By Michael Moore, PWTorch Collectibles specialist

In Brief: Cena, Lesnar, Batista, and Orton all debuted in 2002 -- and so did their trading cards.

Card Show #7: 2002 Fleer WWE Royal Rumble

2002 was a major transitional year for the World Wrestling Federation. The Attitude Era had unofficially come to a close, and the botched WCW/ECW Invasion angle was finally over. Vince McMahon was forced to change the name of his company from the World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment, and told his audience through a marketing campaign to “get the F out.” The Rock became a part-timer as his movie career began to blossom, and Steve Austin walked out on the company, frustrated with its new creative direction under Stephanie McMahon.

It wasn’t a particularly good year to be a wrestling fan. However, 2002 was the year that several future main event players made their WWE debuts. Their earliest cards are captured in the 2002 Fleer WWE Royal Rumble set, which was released in December of that year.

This set includes the first cards of John Cena, Randy Orton, (Deacon) Batista, and Brock Lesnar. The term “rookie card” has never been widely used by wrestling collectors the way it is among collectors of the big four sports, but it has gained momentum in recent years. The cards of these four wrestlers from this set are often listed for sale as rookie cards on eBay.

Lesnar has maintained the same basic look his entire career, but Cena and Orton are almost unrecognizable in the 2002 Fleer WWE Royal Rumble set. Cena is featured on card #7 wrestling Chris Jericho, decked out in red and white shorts, red kneepads, and boots. Orton, initially a very vanilla babyface, is shown on card #14 diving onto Lance Storm from the top rope. Other than being labeled as “Deacon” on the front of card #67, Batista looks exactly the way he did as a member of Evolution.




By the time these cards were released, Lesnar was already WWE Champion and one of the biggest stars in the company. Card #4 in the set shows a young-looking Lesnar standing in the ring, ready to compete. He has several cards in the set, including a Royal Rumble Memorabilia Card that contains a piece of a t-shirt worn by Brock.

The four cards of Cena, Orton, Lesnar, and Batista pop up for sale fairly frequently on eBay and other sites. Ungraded copies typically only sell for $1 or $2 each, with cards graded BGS 9 or PSA 9 or better usually fetching $15-20 each.

PWTorch Collectibles specialist Michael Moore can be reached at michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com .

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