What if ... Topps created a Stadium Club WWE card set?

What if ... Topps created a Stadium Club WWE card set?

It's a simple enough question, so that's why you see it here has both the headline and the opener -- and there are more than 100 simple fake cards that I've crafted to follow to show just some of the possibilities. It all started with a tweet of the photo you see above of Bianca Belair on the way to the ring for her history-making main-event match at WrestleMania 37 earlier this month. I saw that and followed with a tweet of my own saying "somewhere out there in the world is a Topps Stadium Club WWE set that could be huge."

For those who don't know, Stadium Club is a brand that Topps introduced to the world back in 1991 and it's a photo-driven full-bleed brand that has been seen for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer and even some non-sports entities ... but never for WWE, which Topps has made cards for in its current run since 2005. (The first Topps WWE sets were in 1985 and 1987.)

Why might it work? Well, if you ask me, the WWE has some of the best photographers on the planet working for them and I scoured a tiny sampling of the thousands of images they produce every year to document it all -- in the ring, outside the ring and behind-the-scenes stuff -- to imagine the possibilities. Just a sliver of their work ever sees cardboard, and while a number of the iconic images you will see here have appeared on cards they've not often had much of a dynamic border-free run like you see in Stadium Club.

I spent a few hours this weekend coming up with a basic photo frame for some imagined -- totally fake -- cards to help sell the idea like I'm D-Generation X with a new T-shirts to hock. Here's hoping you see what I see for the potential as I look at a few categories of photos and approaches I'd take in an all-eras, all-encompassing set that seems like it could easily be one of the coolest and meatiest card sets in WWE history if it were to happen.

Battles & Showdowns
Battles are obviously the bread and butter of many WWE card sets and the moments often do show up in somewhat of a documentary form with sets like Road to WrestleMania going there ... but my gut feeling as a collector is that a lot of those moments can be distant in how they can are presented and since the focus there is only on the last year in action that a lot of gems might not have had their day. I couldn't tell you which cage match this was from between Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins, but the fact that his nose is sticking out of the cage made the photo. See the gallery for more battles and showdowns from the past that caught my eye ... and then consider there are countless other possibilities.

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Powerful Portraits
Every time a new star arrives, changes their look or adds a championship to their wrestling résumé, there are portraits. Tons and tons of portraits. We do see many of them all of the time on cardboard -- like the first category here -- but they're often for cutouts atop logos or for other things to be added behind them or in combos with others. Or for autograph and Relic cards where a clean shot of the star is idea. However, a mix of dramatically cropped or creative portraits -- some perhaps even pulling back the curtain a little so show lights, photographers and environments could make for some iconic Stadium Club cards. A portrait like this one of new Raw women's champ Rhea Ripley gets a closer look at all those spikes on the jackets she spends so much time crafting -- you can probably count them here. (See the gallery for more.)

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Callbacks & Cameos
If you're old enough to remember the first Stadium Club baseball set, then you probably remember the tuxedo cards that could be found a few times in the first set. Why? I'm not sure we ever found out ... it just happened but as you flipped through a set you'd see one guy in a tux and then another. Then, other cards took over with unusual photos in the mix and those were staples of what made the set different. In the case of my mocks here (see more in gallery) I went for a few combo cards where you see one moment ... and then later in the set there could  be a P.S. of something that happened after that. Another way to do this? Using photos of two people on a card and then just one is noted as it being their card -- a cameo -- and then later the same happens with a different image. (Or it could even be the same one later.) Maybe it just amuses me ... but I think it's a way to help make a base card more interesting. This example? Asuka delivering a promo with her then-manager Paige ... and then her mystifying dismissal.

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Entrances
These moments are made to be impactful, so the images here are, too, with big stages, colorful graphics and pyro getting a go. And then other times you get elaborate entrances like D-Generation X on a tank ... and oddly if you think about it there are even other tanks out there in WWE lore. (That could be a mini subset of its own.) There are varying features to entrances -- poses, torn shirts, fan interactions and more -- that have had their spots on cards in the past but perhaps not with a documentary or high-gloss photo mindset in mind vs. filling a card frame. Not only would I rip a ton of packs here -- especially if the autograph potential was there -- but, man, these kinds of images are just made for wall art, too. (See the gallery for more possibilities ... really, this one is just about the gallery. Get to that gallery. Do it.)

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Behind The Scenes & The WWE Hall of Fame
There are so many behind-the-scenes photos that the WWE publishes all of the time on its site and there are countless glimpses behind the curtain in documentaries that simply don't get old. We generally don't see them except perhaps for Hall of Fame moments (those often on the stage) when it comes to cardboard. (They exist but not in high volumes.) Stadium Club seems like the ideal place for an enhanced look at what goes into things. Here's a moment when WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix was getting ready for the honors with her fellow Hall of Famer husband Edge and their daughter were all caught by a WWE lens. There are a lot of other photos that could be perfect for a Stadium Club card ... and if one wanted to expand that even further, how about nods to their Instagram platforms?

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Duos and legends
Sure, this is a studio shot of The Road Warriors Hawk and Animal -- aka The Legion of Doom in WWE -- and it's a photo that's been seen a lot in the past, but it's good. Iconic photos of iconic stars can always be revisited to add extra energy -- and to widen the selection on a checklist beyond the, say, 100 or so stars we see all of the time. Think of current Stadium Club baseball sets and imagine them without the surprises from the past ... not as strong. See the gallery for more on this front.

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Puzzle cards & Callbacks
Cards that are nods to others in the same set don't necessarily happen all that often but here's one example of three where I think it might work. Stuff like this has been done by some card companies when they do photo variations. These aren't necessarily "puzzles" but I use that term to mean cards that are intended to be paired together. A couple more like this are in the gallery ... one to show some pre-stardom cameos that some people may not know about and that hasn't had cardboard that acknowledges it. Would WWE allow it? Maybe not, or perhaps there's never been a place to try it. The Stadium Club behind-the-scenes/documentary context might be the place for it.

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Celebrations
Like entrances, the post-match celebrations are often just as orchestrated to make for good TV ... and they also make for good photos. Here's just one example from when Becky Lynch left WrestleMania with both championships ... oddly, I can think of just two cards that captured this moment (Topps Now releases). There are hopefully others, but I can't think of them. Perhaps there aren't many because of card set arrival times or WWE preferences for other images after she was no longer "Becky Two Belts." (After all, they want new releases to be as accurate as they can when they arrive.) But, a Stadium Club set that intentionally looks at all eras of WWE and any moments could give us all looks back at stuff that was big ... stuff that could make for really good cards (and autographs) unlike others.

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Great photos ... as big as they can be
The key to all of it no matter the star or moment is a good photograph. Check out the more than 100 imaginary cards in the gallery below for more just like this one. Then let me (or Topps) know on Twitter if you think a Stadium Club WWE set could be a winner. I already do.

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Follow Buzz on Twitter @BlowoutBuzz or send email to BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com. 

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Click for a closer look at just a tiny sliver of the great photos out there ...