Since I started collecting back when I was young, I have always gravitated towards the shiny cards that were first introduced in the early 1990s. Since those initial years of Topps Finest and Topps Chrome, the way the hobby has embraced the shine has been nothing short of incredible. Over the years, the desire of other companies to recreate the success of those products has led to the creation of sets like Prizm, which has since become one of the most important releases in the hobby.
When Topps was in control of WWE, they rarely used the chromium approach the way they did for their licenses in other sports, with Chrome and Finest only appearing 4 times and 2 times respectively during their run. Panini took a much different approach, leading their license debut with Prizm as the flagship set of their new brand. When the license started in April 2022, the formula of releasing Prizm as the first set was not only tried and true, it was more successful than any other strategy in the history of the hobby.
It was simple, lead with their legacy set had started to perform at historic levels with each new release, and lead into sets like Select, Immaculate, and other mainstay products that the boom had made into national feeding frenzies. Unsurprisingly, the market responded with a massive fervor, driving pre-release wax prices through the roof. A flood of new people came running to the previously dark corner of trading cards hoping to get a piece of the new hotness. What people couldnt see on the horizon was the cooling of the entire trading card market, a crypto crash, and a burgeoning recession in the US economy. What would follow this hyped release, would be a complete failure to thrive of the wax prices, even though the top cards in the product continued to sell for record breaking money.
The cards driving most of the attention were the legacy gold /10 and black 1/1 base parallels, aspects of Prizm that were THE standard in the greater sports market. Cards like the black Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Gable Steveson, Bron Breakker and others were selling for thousands over the 10k ceiling that seemed impossible for modern cards to break prior to this release. At the same time, golds of Stone Cold, Hogan, and others started well above the 10k mark as well.
There was one superstar that didnt surface right off the bat, and its the one everyone (including myself) wanted to see. Predictions for the Rock were going crazy, with comparative estimates for the gold to crack 35-40k and the Black to approach six figures. At the time, with all these cards selling for what they did, nothing seemed impossible.
As the market cooled, and the saga of the Rock gold played out (see post here), the Rock’s black 1/1 had not yet surfaced. Even though the bottom had fallen out on many of the bulk unnumbered singles, and most of the $10k+ sales had come to a virtual standstill, the black 1/1 was still capturing the imagination of many collectors and investors who wanted to own the top modern card of the Great One.
With release aging, the reports of the Rock’s black 1/1 finally being pulled started to circulate during the summer. Not only that, but it had been pulled in a private break, and the breaker had bought the card from the participant in the break for over $50k. Then the card was sold again at a much higher price to Thatstheoldprice on Instagram on behalf of his business partner. It had been cemented as the most expensive wrestling card sale ever, but wasnt publicly available because of the people involved not wanting to disclose their deal. TTOP was a collector of the best 1/1 Prizm cards on the market, owning the Patrick Mahomes RC 1/1 among many other huge Prizm hits. The Rock was his target, if not only because it was the top modern wrestling card ever made.
Throughout most of this, social media battles raged on the importance of Prizm and Panini to wrestling cards, as it became abundantly clear how much impact the new branding had on the value of the best cards in each product. Instead of four figure sales happening once in a blue moon like they had prior to Panini’s involvement, 25-30 cards per product could hit the high watermark value once reserved for the best of the best. Because those subsequent sets didnt have the issues that Prizm had, the collector response was completely different when each started to produce hits that were setting the market on fire.
It became a tribal experience on Twitter, where narcissistic vintage collectors drew battle lines over the attention Panini cards continued to receive versus the previous era of cards that they felt were the true representation of what wrestling card royalty should look like. Prizm became ground zero, and a frequent call back for every member of that group to show their superiority, despite the majority of the hobby attention falling outside their space.
It was at that point during the winter that a PSA 8 version of the Gold Rock /10 was listed on Goldin Auctions. Because it was the lowest graded version of all the Rock golds available on the market, few people in the know expected it to get close to where a PSA 10 would land. It eventually sold for close to 12k with Buyer’s premium, a price even I was surprised with, given the downtrodden state of the worldwide hobby high end market.
From this sale, a myriad of takes were launched about the potential value of the 1/1 Black, should it ever come up for sale again. Would it continue to be the high five figure card it was when the original sale happened? Would it crash down to earth and settle just above this Goldin Auction sale? Speculation was everywhere, and depending on which group you belonged to, the reactions were very mixed.
In the beginning of 2023, Panini announced that the new card year would start with another year of Prizm, like 2022 had began. Slated for release on the heels of Wrestlemania 39, there was a lot of excitement around what would happen to redeem or sink the brand in the eyes of wrestling collectors.
At release, instead of a four figure box price, 2023 WWE Prizm debuted at a reasonable $250 bucks, which led to a much more positive reaction from collectors across social media. With more people feeling comfortable ripping their boxes at a price that was easy to stomach, as well as the support of whatnot breakers cracking hundreds of cases, top hits popped up almost overnight. By the end of the first week, most of the main superstars had multiple golds and their black 1/1s hit the auction block or surface online. Sure enough, the Rock was one of those people.
Unlike the private experience, the black Rock 1/1 base card was listed on ebay, and sold almost immediately at just over $10k out of Australia. It was the first five figure sale of 2023 cards, and it might end up being one of the only.
What I didnt mention was that during the first week of 2023 Prizm, PWCC thoughtfully consigned the Rock’s black 1/1 from 2022 to list and auction to capitalize on all the attention for the new set. When the listing for the 2023 Black 1/1 went up, there were 5 days left on the auction to see if the hype really lasted a full year.
Much to everyone’s shock, there is a potential opportunity to see the public market value of both the 2022 and 2023 Rock 1/1 at almost the exact same time. By now, the boom of high end sports cards has receded by almost 65% in most areas, so its doubtful that the original sale close to six figures can be achieved (especially with a substandard PSA 7 grade). But we do now know that the Rock still has some electricity in his cards with the new black 1/1 selling for what it did.
To think, for decades, there were a grand total of zero five figure modern wrestling card sales, and now we have multiple card years in a row delivering huge numbers in the wrestling ring. This is truly a grand time to be a collector in this space, with the best stuff in this corner of the hobby continuing to generate huge buzz thanks to Panini’s ingenuity and dedication to delivering incredible products that produce statement piece after statement piece after statement piece.
With multiple days left on the biggest public auction in modern wrestling card history still days away from completion at the time of this post, Im left to wonder if the magic will continue. Down market, less than desirable grade, and a PWCC platform that RARELY has big cards from this sector up on their page, all suggest things will not end well. However, that doesnt mean it wont still set records along the way. So far, the top PUBLIC sale of a modern wrestling card sits at 15k, even though many private sales have gone far beyond that. I think its safe to assume that record will be broken easily, but there are questions of how far past that marker we will go.
In the end, regardless of exhausting agendas of the tribal portions of Wrestling Card Twitter, these two Rock cards and these two products will go down as landmark releases. Even with the crash of the wax, 2022 WWE Prizm will have ushered in a year with more value in modern wrestling cards than ever before, and 2023 WWE Prizm looks to be continuing that success.
If this Black 1/1 Rock does pick up some steam and finish above expectations, I think there could be a lot more magic in wrestling cards than anyone thought was left. Maybe the most electrifying man in sports entertainment will show everyone that his cards transcend the doom and gloom we have been seeing hobby wide. All it takes is a couple of people who want to get nuts, and Im starting to believe more and more with each passing day.