Its been a wonderful few years to be a wrestling collector, and as you have probably noticed, my focus has almost entirely shifted away from the major sports and into the squared circle. The reason behind the shift stems from enjoyment, as I found enjoyment collecting a new genre with my sons, all of whom are gigantic wrestling fans. I also lost a lot of that enjoyment around collecting football and baseball cards, as it became clear to me that I was more interested in not losing money than collecting the cards.
What I found in the WWE card community was a wonderful group of passionate collectors who found the same joy in collecting their favorite superstars in cardboard form as I did. Instead of the normal competitive pissing matches that had taken over my favorite sports card message boards, I found a number of facebook groups where people helped each other complete collecting goals and looked out for each other. It was an entirely refreshing experience, and I quickly dove in head first.
This was 2017, and over the next few years, wrestling cards went from a small niche to a fringe mainstream hobby alternative. From a fun and inexpensive enjoyable experience to one with growing attention and higher values. Most of this can be attributed to Panini’s acquisition of the WWE license from Topps, and the announcement of the new license at the end of 2021, something that has fractured the community into a number of pieces on social media. Where wrestling cards used to be a community driven experience for most of the members, the new attention has opened the doors to a number of new types of personas. The fun community experience still exists in a lot of the same places it did prior to the new era, but social media has become a tribalistic blood war between vintage collectors, Panini haters, and people like me who love all the modern cards and want to see the attention continue to grow.
Im going to take some time to break down why this is such a huge issue, and why these grudges built in echo chambers and petty circle jerk group chats have hampered the things that used to make collecting wrestling cards so much fun.
Not shockingly, social media as a whole has become a cesspool of tribalism, whether its the WWE vs AEW feud, Liberals vs Conservatives, or any number of crazy feuds around video games. Social media has become a place where people go to battle rather than go to have fun chatting with other members of their community. Because its so easy to create a bubble of only like-minded people on any given subject, all these battles become increasingly toxic and tiresome. Without fail, wrestling cards have become the fucking worst subject to debate, especially on Twitter.
Vintage Wrestling Collectors vs Modern Wrestling Collectors
Before I really dive into the main area of this stupidity around what and how people collect, leading off with Vintage and Modern battling it out has been a thing in sports cards for decades. Yes the biggest feud in wrestling cards isn’t even new. Its old, its tired, and for the most part, its fucking boring. The reason Im saying this is because all of this has already happened in the main sports, multiple times. So many times that “collect what you like” has become one of those sing-song type of refrains that people resort to whenever battles get going on social media around sports cards.
The main issue here is that most wrestling collectors have only ever collected wrestling cards, so their context around these ages old skirmishes is limited. That being said, it doesnt make the battle between collector groups any less problematic or less violent. Most of the vintage wrestling collectors do not collect modern cards, and most of their social media presence is built around the attention they have gotten for having large vintage collections. As the fervor around modern wrestling cards took hold in late 2021, that attention shifted towards the newer releases in an exceptionally dramatic way, culminating in the 126k sale of the 2022 Prizm Rock Black 1/1, which broke every wrestling card record in the book by such a significant margin that it was reported on major news sites across the web.
Previously, every major discussion was focused around the first cards of people like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Andre the Giant, as the nostalgia of their runs in the golden era of wrestling coincided with the middle aged collecting base that grew up watching them in awe. Almost every piece of the discussion they cultivated focused around the 1982 Wrestling All Stars set, a release distributed through a wrestling magazine in the early 80s that included some of the first trading cards of that era of the territories and beginnings of WWF. Although Wrestling was at its highest highs during the late 1990s thanks to the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, the early-mid 80s is where it became a cultural phenomenon.
As someone who clearly identifies with the modern side of card collecting through my entire collecting experience, I never put much stock in vintage cards. Not because I didn’t think they were worth people’s time to acquire, but because none of them really appealed to my sensibilities. Like most card collecting communities, people do collect what they like, and I didnt like anything about the All Stars cards. Boring design, blurry and awkward photos, and built around wrestlers I didnt really enjoy growing up, and enjoy even less now.
