Back in 2017, while watching Wrestlemania with my sons, I was reminded why I loved wrestling and decided to get back into one of my favorite obsessions of my younger years . This past week at the National Sports Cards Convention, I was reminded why I love being a part of this community.
The last few years have no doubt been a wild ride across the hobby, but that is no more evident than what we have seen in Wrestling Cards. Once a dark corner of the niche collecting universe, Wrestling has become one of the most fun and well developed parts of the collector population who make up the hobby. Even as recently as a few years ago, Wrestling cards were inexpensive but fun, supported by a small community of people that wanted nothing but to have a great time collecting.
As Panini came on board in 2022, this niche group of people were flooded by a tidal wave of new interest sparked by the release of Prizm, and a huge spike in value for both vintage and modern cards. Since that time, the market has crashed across the hobby, but wrestling cards is one of the only areas to not be hit quite as hard by the downturn.
With a multitude of new faces to increase the visibility that Wrestling had in the hobby, 2022 marked the first time that the community had its place at the show of shows. Paul Anand of Wrestling Card Price Guide and Tony Vela of Wrestling Trading Cards were able to secure a spot on the main stage to have their time in front of the biggest crowd of the year. Through that experience, collectors with wrestling focus started to think about why our favorite cards had virtually no representation at the show? Few tables had wrestling cards for sale, most of the events of the week were focused on the major sports, and many of these collectors wanted more.
For 2023, a group of us got together and thought there was no better opportunity to take this to the next level. With Paul and Tony on board, as well as official sponsorship from Panini America, and support from huge community members like RBICru7 and Sports Card Junction, six of us created what we hoped would become an annual tradition. Shane Norton (SportsCardNobody), Kevin Kulikowski of New York Roadshow, and Ryan Schear joined up to bring wrestling cards into the spotlight for the first time at the NSCC.
What followed was nothing short of an epic journey towards one of the best nights I have had since started collecting cards as a kid.
The Main Event started as a community meetup where we were planning to head to a restaurant and enjoy a night with a very small group of people we knew would be at the show. It ended up as the largest gathering of wrestling card collectors that I have ever thought was possible.
Thanks to our official partnership with Panini America, we were able to secure a wonderful space in the Hyatt Regency, give away a TON of prizes, create an exclusive trading card set, and set a path forward for Main Event parties in the future.
I never expected that we would be able to get as far as we did, but we had a huge amount of support on social media, and the support of the NSCC planning committee to be the community that they trusted to try out something to this degree.
The card set was something that I didnt think was possible, but thanks to Tony and Paul’s experience of making the wrestling card collector’s set, we had a way to print exclusive cards to give to the attendees. Being that card design isnt really a skill of mine, designing the cards myself was a daunting task, but I think they turned out better than I could have ever hoped. Each person who came to the event got a set of the cards, and some were lucky to get the gold parallels we inserted as well.
Planning this event was a labor of love, but all of us on the committee absolutely felt the strain of balancing our personal lives with the immense undertaking of making sure the party went off without a hitch. Seeing people lined up an hour before the event, with a smile on their face, chatting with other collectors in line and comparing their collections made that enormous amount of work worthwhile.
Through the entire night, we had a packed house of collectors, trading, chatting, and sharing their passion for wrestling cards. We knew that passion was always a top characteristic used to describe a wrestling collector, but the Main Event had that on display in spades. Over 150 people attended the event, and made it one of the most special gatherings I have ever been a part of over the many NSCC shows I have been to.
Not only that, but I cant explain the feeling of walking the aisles the week of the show, and have people pull me aside to tell me how excited they are for the event. I ran into so many of the collectors I have talked to forever on social media, now able to put a face to a screen name.
I also got to meet the members of the planning committee face to face after countless videos and group chats, and being friends for such a long time. Most of us already talked multiple times per day, but being able to spend time at a bar or a restaurant and talk about our shared excitement over the future of the community is one of the best things someone can have in a setting like the NSCC.
We also had a great time the day before, where wrestling was on the Main Stage in the convention hall, for an hour long wrestling card panel for the second year in a row. We had a great time trading “WOOOOs” with the crowd there, and chatting about all the big things that have happened in wrestling cards over the last few years.
This was the biggest NSCC ever, according to many of the show organizers and dealers, but it was also the biggest week in wrestling cards as well. Its an experience that Tony Vela said was an emotional one for him, as he was one of the guys who saw wrestling cards at its smallest, and now is seeing it take center stage for the first time. I agree 100%, and the rest of the planning committee did as well.
The Main Event was something to be acknowledged like Roman Reigns, but it was all the support from the community and the attendees that was truly a showstopper. I wish that more people could have been there to experience the beginning of an era along side the 150 people that joined us this week, but that’s why we will be aiming to make this a yearly event for the NSCC shows coming in the future.
A huge thank you to Tony, Paul, Ryan, Kevin, Shane, Chad, Nate, Ryan B, Tracy, Scott, Lucas, Misha and all the community members who made this incredible week an Andre the Giant sized success. We couldnt have done it without you, nor would we have wanted to. The lifeblood of wrestling cards is the collectors that support the community, and its clear that the 2023 NSCC was something that proved it to the world.
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.
For the first time since I was a kid growing up watching wrestling, there is a 1000 day reign to celebrate as part of WWE. Tonight on Smackdown, Roman Reigns will be recognized for his epic feat as the Universal Champion since 2020. The last 1000+ day reign was Hulk Hogan in the mid 80s, reaching its peak at Wrestlemania III with the iconic match against Andre the Giant. Since that time, there have been long title reigns to celebrate, but nothing like what we are seeing now. Adding the epic story of the Bloodline and its rise and fall, and the experience over the last 3 years has been one of the best in wrestling history.
That being said, Roman Reigns has been a part of WWE and a part of Wrestling cards since 2013, before that if you count his FCW cards prior to his official RC. Currently, he is one of the most valuable superstars on the market, with many high profile PCs built around his wide range of collectibles. The funny thing is, despite his mountain of success on the world’s biggest wrestling stage, he has had very little value to collectors before this current reign began.
There is a lot of history as to why this is the case, some of which is related to his fan reaction on TV, and other reasons stemming from the way many collectors approached wrestling cards prior to the hobby boom in 2020.
I think the most interesting place to start is his place among the giants in the history of WWE, as these last few years are not the place where Roman Reigns’ place on top of the world begins. Before the Tribal Chief took his place at the head of the table, he had already been a part of four Wrestlemania main events, won a number of titles, and was the de facto face of the company. The issue is that due to fan revolt against his white bread baby face persona, his Cena-esque run seemed to be clouded in disappointment. Ratings were down, crowds were down, everything was down while he was on top, and it became painfully apparent that although he was immensely popular with the younger crowds at WWE events, the people who bought the tickets for those kids didnt really want anything to do with him.
On the hobby side of it, the value of Roman Reigns cards suffered as well. Most of the modern wrestling collectors were middle aged men like myself, and we were pre-conditioned by the internet wrestling community to hate Reigns and what he stood for. He was Vince McMahon’s golden goose, and he was always positioned to look “strong.” As wrestling faded from the public eye thanks to poor booking from an aging McMahon, Roman was the face of this downturn to the IWC. This was exacerbated by the fact that most of the value in the hobby, at the time, was focused around the female talent in WWE for obvious reasons. Most of the collectors in the hobby only cared about two things, Attitude Era talent that defined a nostalgia associated with growing up and had high value as a result, or the normal T&A that collectors gravitated towards.
As Roman came back from his recurrence of Leukemia, followed by a necessary extended absence during the pandemic era as a result of his compromised immune system, Roman’s rise as the Head of the Table could not have been more perfectly timed. Just as the hobby boom began, Wrestling Card values started to increase dramatically as a result of the announcement that Panini would be taking over the WWE license. Almost overnight, Roman’s cards shot up in value as fans latched onto his new persona, and were being introduced to the vast library of Roman Reigns collectibles already on the market.
In late 2021, right as Panini was set to take over, Roman’s first Superfractor autograph from 2014 Topps Chrome was sold to Drake McGruder for $15,000, becoming the first modern wrestling card to break the five figure barrier. This new era of Roman’s dominance was not only starting to catch fire on TV, but also in the cards that were already in market. Even though his older cards didnt feature the new look, the value shot up as more people looked to establish value for the dominant stars of the current era.
Since 2021, Roman’s cards have stayed white hot as more collectors have started to look at him as one of the top wrestlers of all time. With more collectors joining the WWE chase from other sports as a result of the hobby legacy Panini has created in the NBA and NFL, Reigns has become a top draw in almost every set available for collectors who chase the top of the ladder in those arenas. This past week, a 2022 Prizm Black Champion Insert Autograph 1/1 sold for $3000 as part of PWCC’s weekly auction.
