Saturday, August 9, 2008

Dubious ways to get on a trading card

By Rick Morris

With TNA Wrestling releasing a set of trading cards, there really is only one place to turn for coverage: our good buddy Russ Cohen, whose Sportsology, Wrestleology and Card Corner Club websites are part of our Friends of FDH Club. He wrote a review of the set for SLAM! Wrestling, a great resource for all things "sports entertainment."

As an experienced pundit on both pro wrestling and sports memorabilia, his takes were very sharp. Of particular note was the fact that some cards, like the one featuring Jeff Jarrett, featured black "bleeding" from the TNA logo onto the individual's head. Not good.

Russ liked many features of the set, but he did find something odd in there: the fact that TNA head honcho Dixie Carter had a card in there. That's the aspect of the set that ties into our headline here: what exactly did she do to get a card? Convince her rich daddy to bankroll TNA as a tax writeoff so that she could indulge the wishes of her buddies like Jarrett to operate a pathetic, underachieving promotion that is a thinly-veiled tribute promotion to WCW circa 2000-2001? By the way, lest that last sentence seem sexist, which it is not, allow me to note that Jarrett similarly benefited from his daddy's foolhardy financial underwriting when they started this mediocre-at-best outfit back in 2002. The promotion's wallowing along, treading water at an unimpressive level and not even coming close to pushing Vince McMahon out of his present lackluster mode, but hey, at least they've got some moderately interesting trading cards out there!

Again, go read Russ's article, it's great as always.

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