Darkstar Diaries: Entry 3 - Trading Card Craze by Darkstar Shady

I know it’s been a while, but if you read my first diary entry then you’ll know I have a problem. 

In early 2023, I was in the midst of my trading card problem. Saying trading cards is a light way to say it. I was playing the newest Digimon TCG at a competitive level, and I kept between 8-10 decks built at any time; I had a complete set of every release in the game to that point. That led me to getting back into playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, and building a $500 deck to play that. At the same time, my ex and I had been buying Pokemon cards since the Detective Pikachu movie was released. 

Cards were getting hard to find, and I was constantly wanting to scratch the itch of opening packs—and I had been trying to keep up with posting content on TikTok regularly. That led to me opening packs of any kind of cards I could find. I spent a lot on Baseball cards, with football and basketball taking my money, as well.

When I got back into wrestling, it felt natural to look into finding cards for the sport. It started small: a pack here and there from Wal-Mart. I had also gotten into shopping on eBay for the first time. Suddenly I was looking for something I’d never gotten from any other pack of sports cards: something autographed. And then graded cards. I picked up an /199 Becky Lynch patch auto on eBay. That was followed by an older Becky base Topps card, graded from some off-brand company I’d never heard of. 

Then it really became a problem. I was buying blaster boxes and packs whenever I saw them. I was addicted to finding cards, but I never got any real hits out of the packs. After a while, I finally did hit something good: a gold /10 Sheamus from a blaster of Select. 

I dreamed of buying a hobby box, and it felt like just a dream until I found a huge deal. I went into a sports card shop up the road from my apartment, and the owner was clearing out some inventory. I got a 2022 NXT hobby box for around $40. I wish I had sprung for more. I got a Dexter Lumis autograph and a Toni Storm /50 auto from that box, and that felt great to hit! Plus, I love both Lumis and Storm. 

During the expansion of my card collection, I felt like I was hitting a wall elsewhere in life. Bluesky was taking off, and I really wanted to get off of Twitter and switch over to the new social media network. I started to share pictures for #WrestlingCardWednesday on Bluesky and I was happy seeing a small, but interactive community. I would crosspost those pictures onto Twitter, and that’s about all I would share there. It felt like I’d been yelling into the void for a while there. My account wasn’t growing, and I got almost no interaction.

Beyond the Collection

Wrestling cards changed everything for me. 

When I was playing competitive Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, I had fun because I had a group of friends to open packs with and play games with weekly. I did that for quite a while, but over time the size of the group dwindled. There were some weeks where I was the only person who showed up. The people I played with were friends, but that friendship was tied directly to the fact that we all showed up just to play the same game. 

People moved away, and those friends stopped responding to messages. They were friends just for the card game.

Wrestling card collecting became more than just a costly hobby. I gained a community through them. 

When I was posting pictures regularly, Twitter started to get a few extra likes and comments. I got added to a group chat about wrestling cards, and then a Discord server. I went from just sharing pictures of what I had pulled and bought, to actively seeking out certain cards from others. 

I hadn’t really known what a “PC” (Personal Collection) was yet, but I quickly learned. I really wanted to start getting nicer cards; my collection needed autographs and parallels. I started looking for wrestlers I liked, and it turns out two of my biggest favorites aren’t as sought after as they should be. Candice LeRae and Natalya have some very affordable cards. Quickly, I became the Candice LeRae guy who people were coming to before trying to sell their cards to others. 

At first, I was only buying singles from guys in the Discord. One day, someone tagged me on Twitter in someone else’s sale. That someone is known as The Great Brown Hope. 

I was already familiar with the man known as CardboardPC, but I ended up even deeper in the card space. Suddenly I was buying from a guy named Kyle Knyx. He’s kind of a jerk wrestler, he beats people with a baseball bat, and he also happens to be one of the best guys to know and buy cards from. 

Talking to TGBH and buying cards from him made a big difference in my online life. He hooked me up with great deals, worked with me when my finances took a sudden turn, and then he started supporting me by sharing posts of other things I was working on. After a bit, he got me invited into the Main Event Network family, which is how you are now able to read these posts from me.

Not everyone in the Network is into cards, specifically, but we all are into wrestling. We have group chats and other ways to talk. We talk wrestling. We had a fantasy football league. And when one of us is down, there’s plenty more to help raise each other back up. It’s a support network far beyond just being card collectors and wrestling fans.

I found the group not long after my wife and I split up, and having a new focus helped me keep myself on track to keep pushing through life.

Learning the Game

I wasn’t new to cards before WWE, necessarily, but most of my knowledge was based in trading card games, and the value of those cards based on rarity and the meta surrounding the games.

When I was younger, I had collectible Divas cards (man I wish I had those, still), and I had been buying sports cards for a bit by the time I discovered modern WWE cards. But suddenly it was more than just collecting. I was actively buying (and trading) cards with people online. I was learning the differences between base and numbered cards; I learned about different inserts and what made the difference between a $5 card and a $50 card that looked damn near identical. 

I also got to suffer through the fact that cards are so fucking popular that I have literally only seen new WWE cards in store once in over a year. 

I was so excited when Topps got the WWE license, just to be disappointed by the fact that access to the cards has almost disappeared. In the tail end of Panini, cards were harder to find, but I was still finding tons of cards in the wild. Select and Prizm blasters were sporadically in stock, and I was able to buy multiple at a time. I’d find 2022 NXT constantly, and the stock would still pop up at random into 2024. 

Now? I’ve seen the first Topps set once. I bought three blasters at Target a few months after they were released, and haven’t seen them again since. Except a hobby box that a local shop was selling for $350, but that’s a whole different issue.

I’ve been relying on others finding stock, and buying the singles they list when all I want to do is buy a blaster here and there and rip packs for the fun of it.

Going Forward

I still buy cards regularly. I’m waiting on a Toni Storm auto I bought from Kyle Knyx. I’ve been giving AEW more and more of my attention as of late, and there are a handful of wrestlers I do love to follow, so my collection is growing even more. I picked up a few lots of cards from TGBH and that kickstarted that collection, so I may start looking for those cards myself.

It’s been over a year since I’ve seen WWE on a shelf, but I often scan the shelves and see AEW cards (before I settle on WNBA for myself). 

Wrestling cards gave me a collectible hobby when my TCG groups stopped appearing at events. They scratch the itch of opening cards for fun, and I’m able to make videos of them (that I need to start posting). 

Not only that, but wrestling cards helped me find a community and reignited my passion for content creation, when I was feeling like nothing would ever work out for me.

I’ve spent many years making and remaking social media accounts. I tried to brand myself; I wanted to find an in to be noticed within my niches. When it all began to feel hopeless, these pieces of cardboard led me to a group that is pushing me forward and keeping me motivated. 

Yes, I might still be blowing the budget whenever I decide to start collecting a new wrestler’s cards, or I see a good deal and a friend can hook me up in a way to make it easier on my wallet. But trading cards gave me so much more than just a PC to photograph and show off. They brought me to a community of people with similar passions and drives to my own.