Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Ricky Starks Wrestling Mat Card

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I don't really follow wrestling, but back when I was more active as a musician and hung in the same circles as models, it was one avenue where they could pursue additional work outside of catwalks and photoshoots, as the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) expanded its scope to storylines that were more in tune with Hollywood movies and HBO-style TV: more violence, selling sexualized fantasy, and intertwined scripts over a longer period of time.

And while I never got into watching matches or shows and paid more attention to the women gaining a bigger piece of the pie, some of their male stars like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, John Cena and Dave Bautista made their way into mainstream culture, providing validity to the theory that there is quality acting and things to admire from participants in the "sport".

In that time, other leagues like WCW (World Championship Wrestling) have tried to eat into the WWE's dominance, to varying degrees of success, and the current contender is AEW - All Elite Wrestling, who were headlining Montréal's Centre Bell for the first time last July.

It seems there is a lot of movement of talent going from one stable to the other, with the likes of Penta, Royce Keys, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and Jade Cargill going from AEW to WWE, and Andrade, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Mercedes Moné, and Adam Copeland going the other way.

One such rover is Ricky Starks, who used his real name in NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) and AEW but now goes as Ricky Saints in WWE, in their NXT brand; he made the move in 2025 after a brief stint in Game Changer Wrestling (GCW). Here is a variant of card #45 from Upper Deck's 2023 AEW set featuring a grey swatch of ring mat:
It is numbered 4/50 and falls under the Red Mat sub-set.

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