When the Panini era started on 1/1/22, I had a lot of mixed feelings about how things would play out as they embedded themselves within the world of wrestling. Given my history with Panini, mainly my dissatisfaction with design work, set configurations and other things, I was thinking the new world order would be more Mid 2000s WWE NWO, not 1996 NWO.
Much to my surprise, the entire 2022 card year has been one of the most rewarding and fun experiences I have ever had as a collector. I also ended up spending more time chasing down the examples I wanted, made some collection defining acquisitions, and found the standards of the boom era of sports cards coming to WWE being a very good thing.
Given that Panini’s takeover of the squared circle has been controversial among the collecting base of wrestling fans, I wanted to take some time to go through some of the things Panini did really well, and things they didnt come off the top rope for. Hopefully this will provide a balanced look at the debut year of Panini WWE, and some clues to areas they might want to build on as they head into years two through five.
Win – Photography
If I had to point to one defining characteristic of what made this past year of Panini great, its all the photos they have found to showcase the wrestlers. Seemingly each photo is better than the last, with very few duplications, and a focus on the moments that make WWE a worldwide phenomenon.
Starting with Prizm, we saw a focus on showcasing finishers and entrances, followed by one of the most successful products in WWE history in Select. Because there were four levels of base cards to fund with awesome shots, Panini went deep into the WWE annals and found some incredible photos that put the superstars in their top elements.
Although the photos weren’t without discussions or mistakes, I think there were some incredible elements brought to products that we hadnt seen in wrestling cards for a while. Topps had a habit of choosing photos that really didnt represent the best of the WWE, along side photos that were at a high level. Panini seems to have knocked it out of the park across the board.
Win – Heightened Community Attention
As if Wrestling Cards werent on fire enough coming into 2022, I never expected the kind of attention that Panini brought to the fold over the first few months of their license. Even outside the walls of the hobby, we saw cards advertised on RAW and Smackdown, and large hobby accounts on social media bringing wrestling cards into their brand for the first time.
We also saw a ton of new faces join the hobby, especially on hubs like Facebook and Instagram, where slow trickles of fresh people became tidal waves of individuals. Many eventually left during the onset of a new recession, and hobby downturn, but the size of this corner of the hobby ended well on the net positive.
In addition, there were considerably more people creating content around wrestling cards, with growth in youtube channels, podcasts, and all sorts of media related to wrestling.
Loss – Affordable Player and Set Collecting
With more people and more eyes, values increase. What originally made WWE fun was that you could get your share of thrills for pennies on the dollar compared to the stick and ball sports. When I joined this part of the hobby in 2017, a case of WWE cards was equivalent to a box of the main products in the NFL and NBA. Similarly, building a large collection of the people you wanted to collect was easy and generally inexpensive.
For set collectors who were used to having an unimpeded path to completion, there were no gimmicks and contrived scarcity to drive them away. Both of these aspects of collecting in WWE changed, mostly if you were already collecting someone that had a lot of people vying for the cards.
Although there was plenty more variety in the cards available, that set and player collectors could chase, it became exponentially more expensive to do so. For some, this was a huge drawback.
Win – Relic Content Mirroring Other Sports
For years, Topps struggled to add content to WWE products that was relic based. They relied heavily on mat relics, which were single color and boring when presented in large quantities. Collectors started devaluing relic cards in favor of more unique autograph cards, or shiny parallels from Chrome and Finest, much like we saw in the other aspects of the hobby.
From the release of Select onwards, Panini found a way to bring value back to relics in WWE. Focusing on t-shirts worn by superstars during their signings, new colorful swatches became a huge part of what made every relic set so successful. Every set had statement pieces in their midst, and the lower the parallel of the card, the more likely it would have an EXTREMELY colorful relic to enhance the aesthetics of the card.
It also adds a level of personalization to showcase content that is instantly recognizable by fans, who are well known for having entire wardrobes build around wrestling shirts and gear. Impeccable, Chronicles, and the pending release of Immaculate had and will have cards on the checklist that could be some of the best looking wrestling cards ever released, solely because of how cool the relics might be.
