BuzzMania 8: Panini Impeccable WWE Ends Big Show (Hour 8)

The biggest weekend in pro wrestling is here with WrestleMania 41 set for this Saturday and Sunday from Las Vegas. We'll make today a big one for wrestling collectors right here on The Buzz with #BuzzMania8, a marathon of wrestling breaks all day long.

This one is the finale for today ... and it's a high-end, hobby-only box from near the end of Panini America's WWE run and it arrived around this time just last year. Will it deliver big on the big stage?

The Brand: 2023 Panini Impeccable WWE  box

Where to buy: BlowoutCards.com (when available)

What's inside this one? Keep reading ...

Base Breakdown

Packs per box: 2 (eight cards in standard & one-card pack with a metal card of some type)
Cards per box: 9
Base set completion: 
1 of 100 (1 percent)
Duplicates: None

Base cards: Erik (/99)
Note: Everything from this box is in the gallery below.

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Insert Breakdown: 3
Silver parallel (1) – Shayna Baszler (/49)
Gold parallel (1) – Jimmy Uso (/35)
Stainless Stars (1) – Mankind (/75)

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The Hits (Autographs/Memorabilia) Breakdown: 5
SummerSlam Signatures (1) – Lex Luger (/93)
Elegance Jumbo Memorabilia Autographs (1) – Braun Strowman (/49 via redemption)
Elegance Memorabilia Autographs Silver (1) – Meiko Satomura (/49)
Stainless Stars Autographs (2) – Cora Jade, Shinsuke Nakamura (both /99)

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My Take Before I Broke This: High-end WWE can be risky in any form from any company as there are a lot of stars whose autos from any kind of WWE release often won't be money names. That's a lot of them, really, whether it's an NXT newcomer, an established veteran or a retiree/Hall of Famer ... but the key is to find something among the volume that makes the whole package worth it. I found this box at a much-lower price than its typical mark, so I took the risk to have a high-end main event finish today. Another risk? Redemptions, though most of them should be available briskly via Panini, despite it no longer having the WWE license.

Who Won The Battle? My base cards and parallels ain't it this time -- they were rough -- though some other boxes' inclusions could pay for a good chunk of stuff from there with so many parallels and some good names on the checklist. This time, though, the metal cards won the day with the Mankind a standard find in the metal pack (its surface is clean after I removed its protective plastic layer -- the photo above is with that still on) and then the two metal autos that are stronger than other potential finds but perhaps not monsters. Nakamura is an established star from Japan who has held WWE gold but he signs often (hurting his value), while Jade is an NXT veteran who might be back in the main-event picture there at some point soon or perhaps called up after she's lost time to injury the last few years. (She arrived as a big deal on cardboard in 2021/2022 but prices have softened with her out of action at the lower level of WWE. She's also still only 24.) The Luger card shows perhaps his biggest moment in WWE and is a well-timed find with him heading into the WWE Hall of Fame tonight -- and that card has sold for $75 in recent eBay auctions. Satomura is a Japanese icon and a solid find, but perhaps off the radar of WWE purists as she worked in NXT and now is moving toward retirement later this month at a showcase event in Japan, while my Strowman find was initially a bummer but it was redeemed and in-hand in nine days. (That time even includes a weekend.) Overall, the volumes on the cards here all seem far too high -- it would have been nice to find something rarer for a premium box.

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The Top Rookies: Technically, nobody is a rookie in this box, though Jade is still in NXT.

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Card That Stole The Show: The Luger card might have more upside and short-term potential this weekend, but the Jade card has had an eBay sale of note more recently ($175) and has strong asking prices even higher now after a few cheaper sales ($50-70) in the recent past. Since I collect on the women's side, I'll give it the nod for this ... it might be the auto with most upside as the rest are veterans or retired names.

Box Grade: B+ ... I could have done worse. While most names I did find here for the autos are good -- they're just not pricey ones.
Fun Grade: B- ... A small high-end box at a bargain price -- but it wasn't as fun as I had hoped.

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The Bottom Line: I could have done better -- and I also could have easily done far worse. At its full price, this box would have stung -- and not in the good Steve Borden way -- but at least there's safety in numbers. Buy and rip when boxes are low while you can ... as boxes get ripped, prices on the premium stuff like this will rise even if the stuff inside might not. This might have been my biggest WWE box buy ever -- excluding sealed cases -- and it was probably break-even at my cheaper price. There's big potential ... so maybe the big-time Wrestlemania Moment kind of card will be in yours.

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