Retro Scans: 1991 WCW Trading Cards by Championship Marketing

After last week's LOOOONG article about Nobody Beats the Wiz, I figured a nice quick palate cleanser was in order.  Many of you know I grew up a fan of the National Wrestling Alliance and World Championship Wrestling.  While I always thought that their wrestling and storytelling was superior, they were admittedly very far behind the WWF when it came to promotion and merchandise.  

In 1991, this pack of cards became WCW's first official set of trading cards.  These "Super High Gloss Finish" cards made by Championship Marketing are relatively hard to find all these years later.  Compared to the extremely common "purple packs" of WCW cards made by Impel (also in 1991), these glossy cards are pretty expensive on the secondary market.  Thankfully, I had a handful left over from when I was a kid and picked up several more before the trading card market went nuts during COVID.  

I must have opened thousands of those purple packs, and someday, I'll open one for this website, but even as a kid, I knew these glossy cards were hard to find and have only opened a handful over the years. 

Today, however, I ripped open another pack so we could enjoy some retro wrestling goodness!  I was excited to see some great photos in this set, including my all-time favorites, Sting and Ric Flair!  Seeing Paul Heyman as Paul E. Dangerously and the "injured Sting" card reminded me of some great times and storylines of the past.  Also, it was fun being reminded of Tom Zenk again.  I think he's someone who deserves to be talked about more.

The cards were still in pretty good shape after 32 years.  Only a little pack rash (or whatever it's called by card collectors) from rubbing against one another for so long.  The gloss made them hard to scan, but I've tried to clean them up as best I could.  

Click Keep Reading to check out the entire pack!  You can click on the photo to enlarge it for more detail.