Box Break: 2021 Topps WWE Women's Division (x2!)

 

Thanks to the good folks over at Midwest Cards, I grabbed a two boxes of 2021 Topps WWE Women's Division for my daughter and I to open. Since she has taken a liking to wrestling cards it's been even more fun to rip product like this. I figured she'd want to build her own set too so it made sense to grab two boxes before the prices rose. With Topps losing the WWE license there was a lot of uncertainty of what was going to happen with these last few products that have been delayed. The Women's Division came out just a few days before 2021 Topps Finest WWE which marks the end of Topps' run with the WWE license.

Like in past years, the set is made of up of action cards that are dated from previous episodes of RAW, SmackDown and pay-per-view events. There is also a set of 55 cards that depicted the various women on the rosters. These part of the set I would find to be tougher to complete. Several different levels of parallels exist, but I found them hard to point out initially. A few insert sets also exist, though I forgot to hold out a few of them for photos. The draw of course are the two guaranteed hits in each box. One is an auto while the other will be a relic. Manufactured relics count as a hit so if you don't like those, what out!

The first box was probably the better of the two, though it wasn't great either. We did hit a green parallel of Auska & Bailey (02/50), but I didn't know it until I sorted the cards. All of the base cards have white bars of light in the lower left corner and the parallels change that up with different colors. The serial numbering is on the back so it's really easy to pass these up as you're thumbing through the packs. The Diamond die-cut inserts are really nice so I was glad to pull 3 of these, especially Indi Hartwell. The two hits were a mat relic of Sasha Banks (162/250), which was event used in the 2021 Royal Rumble on 01/31/21. If Topps can name the date of the event the memorabilia piece is from in wrestling, why can't they do that with their sports cards? The other hit of the box was an on card autograph of Piper Niven...or now as she is called Doudrop (075/199). What's odd about this card is that all of the base cards depicting her are labeled as Doudrop. Whatever, Topps made a few lazy mistakes with this set such as backs of the cards printed upside down. I guess I can let it pass since I know they were rushed to get this set out the gates before the license expired.

The second box I thought initially was a dud...mainly because of the horrible manufactured logo relic of Nia Jax (071/150) we pulled as one of our two hits. I was holding out hope that the auto would make up for the other hit, but nope...it was of Alyse Ashton. I was the WWE pretty regularly and even I didn't know who this was. Turns out she was a former interviewer. Yeah...*yawns*. Only bright side I could find with the card was that it was her "RC" and she has a nice autograph. We rounded out the box with two more die-cut Diamond cards. Like with the previous box, I found a colored parallel when I was sorting the cards in my sorting tray...thought it was a double of Io Shirai and Candice LeRae then I noticed the serial number on the back...1/1! Alright, that helped redeem what I thought was a stinker of a box.

Overall I wasn't as impressed with the Women's Division set this year. I'm glad it was back to a standard 24 pack style box over the blaster box/fat pack packaging of 2020. The quality control of some of the cards wasn't the way you wanted to see this set go out, though any time autos are on card it's a plus. Even the mat relic design was pretty nice...which is a little surprising. I was able to complete one base set and came close to a second. The collation of the roster cards though wasn't great and left me about 6 cards shy from my set and a whole lot for my daughter's set. I'm going to post what few doubles I have left on my Trading Card Database profile page in the hopes I can make some trades to finish out both my daughters set and my own. Maybe I can strike up some trades on Twitter as well.

I'm sad to see this set go away after 6 years as it's been a fun set to collect. Once I upgrade to a 4" binder I'll have all the WWE Women's Division sets (2016-2021) all together in one place.