Is the the Panini WWE License Termination a Marker For Greater Hobby Implications?

When we look back on September 20th, 2023 years from now, it will absolutely stand out as a red letter date in wrestling card history. Pending the outcome of some litigation, it might actually be a date that has implications across the entire trading card world. For someone like me, it has direct impact as a wrestling card collector since 2017, but for others, it could be a bellwether for many other trading card licenses that Fanatics is set to acquire in the coming years.

On Wednesday, Darren Rovell announced that at the end of August, WWE had effectively terminated Panini’s WWE trading card license, the second licensor to do so in as many months. Previously, the NFLPA had also terminated their Panini trading card license. Unlike the NFLPA, WWE immediately went on the offensive, filing an injunction in the southern district of NY with a temporary restraining order to prevent Panini from releasing any further product under said terminated license.

For a video breakdown of everything associated with this post – check out our WTC Supershow Panel Discussion Here:

As expected, Panini immediately sued WWE for breach of contract, to which WWE countersued. We have the public filing of Panini’s suit, WWEs was filed under seal. According to Panini’s suit, it looks like WWE had used financial benchmarks to terminate the license claiming the license had fallen short of delivery on minimum guaranteed performance. Given that trading cards is in one of its biggest boom periods in the history of the hobby, this is a tall order to prove, and Panini promptly claimed in its filing that it had over-performed across every quarter of its WWE license tracker.

This begs the question – what happens now?

Well, a few things need to be decided before we get to the litigation. First, a judge needs to rule on the temporary restraining order, and determine if Panini needs to stop all product releases while they determine whether a breach of contract happened. If the TRO is granted, Panini is basically dead in the water until the termination is held up or dismissed. We also dont know the full details of the termination, because most of what WWE has filed is not public information. There could be other details leading to why the contract was terminated, and we just dont have them yet.

Similarly, once two parties get to litigation like this, I think its very unlikely they come back to a situation where both are going to be working together in a cohesive way. A judge could force the issue, uphold Panini’s suit and say to reinstate their contract, but even then, what does that relationship look like? Can Panini continue to work with WWE to get card designs approved, autographs for their products, access to superstars for relics? I think its hard to believe that wont be contentious.

We also found out through the filings that Panini was set to have the license through October of 2025, which effectively puts them in control of WWE through the end of that year with the typical 90 day grace period to clear out inventory. We were set to get another 2 years of Prizm, Select, and the like, and now we are left with less than half of that amount. Its going to be interesting to see how the litigation rules for this time period, because WWE has demanded $5.6M in royalties due for the contract over the remaining years. That isn’t a small amount of money.

If that isn’t enough, Panini has already sued Fanatics under an Antitrust (monopoly) statute, which is what kicked all of this off this past July. This means its entirely possible that the SEC and FTC could get involved in sorting this out through some sort of litigation coordination to ensure that filings in multiple districts dont deliver conflicting results. At some point, Michael Rubin and the Fanatics conglomerate will have to be judged for their process, and this is one domino in a long line of dominos to fall.

Here is where this gets interesting. If the restraining order is granted, it basically signals to other licensors that this process now has precedent, and can be replicated. Its unlikely that the NBA, NBAPA, NFL and other pending licenses wait until 2026 to move over to Fanatics, especially given their equity stake in the company. Ultimately, this is a losing battle for Panini, its just how long they have before the guillotine blade comes slicing down through their neck.

For WWE collectors, this could be a long road without much on the market, even if the restraining order fails. If Elite is not complete, getting WWE to cooperate with filling outstanding holes in the autograph checklist could be a non-starter. If it is done, its already been pushed back quite a bit, likely to accommodate for the challenges in the courts. If the judge sides with WWE, then its basically a waiting game. Topps might not be able to jump right in either. The understanding is that Fanatics will effectively take over, but even so, it could take 4-6 months before we see any new WWE sets. It would have to be a simplified set, likely a port from baseball with sticker autographs and a smaller checklist. Sets like Chrome and Finest with on card autographs could take a year plus to get back to their previous successful states due to production timelines. This is all if everything goes perfectly.

For everyone else, this is likely the beginning of a long 3 years before 2026 and the true beginning of the Michael Rubin as Thanos inevitability plan. If he finds that his playbook is successful and the licenses can be terminated early, the courts could tie up that plan for months and months. If its unsuccessful, who knows what the implications could be?

