At the start of 2025, WWE marked the end of its trading card relationship with Panini by announcing a multi-year trading card partnership with their old pal Topps, but it wasn’t long before Panini announced an exciting new deal with Major League Wrestling (MLW), which has resulted in several print-on-demand MLW wrestling card releases.
There’s been 29 Panini Instant MLW cards released for sale, as of this writing, since July 2025, and Panini just released its highly anticipated first set of in-pack MLW wrestling cards in 2025 Panini Combat Anthology. There was a lot I was excited about the debut edition of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology, including its inclusion of MLW wrestling cards and autographs, but in addition to this, the checklist includes fighters from PFL (Professional Fighters League), as well as numerous legends and stars from the worlds of boxing, MMA (including UFC and Pride), and professional wrestling, so if you’re a fan of combat sports, in general, this set has a mix of everything.
According to the most recent details available, 2025 Panini Combat Anthology has a checklist of 100 base cards, with 20 of those names being professional wrestlers. The wrestling legends include Ivan Putski, Ric Flair, Tony Atlas, Hulk Hogan, and Kurt Angle, and the MLW wrestlers include Tom Lawlor, Matt Riddle, Donovan Dijak, Mistico, Minoro Suzuki, and Satoshi Kojima, among others, but the wrestler I’m most excited about is Michigan’s own, Oscar nominated actor, Paul Walter Hauser, who’s receiving his first pack pulled trading cards in this set.
Some other athletes on the checklist, categorized as boxers or MMA fighters, have pretty significant ties to wrestling, like Butterbean, Mike Tyson, Ken Shamrock, Josh Barnett, and Floyd Mayweather Jr, but collectors who want an all-wrestling trading card set might be less interested in purchasing packs or boxes of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology, because the majority of cards on the checklist aren’t of pro wrestlers.
Each box of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology includes four packs of cards, with ten cards in each pack, equalling an average of 40 trading cards per box, so collectors won’t be able to build an entire 100 card base set from purchasing one box, but what they will receive is two autographs and 20 parallels or inserts, so the number of potential hits per box, and the wide variety of names on the checklist, combined with the more reasonable price of about $120 per hobby box, is what ultimately convinced me to pre-order a box of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology.
2025 Panini Combat Anthology comes in a tight, compact box with a hinged lid. The packs inside feel secure. I like the high-quality design. It’s good to see a wrestling company other than WWE or AEW have trading cards produced by a mainstream company like Panini. On the cover of the box, and the packs, are four athletes, Ric Flair, Mike Tyson, Dakota Ditcheva (of PFL), and Mistico (of MLW, CMLL, and occasionally AEW). It’s an interesting choice of talent, showcasing two legends of wrestling and boxing, and two contemporary, international stars.
My very first card from my first of four packs is NCAA wrestler Mark Schultz, followed by base cards of Luke Rockhold, Josh Barnett, and Rulon Gardner. The base design is clean and simple, nothing flashy. This isn’t Panini Prizm, it’s not Topps Chrome, it’s what collectors call “paper,” but I appreciate it. I like paper. It’s what I grew up on. Next up is my first hit of the box and it’s a big one, a gold, MMA Stars autograph of Pride/UFC legend Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, numbered out of ten. I love this card. After this I pull base cards of Fedor Emelianenko and Mark Coleman, so this is an MMA legends heavy pack, but after that I pull a Mads Krule Krugger red parallel out of 199, then a Matt Riddle Classics insert, and a Frank Shamrock Golden Age insert. This is only my first pack, but the Jackson autograph makes me very happy I ordered this.
My second pack started with base cards of Corey Anderson, Mistico, Satoshi Kojima, another Fedor Emelianenko, and a duplicate Mark Coleman. If you only get forty cards in a box I feel like you shouldn’t get any duplicates. After this I pulled a Kojima silver base card, then a purple parallel of PFL’s Patchy Mix numbered out of 125. I admittedly don’t know who Patchy Mix is but the card looks good, and it’s the same with my next card, a parallel of PFL’s Usman Nurmagomedov. Next I pulled a Ring Royalty insert of MLW’s CW Anderson, and another Classics insert of Matt Riddle. This Riddle is a silver parallel, but still, that was basically three duplicates in my second pack of cards.
In my third, and penultimate, pack, I pulled base cards of Logan Storley, Phil Davis, Cris Cyborg, and Ben Askren. My second hit of the box was a silver autograph of PFL’s Andrey Korehkov, so I didn’t get any wrestler autographs, but the Rampage Jackson is still a big hit, in my opinion. Next I pulled grey parallels of Corey Anderson and Mistico, both of whom I pulled in the previous pack, then a Johnny Eblen purple parallel out of 125, a Combat Immortals insert of Cung Lee, and another Ring Royalty insert of CW Anderson, so they might be slight variations of each, but the duplicate cards and inserts are a real issue in this box.
I was hoping and praying for some last pack magic in my fourth and final pack of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology, especially some cool MLW cards, and it started with base cards of Brock Anderson, TJ Dillashaw, Chael Sonnen, Mads Krule Krugger, and Andrey Koreshkov, then it moved on to gray parallels of Mark Schultz and Luke Rockhold, so I basically pulled four more dupes. Next I pulled a blue parallel of PFL’s Taila Santos out of 149, then another Frank Shamrock Golden Age insert and finally a Combat Immortals insert of Detroit’s Thomas Hearns.
This box of 2025 Panini Combat Anthology really started on a high note, with the Rampage Jackson autograph and Mads Krule Krugger numbered parallel, but my enthusiasm dipped with each subsequent pack, primarily because of how many duplicate cards and names I pulled. I really wanted to love this new trading card product, since it’s an exciting opportunity for MLW talents, and I’m also a fan of MMA and boxing, but the lack of variety in my box was very disappointing. In a box with only four packs, and only 40 cards total, I strongly believe a customer should get very few duplicates, preferably none, but I pulled multiple dupes in every pack. I don’t regret buying this box, primarily because of the gold Rampage Jackson autograph, and a few cool MLW cards, but I was hoping for better overall results.
Overall, I like the design of the cards, and I appreciate the diversity of names on the checklist, but if other boxes are as redundant as mine, I think it’s best to stick to buying single cards of your favorite fighters and wrestlers (like I’ll be doing with Paul Walter Hauser), rather than ripping packs. I hope MLW gets an exclusive set of cards of its own in the near future, because it deserves a bigger spotlight. Wrestling collectors like myself will buy it.
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