Man, this feels good. It feels good that the part of the hobby that you have been a major part of for 5 years is finally getting its time in the sun. There are others whose time around WWE cards has been much longer, and likely much more profitable at this point, but this still feels like a huge win. With the release of WWE Prizm on Wednesday, the hype beasts and the FOMOers have invaded, and all those things I have been trumpeting for 9 months are finally coming to fruition.
Day one, we already saw cards hitting five figures plus, and other cards selling for close to that. Andre the Giant, Rey Mysterio, and other golds have been selling so fast that people cant even click the BIN with enough speed to get their payment in before others scoop up the cards. No buts about it, April 6th 2022 was a red letter day for Wrestling Cards.
If people wonder why this is such a big deal considering they likely hadnt even known WWE cards existed to this point, it says right across the front of the box. PRIZM Debut Edition in big giant letters. The hobby loves firsts and even more than that, the hobby loves Prizm. During the boom it was the one entry point for an entirely new generation of investors and collectors, leading to astronomical prices and never before seen records set on final values. Apps like CardLadder and others made their impact charting sets like Prizm for investors to grasp and digest, and it spurred a boom unlike anything we have seen in the history of the hobby.
It also created a migrating group of people who only deal in shiny Panini cards, leading to the initial moonshot trajectory that has been a reality for WWE collectors since the beginning of the year. Panini could have literally printed this set as names on chrome cards and it would still sell because its Prizm. Ive said this on numerous podcasts and numerous vlogs, and have been called everything from an idiot to other terrible names, and I can promise you that this was not me being psychic. This was always going to happen.
The cards themselves look great, as all Prizm cards usually do. People will point to the sticker autos as a detriment, but I can assure you that the autograph cards are not the focus here. The tearing down of this set is something that people will do in the name of their own survival, because most existing wrestling collectors are going to find themselves priced out and on the outside looking in.
Fortunately for those people, most of the previous WWE wax is climbing steadily but still NOWHERE near what Prizm hobby boxes are going to be selling for this time next week. Take this from me, the first few waves of reorders for most dealers will be so insanely expensive that buying boxes at current prices will look like a steal.
There has also been a ton of criticism that this will be short lived, despite no evidence that this is only about the initial hype. Not only did Prizm get a live read on WWE RAW this past week (Smackdown on Friday likely as well), they also had a lower third graphic that was shown to millions. In the two decades that Topps owned WWE cards, I have never seen anything like that. Additionally, the ramp leading into the release was already at a fever pitch leading into last weekend’s Wrestlemania 38 in Dallas, and I dont see much of that changing. This curve is not an unexpected spike, this graph has been travelling up and to the right at breakneck speed since January.
Im not going to sit here and say this will live forever, because there are a lot of contributing factors that can adversely impact this whole situation. More importantly, Topps’ didnt do a bad job with their cards the last two years. Chrome and Finest, among other sets were gorgeous looking products, and it goes without saying that they have a huge fanbase for those cards as well.
To everyone who is saying that this is just another high stakes game of hot potato, I dont think you are 100% wrong, however its not a consideration while the FOMO is still running at a narcotic level. Until the hobby settles even further than it has in other years, its likely that these Prizm debuts will continue to rock the landscape of the brands they happen in. This isnt the time where people are looking for an out, most people around this part of the hobby are now looking for a way to join the fun. That wont be permanent, but it will be sustainable long enough to appreciate the nuclear bomb that just went off.