There are also numerous questions about things like redemptions, which are a bane for many collectors currently waiting on signatures from people like Roman Reigns and the Undertaker on the WWE side of things. Again, I have to believe those areas of the battle are the ones with the most question marks, and probably ones I would tag for pieces of a settlement if Panini indeed sees that there is no path forward.

My opinion is this – regardless of how people feel about Panini, I think this whole situation is bad for the hobby. Competition is good. Exclusives are bad. Ive lived by that platform on this blog for almost 15 years. Fanatics swinging their big dick around to ensure that every aspect of the hobby is under their control doesnt benefit collectors – no matter how much they say it will. By 2026, they will own all the major sports licenses, an auction house, a vault, a breaking platform, all the distributors, the card printers, among other things. Aspects of the hobby like what COMC and PSA provide are likely on the target list. It might not serve as a monopoly enough to get the government to shut them down, but in a functional aspect, it is a monopoly for the layperson. That’s just a bad situation where few will have accountability for any real issues. If you have been around this hobby long enough, you know how many issues there are.

Looking at the WWE, we all need to pay close attention to what is going on, because it could be a clear indicator as to what could be going down with all the other licenses. Get ready people, this is about to get pretty fucking nuts.

NFLPA Terminates Panini – What Impact Does This Have on the Greater Hobby?

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As mentioned almost everywhere yesterday, the NFLPA has terminated their license with Panini three years early. We already knew the Fanatics plan for total hobby domination was going to take effect in 2026, with eventual exclusive control over NFL, NBA, MLB, WWE, F1, and other major licenses, but this was a bit of a surprise. It was the hobby equivalent of the movie scene where the hero clips the wrong wire on the ticking time bomb, and the timer drops from one minute to five seconds.

That wire that was cut is a pretty well covered wire as well, with Panini deciding to sue Fanatics for their consolidation plan in an anti-trust (monopoly) lawsuit, which promptly forced a countersuit. Because the leagues have ownership stakes in Fanatics, it was likely a contributing factor to wanting to end the Panini relationship early, although there really arent a lot of details as to how they were able to move forward with the termination in this manner. All will be revealed shortly, I would guess.

Background

Lets talk about what this means, because Im not sure people truly understand how card licensing works. To make a licensed trading card with current player likenesses, photos, logos, stadiums and everything one would need to associate with a league, a trading card manufacturer needs A MINIMUM of two licenses. First is the properties license that governs the uniforms, logos, and everything that isnt player related. Currently the MLBP license exclusive is owned by Topps, the NFLP, and NBAP exclusives are owned by Panini.

The second license they need is the player’s association license, which grants them access to all current players and their names and likenesses. Currently, Topps owns the MLBPA license, and seemingly, the NFLPA license. Panini also owns and MLBPA license, which grants them the ability to make logoless products, as well as an NBAPA license. Without an NFLPA license, Panini can make cards of legends, and team cards with lots of players on them, but they cant use current players in their sets.

What Impact Does This Have?

Let’s state the facts first – it doesnt look good for Panini overall. They poked the sleeping bear that wasnt supposed to come out of hibernation until 2026, and that was likely a survival move to begin with. The lawsuit over Fanatics’ control of the trading card industry seems to have standing, but it also isnt a slam dunk either. Right now, its going to be really hard for Panini to make football products without current players and rookies under contract to appear in their set. The PA was also one of the main bodies Panini likely used to ensure the autograph contracts the players signed actually got fulfilled.

Topps will not be able to produce fully licensed NFL products at this point. They still need an NFLP license before they can do that. Right now, that seems to be an inevitability, but it hasnt happened yet. I think the entire hobby would like exclusive licenses to go away in their entirety, but having one company with one side of the license and another company with the other side of the license isnt a good situation. It almost happened in 2015 when the NFLPA signed its exclusive deal with Panini before NFLP had a chance to decide on their exclusive rights – but eventually gave in and signed with Panini later that year.

Could Other Licenses Follow Suit?

This is the real question that everyone is asking, and I think the answer is more complicated than people imagine. There are four licenses that have future Fanatics deals in place – NBAP, NBAPA, NFLP and WWE. I think there is a significant chance that a few of them could terminate early if the precedent set by the NFLPA holds up. They are four separate organizations with four separate sets of corporate standards.