For the uninitiated, the hero worship around Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair dominates wrestling cards. There are many reasons why this is such a gigantic issue, especially in the climate that has been created out of the recent shift in racial politics and the Me Too movement. Both Hogan and Flair have had tremendous success in the ring, putting them on or close to the Mount Rushmore of wrestling. They have both had such despicable circumstances outside the ring that removes them from consideration of many collector’s desired PCs. Hogan made national news for a horrible video of him using racial slurs among other things, followed by apologies that really never showed the remorse of the situation.
As for Flair, his heel persona as a womanizing asshole seemed to take real life shape through his storytelling across many platforms, including a special on ESPN. This was further exacerbated in an episode of Dark Side of the Ring that publicized his atrocious sexual behavior on a plane ride with other WWE superstars, where he was accused of exposing himself and assaulting a flight attendant. Both situations put these stars on the outs with the WWE brass, with both finding themselves removed from programming, or just overall excommunicated from the brand. Although they have both found themselves able to make amends with Vince McMahon enough to reclaim their spot, neither have really walked back their behavior in a meaningful way. I wont even get into Hogan’s comments on the Covid pandemic, or his employment of Ron Howard at his Beach Shop, who has become infamous for his behavior on a few major podcasts.
The most common response is that the era which spawned Wrestling All Stars was ripe with a multitude problems that the wrestlers shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions, in the same way that many musicians have enjoyed the same pass in culture. Similarly, because so many wrestlers died before these issues were public knowledge, many of them never had the chance to own up to their actions either. Many have adjusted with the times, while others have remained out of the public eye to a point where their actions have been lost to history.
As for the modern side of the war, many modern collectors have distanced themselves from the bickering, opting to find ways to enjoy their experience without adding fuel to a fire stoked by a vocal minority. Common issues with collecting modern cards are usually focused on the dramatic fluctuations in value, and how that should be used as a disqualifier from overall consideration of importance.
This notion isnt wrong, as modern cards are moved across the hobby much more frequently, and are subject to a lot of the same market standards that impact modern cards across the major sports as well. Even more so, there is a finite number of vintage cards that will never change, while modern is an ever growing universe of products that will continue as long as WWE is a valuable license. The idea that vintage cards are frozen in time, and therefore more collectible isnt a new notion in its own right, leading to record sales of cards from the vintage spectrum across baseball and other sports. To their credit, the vintage collectors of wrestling cards have hoarded such a large number of these cards that they have suffocated the market to a vast degree. When a new desirable card comes on the block, many of the deep pockets focused on vintage cards will spend a ton to either protect their investment, or add to their hoard.
Because the modern collecting audience is still immature, the connected market expectations doesnt have the same level of consistency, and opens itself up to a lot of comparative value anomalies. Cards that sell for one price one week and a dramatically different price months later has become the norm. Modern cards are also built around a volatile combination of investing in the futures of the products, the futures of the superstars, or super collecting a specific person or type of card. As the people in those areas compete over desirable cards, prices can be all over the place. Its not as easy as it once was to predict how the market will shake out, and many detractors have used this as a way to downplay the importance of the undeniable growth around modern cards.
Here is the verdict, which should be obvious, but worth stating none-the-less. It doesnt fucking matter what you collect or how you collect. Both areas have their merits and both areas have gigantic value available. Even though that is true, the shift in attention moving towards modern wrestling cards and modern sports cards in general has become a non-issue. Its fact.
As the window of average age of collectors continues to hover around the 18-49 demographic, the group of people with a childhood rooted in the mid 80s of wrestling will shrink. Although value will likely stay consistent with the overall market, the number of new people joining the ranks of vintage will be dwarfed by new modern collectors, as is already happening.
In the end, does this matter? Not at all, and as they say, if those cards are what you want, then go buy them.
The Panini Hater Brigade vs Other Modern Card Collectors
When Panini bought into the American sports card market in 2009, there wasnt much excitement to go around surrounding the future of sports cards. Cards as a whole were yesterday’s news, and every week there was another article detailing the death of card shows and card shops across the nation. Since that time, cards have been on an upward trajectory, with the 2020-2023 timeline being the most profitable era of sports cards in the history of the hobby.
