You may have seen competitive eating champ Matt Stonie in the headlines this week after another of his videos went viral — this one being a 7,700-calorie feast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch — but there’s another way that he’ll be getting some attention now.
(And he doesn’t have to eat a thing — though you can bet he would.)
How? He’s got a “Rookie Card.”
Stonie’s first trading cards — and first certified autographs — can be found in boxes of 2016 Leaf Sports Heroes, which arrived in hobby shops on Friday. Each box of this one includes three certified autographs from all types of sports.
The reigning Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest champ has five versions of his card to be found in the product, an un-numbered Silver version, a Gold (/25), Blue Spectrum (/10), Silver Spectrum (/5) a Gold Spectrum (/1) and four 1/1 printing plates. That’s not a lot of ink to go around — and this is a product limited to fewer than 200 12-box cases.
Stonie, of course, was a guest of BlowoutCards at last year’s National Sports Collectors Convention for a promotional autograph appearance where the seeds for a couple of deals for trading card appearance were planted. This brand seems like a very likely future landing spot, though Topps hasn’t confirmed anything … yet. (Wink, wink.)
This year’s Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest is set for July 4 and Stonie will look to improve upon his mark of 62 hot dogs and buns eaten in 10 minutes last year when he knocked off Joey Chestnut, who had won eight straight events.
Want to see more of Stonie’s eating exploits? Check out his YouTube channel here.
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