In my opinion, the outlier is WWE, which is slated to likely switch over in 2025 – a year earlier than the major sports licenses. WWE has no ownership stake in Fanatics, and this could end up being Panini’s Alamo if the tidal wave seems to go the opposite direction. Im curious if Panini could be in the middle of a Jerry Maguire moment here, where they are calling all their clients wondering who is sticking around. If they are trying to get a sense of where things stand, keeping WWE in their stead until that license ends would seem to be a major focus for their team.

The Post 2026 Landscape

Overall, we all have speculated that the Panini dream ends in the near future, which is why the monopoly focused lawsuit was not a surprise. We know that Fanatics will own the most profitable sports licenses, an auction house, a breaking platform, a vault, all the distribution, the top printer, and a number of other important hobby adjunct businesses. It was clear that Michael Rubin’s plan was to consolidate the entire landscape around a singular brand. As a result, most people in the hobby speculated that Panini would sell their trading card intellectual property to Fanatics, and ride off into the international sunset, where they could remain successful selling stickers and being a gigantic Italian company where things were in 2009.

When that deal fell through, Fanatics targeted and poached a significant number of Panini employees instead, which seemed like a coup in itself. Now it seems even more like Panini will have more struggles trying to figure out how to survive in a world without a major license that can drive profitability the same way the NFL and NBA used to.

Similarly, there seems to be much celebration around the hobby that Panini is getting what is coming to them. A few years ago, I probably would have been among that group of people. This company has notoriously had issues with customer service, redemptions, and all sorts of other things, and seeing the company squander the remaining time on their contracts has to be pretty satisfying for a number of collectors out there.

Let me say this – I dont like exclusives. I dont like monopolies. I dont like having one throat to choke in this situation. Competition is a major factor in creating great things in any marketplace, and without two companies going at it, I fear that we are setting ourselves up for a lot of new problems that most of us have never even fathomed could be possible. Because Fanatics now owns or partially owns so much of the major support mechanisms of the hobby’s landscape, there are very few reasons to continue to challenge the status quo. They will claim they can invest more into their business because their money is secure for a long period of time, but the collector is robbed of the choices they had before as a trade off.

I want to have Topps Chrome NFL and NBA back in the mix. I want to have Dynasty across more sports than just MLB. However, I also understand that also having Prizm and National Treasures is something that other collectors would like to have as well.

It used to be that trading cards were such small potatoes in the licensing game that the leagues didnt want to have to deal with more than one company. Now that trading cards are big business, the leagues realize that signing exclusives can be lucrative, especially if those exclusives are baked in with organizations they have equity stakes in.

Everyone needs to take inventory of how they feel and quickly, because this is about to get really dicey. We all think that Panini getting their comeuppance is what’s best for business, but Im not so sure they are the heel people think they are. Especially if the new overlords taking over the rest of the industry have literally no check on their power. Fanatics is more in bed with the leagues than any other company has ever been, and that could lead to some very interesting outcomes.

Dealers and Collectors at the NSCC – CAN THEY COEXIST?

Ah yes, the age old wrestling trope – putting the two guys who are about to face off in an upcoming match together in a tag team. The announcers bang the table and say “This could break down any moment! Can these two guys work together? Can they co-exist?” This common storyline has been done so many times, that its now a meme-worthy cliche.

At the NSCC, I think it fits. On the floor of the show, dealers and collectors commonly face off trying to get deals done to move cards both ways. Although rarely contentious like its played out in WWE, its something that has brought so much challenge to the show, that collectors have started to find ways to circumvent the confrontation all together.

With the boom of 2020 taking hold at big shows across the country for the last few years, trade nights have become the draw as much as the show itself. For some collectors who dont have funds to straight up buy the cards they want, but plenty of equity in their collections, trading becomes a worthwhile experience for them to drive their time on their trip.

Dealers have major objections to this situation, because of the sheer cost it takes to set up at any show. Whether its the table cost, inventory cost, travel costs, or staff, the entire show can be an extreme expense. To lose potential business to collectors coming to the show who can do the same thing with no overhead is frustrating.

