2010 Tristar TNA: The New Era

I have to admit it I enjoy watching wrestling. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I watched WWF every Sunday morning. Watching wrestling with my son now brings me back to when I was a little kid watching George “The Animal” Steele ripping a corner buckle apart with his teeth or Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat come flying off the top ropes.

There are currently a couple of wrestling “leagues”, the most prominent being WWE, but while the major competition for WWE is long gone you still have franchises like TNA that draws in a niche crowd. Building on those fans Tristar has released a couple of TNA related sets over the past couple of years, the most recent being the 2010 Tristar TNA: The New Era, which is surprisingly selling well.

Scheduled Release Date: Available Now
Box Configuration: 6 cards per pack, 20 cards per pack
SRP: $79.95

Box Break:
2 Autographs #/50 or less
1 Event-Used Memorabilia Card #/199 or less
1 Parallel #/30 or less
2 Obak Cards

This is a very limited release, Tristar announced that only 100 cases are to be produced and at 24 boxes per case that means that there are only 2,400 total boxes released. The set itself is all about Hulk Hogan with the advertisements announcing that there are over 30 different Hulk Hogan cards, not counting parallels.

The set consists of 100 cards, 90 base cards and 10 Obak cards. There are 3 parallels for each base card; color #/30, red #/10 and purple #/1. There are 86 total autograph cards; 55 single-signed cards, 22 dual-signed cards, 4 triple-signed cards and 5 quad-signed cards. The final insert set is the memorabilia cards, a total of 18 memorabilia cards broken down in to 8 single memorabilia cards, 1 dual memorabilia card, 3 triple memorabilia cards and then 6 single memorabilia/auto cards.

The base set focuses mainly on Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair but there are plenty of up and coming wrestlers included in the checklist. If you have watched wrestling over the past 10-15 years you will find a wrestler that you know included here.

Some of the wrestlers included in this set are:
Hulk Hogan
Sting
Ric Flair
Kevin Nash
Jeff Jarrett (who actually founded TNA)
AJ Styles
Abyss
Rob Van Dam
Kurt Angle

My Thoughts:
I am working on a complete set; so far I have 65% of the base set (all base cards no Obaks yet) and 4 autographs. I guess that gives you my thoughts on the set. This set is kind of a history of all the top wrestlers that have been around for the past decade.

I figure I am going to have to pick up a box or two to finish up the set. Plus if I go that route I will get a couple of limited autos and memorabilia cards.

Rating:
I am torn on this because this is what I expect from a good set release; a reasonable size base set, limited parallels and short prints and limited inserts- autos and memorabilia only. I will go with 4 ½ out of 5 with this release.