It’s ’80s retro cool with the third release in the ever-dependable WWE Heritage line. Despite a horrible box, this is still a fun product that has me excited for more. And there’s a piece of gum in every pack.
Topps takes from their 1980, 1982 and 1987 baseball designs to make up the WWE Heritage III base set. Current superstars have the 1980 design, Divas are 1982 and Legends are 1987. Card backs are all the same with a non-glossy light blue. Each design is nice but I’ve always been a huge fan of the woodgrain borders found on the Legends cards. The Legends also offer the best images as several go back into the 1970s and early 1980s when you didn’t have to have a chiseled body. Rather, these guys are down, dirty and ready for a fight.
Topps continues to cash in on the classy Allen & Ginter sets from 1889. Hobby boxes contain a series of 12 Legends falling at a rate of four per box. I’ve really grown fond of these tobacco-sized minis and love the Jake “the Snake” Roberts I pulled in particular. Retail packs have a similarly looking set but with current stars replacing the retired greats.
As with each of the previous Heritage sets, both autographs and Ringside Relics memorabilia cards make up the “hits” in the hobby product. It looks as though sticker autographs are here to stay as evidenced by the Allen & Ginter-inspired autographs. The picture image is a little too small for my taste and while the checklist offers a lot of new signers, there’s no big-ticket superstar appearing on a Heritage autograph for the first time. I pulled a Trevor Murdoch who is a member of one of the best teams in a poor tag team scene. Ringside Relics contain a very small piece of an event-worn shirt. I received a plain black card of Carlito. While I like Topps’ efforts with the WWE license much more than Fleer’s go seven years ago, Fleer did offer more generous swatches on a lot of the memorabilia cards.
Each box also contains one of three “Tag Team Superstar” box toppers. It’s the same design as they’ve used in the past, which I like. Oddly, my box topper has Brian Kendrick and Paul London on the front and the bios for Cade and Murdoch on the back.
Although I like the overall product, my box was horrid. The base set has 90 cards. In a perfect world I would have built one base set and still had almost two dozen doubles. I was short ten cards of a set. On top of that, almost half of my duplicates are very poorly miscut and will require a letter to Topps. Inserts went accordingly albeit a continued snaffu with the wrong-back box topper.
I’ll continue to support the Heritage line as it has always had a great assortment of wrestlers past and present, as well as autographs. And let’s not forget the draw of the pink gum.
2007 Topps WWE Heritage III Box Breakdown:
Packs per box: 24
Cards per pack: 5
Total cards: 119
Cards in set: 90
Singles: 80
Doubles: 32
Triples+: 0
Inserts: 7
- Autographs (1:24): 1 (Trevor Murdoch)
- Ringside Relics (1:24): 1 (Carlito – Shirt [black])
- Allen & Ginter “Legends” (1:6): 4 (2. Chief Jay Strongbow, 4. Iron Shiek, 8. Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, 10. Jake “The Snake” Roberts)
- Tag Team Superstars Box Topper (1/box): 1 (Brian Kendrick and Paul London [front], 3 of 3. Cade & Murdoch [back])