Because the reasons for the boom are detailed ad nauseum across every hobby news source, Im not going to say anything other than Panini has owned two of the three major sports licenses that matter across that timeframe, and many other valuable peripheral brands that have been the catalyst for much of the boom. Panini also sucks at a lot of stuff. A LOT OF STUFF. I would even go so far as saying that when Panini fucks up, they fuck up big. It doesnt help that some of the most controversial types of people in the hobby – investors, influencers, and breakers all focus their entire existence around Panini’s cards.
As a result, a hobby subculture built to counteract the influence of Panini has emerged, and it has gained steam because of the vast exposure in the people they are trying to minimize. Again, not shockingly, that same group has formed in wrestling cards, and they have been trying to take up the same banner used in the NFL, NBA and other sports.
To that group in the other sports, Panini represents rising costs to participate in the hobby, a focus on showing off on social media, and influencer culture taking hold. In Wrestling cards, this group has such toxic approach that it hasnt been as successful because they have decided to target individuals instead of the situation.
Here is my take on this – because I find this entire debate almost inconsequential enough to not mention at all. The group of people who use their platform to work against Panini for the reasons stated above in sports cards isnt wrong. Panini has contributed to a culture shift, and I spend a lot of time talking with my hobby friends about how negative that experience has become. In wrestling cards, its a bit different for a number of reasons though. First, the niche place that wrestling cards still exists in doesnt really matter in the grand scheme of things. Although unicorn situations have happened and will continue to happen, the community is so small by comparison that many people are hungry for the growth Panini typically brings to a new collecting area.
Similarly, Panini’s time in wrestling cards is over shortly. On the day that Panini released their first WWE product, Fanatics announced that they had acquired the rights to all WWE merchandise distribution, including trading cards. This new license begins as soon as the current one ends, and Topps will again start producing wrestling cards. Although there is some debate over when that will happen, the common understanding is that it will be in 2025 or 2026.
Overall, this debate is childish and stupid, much like all of the tribal bullshit ive already covered in this post. Even more laughable is the decision to avoid the well documented approach and instead target specific people with information gleaned from a serious lack of understanding in the greater hobby.
Non Wrestling Collectors vs Wrestling Collectors
Im going to end with this one, because its one that all the people reading this can identify with. For many, many years, wrestling collecting was an aberration in the hobby. Even coming in late in 2017, I had very little context of the community around wrestling cards, despite being a collector since the late 80s in my childhood.
For most of the people collecting in the mainstream, value built around wrestling cards is a joke, as the sport has fixed outcomes and a focus on soap opera level drama. Swinging a steel chair in a wrestling match will never be as important as swinging a baseball bat on the diamond. As a result, many collectors cant understand why there is assigned value to cards commemorating the former.
Wrestling cards have been around well before the 1982 all stars set took hold, and for that entire time, very few people collected them over any other sport. That is without debate. However, with the growth of the wrestling card community since the Panini takeover announcement has brought on some attention that the greater hobby wasnt ready for. As five figure sales in wrestling cards became more common, the commentary around “wrestling is fake” has somehow transformed into “wrestling cards should be worthless.”
On Instagram, where most of the hobby finds its biggest foothold on social media, many accounts have started to pick up on the larger news stories coming from the once tiny niche. Without fail, each of those posts has tongue in cheek references to the way wrestling is perceived in society, and commenters frequently comment on how they feel.
On the flip side, many wrestling collectors are purposefully distanced from the greater hobby, as already mentioned above. For most, the ostracizing of their collecting methods across the population they interact with has built a silo that they have decided to solely reside in. Not only does the greater context of the hobby not really get to these individuals, it doesnt really matter to them.
Wrestling collectors have built their own insulated culture outside of the greater hobby, and for many, acceptance into the greater hobby is not desired or necessary to enjoy their collections. Not only do I find this admirable in some situations, but challenging in others. As many of the battles in this article feature two sides of an argument, many of the groups of people representing each side are not exclusive to a single debate. By natural outcome, a lack of general hobby context can contribute to a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings of a situation, and also blatantly cold takes that make the person look uninformed and weird.
Much like most of the other things described in this article, its more a condemnation of social media culture over anything else, and that’s the underlying issue for each group. Twitter and facebook continue to be targets for all sorts of nefarious purposes, and the hobby is not immune to their challenges. As discussed at length here, hobby infighting isnt unique to wrestling cards or sports cards in general. Its a natural thing when communities expand and spotlights on a dark corner become brighter.