This yearly release comes a little bit later during Wrestlemania season this year. In recent years, this has been a January release, but this time comes out on March 11. It also comes during the Covid 19 pandemic, which has begun shutting down major sporting events. At the time of this writing, a SmackDown episode was rescheduled to an empty Performance Center, while Wrestlemania is still tentatively planned, but with a lot of uncertainty.
This release features a 100 card base set showing major events from the previous year. It also contains a number of insert sets, including a 50 card roster subset. The cards show a pirate theme, as the planned location for this year’s Wrestlemania is Raymond James Stadium, the home of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
A box contains 24 packs with 7 cards per pack. It advertises two hits per box, one of which is an on card autograph.
This year’s Heritage baseball set pays tribute to the 1971 release. The original black borders are a fan favorite, but difficult to find in top shape. Hopefully these fare a bit better. The release itself is a well known format. We see a 400 card base set with an additional 100 SPs running 401-500. We also see an assortment of variations with action shots, errors, throwback jerseys, and team name color change. New this year are a set of variations missing the printed autograph on the cards.
The release seems much more polarizing than I can remember this year. It’s a pretty standard format, but it’s not the format of most current releases. This is not a hit driven product. That’s not to say there aren’t some big hits, but they are few and far between. A box advertises one hit, but it is much more like to be a relic than an autograph.
A box advertises 24 packs with 9 cards per pack, and includes a real out autograph or relic card in every box.
This has become a yearly release I look forward to. There’s no real surprise to it, but it’s still a nice release. As we’ve seen in the last two years, we see a base set focusing on scenes from Return of the Jedi, along with familiar insert sets like Behind the Scenes, Concept Art, Posters, and Iconic Characters.
I’ve noticed something that seems a bit odd to me, too. For the original Black & White A New Hope release, the base set had 140 cards. The Empire Strikes Back had 150. This one, however, has 133. I’m a bit surprised it jumps around so much, but I guess it really isn’t a big deal. A box advertises 7 packs with 8 cards per pack, with 1 autograph or sketch card per box.
This year, the holidays bring the final episode of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. That means another card set, as well. This was released the same day as the movie. As with other recent movie releases, the first series has many characters and some scenes, but it’s light on anything really resembling a spoiler.
This release is similar to other recent movies. You get a small base set, parallels, and a number of insert sets including stickers, illustrated character, and ships and vehicles. One unusual thing that stands out, however, is the base set. It’s 99 cards, rather than something round. I guess that’s not really good or bad, just surprising. It’s not clear why that change. Could it be so the set will fit in pages nicely?
A box advertises 24 packs with 8 cards per pack. This includes two hits per box, one of which is guaranteed to be an autograph or sketch card.
When the new television deal was announced for NXT, this set took on a little bit more meaning. Before now, NXT has been a brand exclusively on the WWE Network. It was well received, but perhaps didn’t have as large an audience. That has all changed, but will that mean a bigger market for the cards? Time will tell on that.
It feels like an unusual release. It has a similar configuration to other recent wrestling releases, included a set of matches and moments, as well as one of the roster. There are 100 matches and moments, and a separately numbered 50 roster cards. Only the matches and moments have parallels, which makes it seem the primary base set. There are no other “non-hit” inserts included in this release. It also seems a bit strange that, while included in the roster cards, the women are not featured in the matches and moments portion.
A box advertises 24 packs with 7 cards per pack. It also includes 2 autographs per box, although there have been reports of some boxes containing 5 autographs instead.
