Box Break: 2016 Topps WWE Divas Revolution

Just in time for tonight's WWE Royal Rumble, let's take a look at Topps' latest wrestling product.

Topps and WWE have had a pretty lengthly working history. There have card sets for the WWE based on many of Topps' baseball card brands, such as Heritage and even Allen & Ginter. However it's been awhile since we've had an all womens set. Early on this new set was advertised as a Walmart exclusive, but ironically enough I first saw it at Toys 'R Us.

Labeled as the Divas Revolution and released at very tail end of 2016, I'm ok with the basis of the set, but not the name. The WWE has made a big push to legitmize women's wrestling and use the woman as just more as eye candy. They got rid of the stupid bra and panty matches of the Attitiude era and now feature women who I believe could hold their own against some of the men on the same roster. The WWE even ditched the stupid looking Divas Championship belt in favor of a new Women's Championship title belt. So why would Topps go and name this card set Divas Revolution?

All that aside, these cards are only offered in $19.99 MSRP blaster boxes. Each blaster yields 51 exclusive cards...50 cards from the regular set and 1 exclusive autograph, kiss card or a shirt/mat relic. The box itself toutes many of the current women that compete for both brands of WWE, but also features Trish Stratus and Lita on one side of the box. That should clue in the buyer that the set features more than just the current roster of women.

The base set is small, at only 43 total cards and is made up of former, current and NXT superstars.

In addition to the smattering of colored parallels randomly inserted, the insert sets help add some much needed bulk to the base set. Insert sets include:

Power Couples (10 cards), a pairing of male and female superstars that you may have recognized from WWE programming.

Rivalries (8 cards), a versus series of cards highlighting some classic matches from the past.

The Best Matches (9 cards), a more in depth look back at fierce matches include the date the match occurred.

The Revolution (4 cards), looks at the women that officially kicked off the new women's revolution.

Champions (9 cards?), looks back at former women who have held the gold.

The aforementioned guaranteed autograph or relic card that falls one per box is obviously one of the main draws to buying multiple blasters. At first I thought you may get the entire base set in each box so more than one would only be needed if you were trying to go for 100% completion, but that isn't the case. My blaster yielded me 26 of 43 base cards. The other 14 cards fell into one of the insert sets from above. Surprisingly I didn't get one of the parallels, but I'm actually glad as I'd rather try and finish off the set and all of the inserts.

My auto/relic card ended up not being so bad. I'm from Charlotte, NC so it's cool to get a card of someone that jails from my hometown, but I'm not the biggest fan of her character...or her dad's. What I didn't realize is that this mat relic is serially numbered to 50. Mine came in at 43/50. 

Overall I'm pleased with this set and I do see myself buying one more blaster to try and round out the set. I'm sure I'll have some doubles to trade if anyone out there cards. Kudos to Topps for trying something a little different this time around as the WWE trading card scene of late seems to be getting a little crowded with more of the same.