This has created a standoff that could be on the verge of exploding as we approach NSCCs coming down the road. Table costs are high, booth setup costs are higher, and collectors are not responsive to seeing prices on cards that are 50%-100% above the recent selling prices on eBay. On the flip side, its close to impossible to wall off the show to a point where trade night is a big attraction, and shutting them down might be worse press than high prices on the floor.

At this year’s NSCC, impromptu trading at the Loews hotel had to be stopped by the police as the giant crowds of collectors congregating in the hallways and conference rooms created fire hazards and inconvenient walkways for the staff and guests. The official NSCC trade night, hosted by Roadshow Cards and CardCollector2, was so packed with people – it spilled out into the lobby where people were waiting in line to get in. There were a number of complaints about waiting in line and just overall crowds.

These situations are extreme enough to warrant a discussion of how to fix this issue. How do you appease the throngs of people who want this experience as an outlet during their trip, while at the same time not step on the toes of dealers who spend 5-6 figures for their booths on an annual basis?

Here are some suggestions from people I talked to at the show with my comments:

24 Hour Trade Space – Give Collectors a space to have a trade night going through the whole show. Just a room that exists there and you can come and go as you please. Personally, this would be an ideal solution, but there are a few things to think about. First security needs to be provided, and that’s extra cost, same with the extra space. The access all day and all night with bathrooms and food/drink might be a challenge, but theoretically, this could be done in a hotel space.

Hourly Booths at the Show – Give people an option to purchase slots at the show to set up on an hourly basis, without having to incur the cost of the entire week. I think this is a really interesting idea to explore. The NSCC could offer perks to VIP or Super VIPs by offering them time at the show to set up their own table as part of the cost of their badge. Again, space would be an issue if you saw the amount of VIPs, but it could be something that people could just purchase on their own. Specific rules about buying too many slots, bots buying all the tables, or reselling the purchased slots would be an absolute requirement, but this could be a way to solve for some of the issues.

Offer Official Trade Night Every Night – I personally think this is a must. Right now there is trade night on Thursday, and that’s it. Finding a way to offer it every night might cut down on the issues with crowds a bit, and create sponsorship opportunities to offset costs. The sheer lift to do one night is huge though, and the planning to get that one night off the ground must be immense. Expanding it to the whole show could be an undertaking not available.

Reduce Corporate Space in Favor of More Booths – I think this was suggested the most times by people I talked to. For the most part, corporate booths for people not offering giveaways were empty. It was wasted space. However, this funding is likely a good part of the way the show makes money. So taking away this space would be taking money away from the bottom line. I dont think this is a feasible suggestion for any business looking to turn as much profit as they can. As a community, we all agree with moving space away from Goldin, Sports Card Investor, and Grading Company ABC and letting more people set up, but I dont think it will solve issues with pricing of single cards on the floor in the slightest.

Reduce the Cost of the Booths – Honestly, I dont think the majority of the cost people have is booth cost. Its what goes in the booths. Signage, cases, staff, travel, inventory, etc. Its all overhead. For people that do the NSCC well, its a six figure cost. Reducing the cost of the booths wouldnt really do much there, but adding a low rent district might help some collectors have an opportunity to set up that wouldnt normally do so.

Allow Collector Planned Trade Nights to Thrive – I really think there is some way to allow trade nights to be unaffiliated and also not impede the results of the show. People are going to come whether the trade nights are there or not. That’s the barrier here. If the NSCC cancels all trade nights, and gets all the bad press around that, the show still goes off and likely still sets records. I think the discussion around lost opportunity cost of MORE people not attending because trade nights arent thriving is a big point of order among the entirety of the community. Dealers want more people at the show so they have more people to sell to. Collectors want more opportunities to acquire their wanted items. Its a win win, but a loaded one. At least this option might keep people out of the hallways to an obstructive degree.

Again, there is no one size fits all solution to this. None of these solutions have 100% pro and zero con tied to their success. Its going to be a give and take from both sides, of which Im not sure there will ever be a peaceful resolution with both sides being 100% happy. I think everyone would agree that impeding a hotel lobby to the point of being shut down by police is not the experience anyone would like.

Wrestling Cards at the NSCC: Then, Now, Forever!

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.

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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.

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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.

See you all in Cleveland next year!

Cards on the Table: Its Time to Talk About Wrestling Card Social Media Battles

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.