Panini Prizm WWE trading cards are back with its latest flagship set of cards, 2024 Panini Prizm WWE. After the 2023 lawsuit between WWE and Panini, which was eventually settled out of court, many collectors wondered if they’d see another set of Panini WWE cards.
However, over the past few months, Panini has released a steady roll of new sets of WWE trading cards, with 2024 Panini Prizm WWE being the official start of a new year of cards, even if that new year is starting in August.
Packs of 2024 Panini Prizm WWE are currently available in a few configurations. There’s hobby boxes, which include 12 packs of 12 cards, blaster boxes, which include six packs of four cards, and something called “Under Card” boxes, which include ten packs of nine cards. Each includes different inserts, parallels, and hits, and come at a different price point, and I settled in the middle, with one 2024 Panini Prizm Under Card WWE Wrestling Box.
The thing I like about Under Card boxes is they’re less expensive than a hobby box, but still include one autograph card per box, and one exclusive Under Card variant parallel, which shows the featured wrestler in a different gimmick or costume than their standard base card. For example, the Under Card variant of Kane’s card is Isaac Yankem, DDS, which I think is a fun approach to cards. Under Card boxes were released a few weeks after hobby boxes, but I was happy to wait (and save a little dough).
Opening a new box of trading cards is one of my favorite things in life, and it had been a few months since my last box rip, back in May 2024 (2023 Panini Chronicles WWE), so I was really looking forward to this, but maybe in hindsight, my expectations were a little too high for what I received.
The first card of my first pack was Carlito, followed by Andrade, which I was surprised to see they got him in the set so quickly, then a Jaida Parker rookie. Panini Prizm is consistently a great looking set of cards, but it doesn’t change much year to year. Many collectors see Panini Prizm as the standard in trading cards, it’s their favorite set, and they invest a lot of money into it, so I don’t think that bothers them too much, but I prefer variety. I like how Topps and Upper Deck change their designs each year, or at least they make more obvious changes, and take bigger risks, but for me, I can’t really tell the difference between the 2024 Panini set and the 2023 Panini set, which makes it a little boring, in my opinion. It’s high quality, but static.
After the first few cards in my pack, I saw the edge of my one autograph card peeking out, so I decided to save that for dessert, and put the rest of this pack to the side, until I opened the rest of the box.
Pack two began with Sami Zayn, then I got a very cool Isla Dawn card, which showed her face in a broken mirror pattern, which really makes this card stand out. I also got a Diamond Dallas Page card, then I pulled my first insert, an Emergent insert featuring Dragon Lee. This was in the Under Card exclusive disco parallel, which has little sparkly circles all over the card, then I also got an Elton Prince disco parallel.
My next pack felt very thick, which in some cases might mean it includes a relic or patch card of some type, but there are no relics in Panini Prizm, so I was curious why this was. Well, it turns out this pack had extra cards in it, 13 cards, to be exact, when it should only have nine, so I wondered if any other packs would be short a few cards. This pack started with Batista, then I pulled the first WWE card of Tama Tonga. The back of Tonga’s card mentioned his surprise debut at SmackDown in Detroit, which I was at with Slam photographer Brad McFarlin, so I really like this card, and might hunt for rarer parallels of it. After this, I pulled a card of Harley Race, a Prizmatic Entrance disco insert of Bret Hart, and a Wren Sinclair disco rookie.
Pack four started with two great base cards of Bray Wyatt and Finn Balor, both with a unique choice of photograph. The pack also had an Undertaker WrestleMania Moment disco insert, and an Ivy Nile green disco parallel numbered out of 49.
In pack five I pulled a Yokozuna and The Great Khali, who, for me, was just sort of a surprise inclusion in this set, then I pulled CM Punk, which is his first time in a Panini Prizm set, and whose rarer parallels should be very sought after. I then pulled another Carlito, but this time a blue disco parallel numbered to 25, and a Road Dogg disco card.
Pack six felt thin, and lo and behold it only had five cards in it, so there was some course correction for the thick pack of 13 cards I previously opened, and in this pack I pulled a Karl Anderson red disco parallel out of 99 and a Stacks Lorenzo disco card.
Pack seven included Earthquake, who I always just like to see, then Dijak, who they must not have had time to remove from the set. I also pulled Becky Lynch, who has a very cool photograph in a cage, Liv Morgan, an Ultimate Warrior WrestleMania Moments disco insert, and a Shotzi disco card.
My eighth pack began with a great card of Sherri Martel, who you just don’t see included in many contemporary sets. I also pulled a Roddy Piper, who’s shown in a yellow hot rod, which was a very interesting choice of photograph. I also pulled The Rock, a Steve Austin Rumble Performances disco insert, and a Kevin Owens disco card, showing him mid-frog splash.
My penultimate pack of the box included a card of Cody Rhodes, shown wearing his skull mask, which makes for a great looking card, but there’s so much text in his nameplate with “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes that I had to squint to read his name, and that’s with my glasses on. This pack also included a card of The Sandman, which just made me laugh. Not because I inherently think The Sandman is funny, but because this card set is about as un-ECW as it gets. Then I finished the pack with a Hulk Hogan WrestleMania Moments disco insert, and an Alexa Bliss disco parallel.
My tenth and final pack of the box began with Dusty Rhodes (no “American Dream” on his nameplate), then I pulled an X-Pac, an Izzi Dame rookie, and at last, my Under Card variant card, “The American Bad Ass,” the “Biker”-Taker, Undertaker. As far as Under Card variants go, this is probably one of the better ones you can pull, as Undertaker is always highly collectible, so a rarer variant version of his card is a very good pull, even if I was hoping to pull the Doctor of Thuganomics version of John Cena, but maybe there’s somebody out there who will trade with me.
After this, I returned to my first pack of cards, to see what the rest of the pack held. I pulled Honky Tonk Man, Terry Funk, and Paul Heyman base cards, a Gunther disco card, which I accidentally dropped and damaged, and my autograph was a Tatum Paxley Sensational Signature. Now, I know of Paxley from NXT, but I’ll admit it wasn’t the hit I was hoping for. There wasn’t the excitement of pulling a Becky Lynch or Rhea Ripley autograph, but at the same time, you can never discount the value of a female NXT talent, such as Becky Lynch and Rhea Ripley once were, so I was happy that this card could be a potential investment in a future star.
Overall, as far as boxes of cards are concerned, I’d consider the one I opened to be pretty average, and maybe even a little below average. While the base cards look great, my rarer, numbered parallels weren’t very exciting, and my autograph was of a lesser known NXT wrestler. The Undertaker Under Card variant was a strong hit, but it doesn’t elevate the whole box very much. Thankfully, these boxes are relatively cheap, at about $150 per box, so it’s not much of a risk, but I could see some wrestling collectors being rather disappointed with what I pulled, if this box was theirs.
An interesting question now is, will this be the final set of Panini Prizm WWE cards? The license between Panini and WWE is set to expire in 2025, with Fanatics (Topps) set to take over the license, so will Panini manage to squeeze out a 2025 set of cards, or will 2024 be the last set of Panini Prizm WWE cards?
I predict that the rest of 2024, and into 2025, will be another exciting year for wrestling cards, and be it Panini or Fanatics/Topps, I look forward to watching, and hopefully ripping, the new wrestling cards to come.
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