To match his success as the face of WWE, the ratings have bounced back, WWE is selling out buildings on a regular basis, and he has now set the modern record for length of title reign. As his career winds down, its clear his value is solidified for now, and its crazy to believe how far he has come since 2013.
As someone who has a laser focus in the hobby, I dont have many Roman Reigns cards in my collection, but Ive done my share of acknowledging him in the boxes that house my collection. I have always chased the top of each of the sports that Ive collected, so guys like Stone Cold and Roman Reigns are going to be represented in my PC. I also think this story played out on TV and across the hobby over the last year plus has been nothing short of historic, and that entertainment value has a place for me to invest.
I think its easy to say that Wrestling Cards have been on a roller coaster over the last few years, but one thing is for certain. Roman Reigns’ seat at the Head of the Table is definitely acknowledged.
The Rock’s Black 1/1 from 2022 has sold for $126k and I am in shock. Its now a few days later, I have taped videos and had hours worth of discussion with both card friends and non-card friends alike. TMZ has covered the sale, other mainstream outlets have mentioned it, because even if you aren’t a big wrestling card fan, this is a monumental event.
For as long as wrestling cards have been around, there has never been a card sold publicly or privately (that I know of), which has sold above the $100k mark. I remember back in 2021, when the sports card boom was in full swing, the ceiling for modern was $10k to think that we have smashed both numbers in the course of 12 months, is absolutely crazy to think about.
If you go back to the recent history of modern cards in wrestling, most value focuses on autographed cards of female stars. For recent history in sports cards, value focuses on high grades, rookies, and future potential. If you are playing along at home, its easy to see that this sale reflects absolutely none of those things. Not a rookie, not a high grade, not autographed, and not even his first shiny card. Somehow, a card that has no indicator of any of the usual value markers for both populations of buyers had the immense appeal to the market for at least two people to think it was worth six figures. As someone who has been a part of this hobby for as long as I have, this was absolutely shocking.
In the aftermath of this sale, Ive started to run through the previous record sales and I think that the public’s befuddlement around how a wrestling card could reach these heights, is likely for a few reasons. First, lets look at those sales. Previous auction record in a public setting was the Hogan All-Stars BGS 9.5 that sold for $54k during the height of the boom. Most of the other largest sales were either vintage cards, or private sales of Prizm cards around its release last April. In fact, I had this card originally selling at around 50k and then again at 75-85k privately as mentioned in my previous post. Other than that, we had the Rock’s Prizm gold PSA 10 going to Drake McGruder late last year at a big price (around 30-35k), Michaels and Bret Hart similar black Prizm 1/1s selling privately around $25K the week of release, Bron Breakker’s black 1/1 selling privately around $22k, and then the Warrior Black and Roman Super auto both going publicly for 15k each.
As its clear to everyone, none of these were close to what we saw for the Rock. During our video, all of us unanimously agreed there was no card available today that would ever be able to eclipse this price. Not a Hogan PSA 10, not another Prizm card, nothing. Its one thing to hear that statement from a devoted modern and Prizm fan like myself, but as we see on the video, noted vintage collectors agree that this is a benchmark sale that could take a long time to clear. Let’s get one thing straight, I cant even begin to explain the importance of this situation to the overall state of wrestling cards, especially as we begin to explore what the post-boom market looks like.
In that vein, I expect a few things to happen over the next few weeks and then a few more things as we get months down the road. First things first, we should expect everyone who has a Rock card to sell try to get their card in front of buyers during this period of time. Like we saw with the gigantic 52 Mantle sale in 2022, a slew of cards were brought to the block in subsequent weeks. We have already been given hints that the recent sale of the 2023 Rock Prizm Black 1/1 will be auctioned at a major house coming up, after being sold quickly and cancelled on eBay, and that’s just the start. We will also likely see our first public auction of a 2022 Rock Gold PSA 10 coming up, as that card was pulled from eBay recently as well. Speculation abounds for what those cards could bring, and its possible on the heels of this sale that more huge prices for wrestling cards are in the works.
Observing bidding in real time on the auction, it was refreshing to see that multiple people were in on the card in extended bidding, and there were at least 2 bidders that valued this card above $100k. In an auction format, without two bidders at a high price, the price can only go as high as the top price for the lower bidder. For this, we saw rapid fire bids during the extended timeframe that pushed the card above the Hogan sale, but even more action as it got higher visibility on PWCC’s premier auction home page. It was a surreal experience for sure, but wrestling action in the heavyweight area of the hobby VIP section is limited. The Rock’s card broke through that barrier with ease.
