A Custom Card Featuring Three Degenerates

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that the 1980s marked a Golden Age of wrestling. 

Case in point? Tell me this list of names doesn't give you some of that "excited little kid about to watch Wrestlemania" energy:

Hulk Hogan

Andre the Giant

Macho Man

Rowdy Roddy Piper

King Kong Bundy

Superfly Snuka

Rick Rude

Jake the Snake

Hacksaw Jim Duggan

The Ultimate Warrior

 

And the list goes on. (Let's not forget about Ric Flair.)

It's not that I'm being critical of the wrestling eras that have followed. Truth be told, after the late-1980s, my wrestling knowledge is pretty much zero. It's just hard to top the cast of characters I grew up with.

 

Regardless, the sport still exists on the grand stage, and it certainly still seems to be theatrical and entertaining. In fact, it's entertaining enough that a client asked me to design a custom card featuring three wrestlers who were members of what he referred to as "D-Generation X".

 

Their names were Shawn Michaels, Triple-H, and Chyna. I'd heard of all three before the custom card request came in, but could I tell you anything significant about any of them? 

 

No. 

 

So for a while, I debated on whether I even wanted to design the card.

 

However, I started thinking that maybe this client was a good decade younger than I was, and that Shawn Michaels, Triple-H, and Chyna were to him what guys like Hogan, Macho Man, and Warrior were to me. So I took on the project, and asked him to provide more information about the trio, as well as what sort of design he was thinking about.

He replied with some good info, including a request to use the 1982 Topps "Future Stars" template. Soon I was getting to work. 

 

Here's the result.

I made the sky in the background a touch darker and more foreboding than usual. Feels fitting for these characters, who were three original members of D-Generation X. (The group formed in the late 1990s.)

 

As for the name, it seems like another wrestling legend, Bret Hart, once described Michaels and Triple H as "degenerates" because of their attitudes and actions. Combine that word with the fact that they were wrestlers of the Generation X era, and the term was coined. D-Generation X.

 

All three members are retired from active wrestling now. (And sadly, Chyna passed away in 2016.) But Michaels and Triple H have maintained their influence on the sport. At the time of this writing, Levesque is the Chief Content Officer and Head of Creative for WWE. Michaels is Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative at NXT, which is a division of WWE.

 

Pretty good for a couple of degenerates.

Now here's a look at the back of the card:

In my research, I discovered that two of the three wrestlers were trained by Killer Kowalski. That seemed like great content to add. I also found the finishing move for all three wrestlers, which I think is a fun addition. Here's a look at "The Pedigree", as performed by Chyna:

Ouch.

 

In any case, that's another custom card in the books. This was definitely a fun project, and I'm glad the client enjoyed the way the card turned out.

Now a question for you:

 

Who's your favorite wrestler, regardless of the era?

 

Thanks for reading, as always!