartel: boy. Jonathan Crawford: nice little marks of champions, number to 10, get our struts going. Again, with Cartel: It's just very nice. Jonathan Crawford: the tops, you you love that on-card autograph on there, black refractory 10, can never go wrong with that. And then I had to bust out one of the Stone Cold, we talked about the flawless, the star swatches. So there's a nice little. Add a 25 there. The Stone Cold Cartel: Amazing curve. Jonathan Crawford: Star Swatch. Again, Stone Cold takes his time with the autographs. It's always full Cartel: Yeah. Jonathan Crawford: name, Stone Cold Steve Austin. just initial, you know I mean? So always love that. So I'll give you those two for now and we'll have, save a few more for down the pipe. Cartel: Of course. Absolutely. And something that you and I talked about privately was about the game used and event used relics that tops used back in their first runs with the UFC Jonathan Crawford: Sure. Cartel: and WWE properties that you can match things up to the events. We'll we'll show that stuff off in the future. the one that I've been pushing that was also broken by MMA rookies I believe it is on Instagram, is the Matt from the first event Habib Nirmigomedov fought in. it's not a Habib Nerm Nirmigomedov card, but it is the the actual Matt from the event U of C on on FX1. and then there's some good wrestling examples as well. But we are just kind of flying by the seat of our pants or lack of pants, John, is what's happening on this first episode of tonight's card. We hope you got some. Some enjoyment out of it, some information out of it, because we'll be a little bit better prepared in the future. It'll get fancy this here, this thing right here, this is a microphone of some sort. Maybe there will be more microphones, more headphones. There will be like that the that will have like space age foam surrounding us at some point. A green screen, you'll be Jonathan Crawford: I need a green screen or something. need a mic. We gotta work on the technology. Cartel: You'll be in Aruba, you know, that sort of thing. So who Jonathan Crawford: you Cartel: knows what surprises we'll have here on tonight's card, guys. It's it's cards, it's combat, it's commentary. And that's what it's all about here for the hobby. you are TCC. I am SCC. And I guess we're about to sign off. Any any final words, TCC? Jonathan Crawford: No, mean, be careful who you trust. You know, I think we've discussed that and, you know, look for value where other people aren't. You don't want to follow what everybody's doing, right? Because maybe it's too late. So it's okay to blaze your own trail sometimes. Cartel: There it is, there it is. You you may be led down the wrong path or you may be on a path too late. You want to get on the path Jonathan Crawford: Mm-hmm. Cartel: early and you always want to blaze your own trail, like John just very intelligently said, right there. And go, Daddy Dom, go, is all I can say. Big fans, hopefully he's successful in defending against Grande Americano. Probably not. But but Jonathan Crawford: I mean, yeah. Cartel: but it will be entertaining. It will be entertaining nonetheless. Alright guys. we'll come up we'll come up with a cool sign-off too eventually. But for now, tonight's card is over.