I decided to make the short trip to the Garden State Trading Card Show in Secaucus, NJ, which was about a 20-minute drive from my Jersey City apartment (Jenna was nice enough to drop me off). I had two main wants for this show: AEW’s “Legit” Leyla Hirsch and the former ROH Women’s Champion Rok-C, who is reportedly headed to NXT 2.0 imminently. There were a few other guests that I had on my radar as well, so let’s get to it:

I arrived just before 11:30 AM and was given a wristband after showing the admission ticket I purchased online. I took a quick lap around the main vendor room and, I have to say, it’s pretty wild how popular trading cards are. The room was packed with people solely interested in adding to their collections and that was pretty cool to see.

I quickly found a room that housed Leyla Hirsch. She was nice enough to compliment my AEW New York t-shirt and said she wanted to get one of her own. She was very, very nice and really engaging. I really enjoy her current heel run, so I was especially pleased to meet her.

I then wandered into the room that housed AJ Mendez and Rok-C, the former having a very healthy line while the latter was mostly alone. I really wanted to meet Rok-C before she reports to NXT and she was incredibly nice.

Pre-orders were done, so I decided to knock out some day-of-wants. Up first was Willow Nightengale, a popular wrestler on the independent scene that was recently given a shoutout by Eddie Kingston on the most recent Dynamite. She was great to meet and I hope she’ll end up in AEW full time soon.

I then met the newest member of Impact Wrestling’s Knockouts Division Gisele Shaw. She had tweeted out that she lost her voice, which always stinks but she was still very nice.

It was up in the air whether I was going to have Brian Knobs sign my WCW Ultimate Guide but decided I might as well…and boy am I glad I did. The room they were in was actually crowd-controlled (you had to buy a ticket to meet their talent and they were only letting people in a few at a time) but I got in almost immediately. Knobs saw my Guide and joked this was his favorite time of his career because he was away from Sags, who noted that Knobs was dressed similarly to Fit Finlay. Knobs replied that was the stupid call of Vince Russo before signing my book. Sags then noticed the Norman Smiley entry in my book and goes, “I hated what they did with Norman Smiley, that stupid shit. It was worthless…Norman Smiley himself is worthless!” Knobs was very taken aback but Sags doubled down on his hatred for him. It was really intense lol

As I was leaving, I heard someone say that D’Lo Brown was looking like a no-show as no one was able to get a hold of him. Their next show is 4/9 and will feature Toni Storm, so I will likely be back for her (and Reby Hardy). Overall, a smooth sailing show and I found the Glamour Under the Stars staff to be very nice and helpful.

Autographs: