Completed Collections: 1991 Impel WCW

1991 Impel WCW (162 Cards): Completed 6/18/10!

Another day, another completed set! This time it's the sort of wacky 1991 Impel WCW set, from the wide world of wrestling. This set was covered in pack form over at A Pack to Be Named Later a while back, where Johngy explained the set pretty well. I'll go a little more in depth here, and will also give the set my top ten treatment!


Let's start with the basics. 1991 Impel WCW consists of three different types of cards, denoted by background color. Yellow is for individual superstars:

Red is for tag teams:

And green is for managers/announcers:


The interesting thing about this set is that there are multiples of each person. Some people only get a few cards; Jim Ross, for instance, has 3 in the set. Sting, on the other hand, has 13. Here's the first 6:
Different pictures on the front, some in the midst of action, others just standing around. Next we have the backs of these first 6 cards:
Same photos, but different info (and numbers). The three bolded items change from card to card, as well as the bottom snippet. Some of these snippets discuss the action on the front of the card (#6, for instance, mentions how Sting was battling Sid Vicious). Others simply talk about how Sting is awesome.


So now that you have an idea of what goes on in this set, I'll give you my top ten. One note ahead of time: If a wrestler was pictured above, then none of their cards made my top ten. I wanted to include one card of every wrestler in the set in this post, and using the not-as-awesome cards to demonstrate the set seemed best. The truly awesome cards are what you'll see now, starting with:

10. #19 Lex Luger
Now as a kid, I HATED Lex Luger, especially in his WWF days as the Narcissist. But his torture rack was a cool move, and this card shows him performing it on Arn "Aliteration" Anderson. So I'm a fan.


9. #144 Doom
This is the only red or green bordered card that I included in my top ten: most of the tag team and announcer cards are sort of lame. This one is really silly though. One dude is practically about to cry (or laugh?). The other one's just like, "Man, leave it alone." Weird emotions there.


8. #59 Flyin' Brian (Pillman)
Terrific card of a terrific guy here. Pillman dabbled in the NFL as a member of the Cincy Bengals before moving to wrestling. His high flying antics ruled, and I was a big fan of the guy (consider him my anti-Lex Luger). This card doesn't showcase him flying around the ring, but it does show him fighting a ninja, which is really random. Naturally I love it.


7. #102 Ricky Morton
This is actually the second of two cards where Ricky is getting pummeled. The back of this card lets us know that Ricky is about to pull a "slipe n' slide move" to get away from his opponent. That might be true, but it's still an unflattering picture for your card.


6. #36 Ric Flair
Ric Flair doing some weird stuff with lightbulbs on his fingers. I'm sure this was part of his entrance or something, but out of context it's just really weird/looks kind of cool.


5. #22 Lex Luger
Luger sucks, as I said, but this card is ridiculous. For sheer zaniness alone this could be #1, but I don't judge solely on zaniness. And I don't like Luger.

Plus the back of the card talks about how Ric Flair is about to "dine on some ring rope." Which has to be illegal in like 17 states.


4. #39 Ric Flair
When you think Ric Flair, you think Figure Four leglock. Put the iconic move of an iconic WCW figure on a trading card and you've got yourself something quite...well, iconic. I have an issue with this card though - it looks like Luger may have reversed the move. The back of the card says that Flair is laughing, but that looks like Flair's pain face, and Luger's left hand is holding Flair's foot. So this would be higher on my list, but again, Luger sucks, and I don't want to take the chance that he's winning on this card.


3. #56 Flyin' Brian (Pillman)
Great mid-action shot here. There's also a lot of really good hair shots in this set, and this may be the best of 'em.


2. #61 Flyin' Brian (Pillman)
This card is probably as scoreboard-y as wrestling cards get, so I'm thinking a few of you non-wrasslin' folks may appreciate it. Brian's on the top rope beating Flair to a pulp, and they managed to get a perfect shot of this without cropping anything out. Throw in the megatron and the lights in the background, plus some audience, and the card is near perfect. Easily my favorite action card of the set.


So what beats it? Something really, REALLY 'effin silly:
1. #76 Dutch Mantell
Has there been a grosser looking wrestler in the history of...ever? I mean I know that Bastion Booger existed, but his whole gimmick was being gross. As far as I can tell, Dutch was just a dude from Texas who made terrible jokes:
When asked about the Steiner Brothers, Dutch'll respond, "I bet if you asked them when the War of 1812 was fought, they couldn't tell you."

Hardy har har Dutch, that's a real knee slapper. You truly are the manliest man who ever did man.


Finally we have the last card I received to complete the set, which comes courtesy of the Beckett Marketplace's own Milestone Sports. They have a decent selection and very nice prices, which is why I looked to them to finish out my set with card #125, Fabulous Freebirds:
It ain't the purtiest card in the bunch, but it finishes off my set, so I like it!

That'll do it for my most recently completed collection, but hopefully there will be many more! My only other wrestling collection is a 1994 Good Humor set that you had to cut out of Ice Cream wrappers from the Ice Cream truck. I'm not too optimistic that I'll finish the set as I can't find the 6 cards I need anywhere, but I'm still looking for them! Maybe some of you ate a lot of ice cream in 1994?