Loss – The Hype and Dip of Prizm Wax
When Prizm was announced as the first product for the WWE license, it became clear how much potential this would have in a hobby that was still on the rise. Speculation over a pending gold rush fueled a ton of speculative buying, and Prizm hobby boxes soared to record prices.
Upon release, boxes were cracking four figures as a population of cash rich investors coming off the hobby’s biggest year in history, were hoping to get in on the ground level of a new brand. Within six months, the entire hobby had slumped considerably, and the overheated wax market crashed hard for Prizm. Although other products seemed to perform well, this was a black eye for Panini WWE, and an unexpected loss to kick off their brand.
Although we saw record setting single card sales that might end up being the highest cost in the history of wrestling cards, its hard to get past that Prizm just got way too high way too fast.
Win – The Chase of New WWE Centerpieces
For over a decade now, Upper Deck and Panini have brought a chase element to a hobby originally based around collecting flagship sets with very few bells and whistles. Topps was able to bring some of that to WWE, but as a smaller niche brand in their portfolio, they never focused as much on creating epic cards until the last few years of their license.
From day one, Panini brought a chase element to products, hoping to add fire to entice cross over collectors coming from the NBA and NFL to dive in. Adding onto the existing chase of Prizm Golds/Blacks, things like WWE logo autographs in Select, booklet cards in Immaculate, and cards with gold bars inlayed in the stock for Impeccable were all eyebrow raising additions to the wide variety of set approaches.
Combining these chases with other aspects of relic content discussed above, and many collectors found themselves finally getting a taste of what life is like outside of wrestling cards.
Loss – Lack of Collector Engagement
I really thought that Panini would approach this differently than Topps did and find ways to engage with collectors on their level. I thought that with such a large investment in a small market, Panini would need to find ways to connect with the new faces in Wrestling cards and create new fans to fill the void with fans that many of their products need to be successful.
Instead, things have been largely quiet, with many Panini social media accounts only casually getting involved with WWE releases, and not really connecting with the community in any meaningful way. Lucas Kinser, the product manager for WWE and UFC has done a good job being a featured guest on hobby content, but one man cannot do the work of an entire brand.
WWE builds their entire existence around the “WWE Universe” and to see that Panini hasnt really found a way to bridge that experience is exceptionally disappointing.
Win – Product Variety with Something for Everyone
For every Prizm and Select, there is a Revolution and NXT. For every Impeccable, there is a Chronicles. Basically, this has been a year of many different products with different target markets, and it has worked like a symphony.
I love that there is a mix of different configurations and approaches, as variety is truly the spice of hobby life. If every set was just another copy of Prizm or a lower end product like NXT, this year wouldnt have reached the heights that it did. Similarly, with Wrestling being a notoriously inexpensive corner of collecting, Panini churning out everything like Impeccable and Immaculate would seem quite tone deaf.
The perfect example here was the recent release of Chronicles, which combined the high end chases of National Treasures with the set collector friendly base sets and lower end fun – all in one product.
Win – Set Checklists
Ill close with this, because I have been literally shocked by how Panini has found new signers, desired signers, and existing stars to populate the checklists in the ways that they have. Guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Undertaker have become accessible to more people because Panini has put them in more products. Other people like Batista and the Great Khali have started signing wrestling cards for the first time ever.
Although we still havent seen Sable or the Rock sign cards again, every other available WWE mainstay is signing for Panini WWE products, and that is huge. Its hard to put out premium products without a great mix of the stars of today with the stars of the eras that shaped wrestling’s history.
Seeing that Immaculate is bringing some of the fringe ECW stars to sign with previous Attitude era HOFers just seems like a chef’s kiss at the end of the year. I never thought I would see the Sandman signing WWE cards, nor would I think that we would ever get a DX quad autograph with hard signed signatures.
As ive mentioned on many different videos, this year of Panini has been nothing short of incredible. They have done a tremendous job of figuring out what wrestling card collectors would want and finding a way to accomplish it in card format. I can only hope we see similar success with 2023 as we did in 2022.