When considering the overall state of the wrestling card market, especially on the modern side of the spectrum, there were already a number of indicators that things were in a very good spot. However, I dont think anyone was expecting to see a card like the 1/1 Black reach the heights it did, this far after the slump of Prizm wax, and the overall softening of the high end sports card market that has happened so dramatically over the last 4-5 months. Cards from people like Brady, LeBron, Jordan and others have dropped as much as 50-60%, while speculative buys on unproven rookies have seemingly dipped more. Despite this fact, the middle part of the market is seemingly chugging along, with card shows more packed than ever, and many deals still going down the old fashioned way.
It should come as no shock that modern wrestling is a bit below this middle part, but we have seen more cards sell in the low to mid four figure range now than I have ever seen during my shorter stint in WWE. Its become a regular thing to see major cards sell at 2500 bucks, especially the bigger stars of the current era, with some rare and desirable premium release churning out 10-20 cards in this range at a time.
I think Ive also seen more competition for PC favorites than ever before, especially as Panini brings more and more people to the space. To actually say out loud that Panini has brought no one to wrestling cards is a joke statement, as values continue to reflect a growth in market size that has been sustained, despite a dip since the original Prizm release. I remain infinitely curious how platforms like Whatnot and Loupe have been able to give new life to WWE, especially with the amount of action that new sellers have been able to generate for every release, and sales of singles.
Given the state in wrestling cards explained above, there is a huge amount of potential that could be brought to the forefront of our experience. Sales like the Rock may never be equaled again, but it presents a unique opportunity to get WWE cards back on stage within the consciousness of the mainstream sports card hobby. There are two main outcomes from this that will have major considerations as the market moves forward.
First, we know that Panini’s time in WWE cards is finite. Although we know that Fanatics will be reclaiming the license in the near future, having a lot of market action before that timeframe may encourage Panini to take risks with the product calendar that would not be in play without interest from the greater community. Ive seen countless calls for products like National Treasures and Flawless, and there is zero reason to build those brands without potential from the consumer base to support their release.
Secondly, its important for the market to be growing at the point of that changeover, especially with the exclusive changing hands this quickly into the run. There is argument to support that Panini’s limited time in WWE limits the card availability long term, and increases value above and beyond for collectors who’s collections are focused on Panini cards. If those people dont want to participate at the same level on a Fanatics owned license, the value overall on new wrestling cards could dip significantly.
Ill close with this discussion around the community, as it pertains to their support of the products like Prizm. To put it bluntly, on twitter, people are approaching this in the same tribal war as we have seen with WCW vs WWF in the late 90s, and AEW vs WWE in recent years. Some long time Wrestling collectors believe that Panini has ruined the market, while the other side of the community loves the new world order for brining attention and validation for wrestling cards as a worthwhile method of collecting.
It should be clear which side of the fence I am on, but seeing the way this sale has been covered by either side has been like comparing CNN coverage of an event compared to the same coverage on Fox News. Too many agendas exist for either side to concede the importance of this sale to the others in the community, but this was one of the first time that only a few uninformed people really couldn’t grasp. Calls of shilling, poor auction management, and other controversial takes about why the sale wasn’t legitimate were rallying cries for those that have little experience outside of Wrestling cards, and it became very clear how challenging it was going to be to educate the community on an auction process that only recently became a viable selling avenue for wrestling cards.
The good thing is, the sale is real, Ive spoken to the top bidders on the auction, and there is nothing that will take away from the incredible success we have witnessed across the historic night. This was a monumental sale with wide impact across both Wrestling cards and the hobby overall. If you are a wrestling collector, this night was something to behold. Even if the growing price of participation has hurt some collectors ability to engage, its clear that its not 100% removal from the hunt. Despite all the posturing and the horrible takes, this was a night that most of the community has celebrated. Tribal or not, this was a fun one.
As we look to the future, things look brighter than I would have imagined they would be during the crash that happened in May 2022. I am beyond excited to be a part of that new frontier that seems to have all the workings of both an entertaining experience and a value driven growth trajectory that will benefit all the collectors holding cards in their PC. As I mentioned in 2022, Wrestling cards have arrived, and this was the confirmation that the rest of the hobby can see as well.
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.
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.
