Master showman and consummate troll Logan Paul has done it again. Paul participated in a tag team match at Wrestlemania 38 this past weekend, entering the ring in garish yellow clothing while wearing a rare Pokémon card as a necklace. The card—an “illustrator” Pickachu—is now the most expensive single Pokémon card in existence.
Paul was on hand at Wrestlemania 38 to join with tag-team partner/reality-show jerk/evil heel The Miz to fight pro wrestling legend Rey Mysterio and his failson Dominik.
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Paul and The Miz won the match after Paul put on an infuriatingly athletic showing suggesting he could be one of the top heels in wrestling if he didn’t have other, more lucrative things to do, but the story of the night was the rare and expensive Pickachu hanging from his neck. According to Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), a site that keeps track of the values of expensive collectibles, Paul spent $6 million on a perfect copy of a rare Pickachu “illustrator card.”
Only a few dozen of the “illustrator” Pickachu cards were produced. They use an original drawing from Pickachu creator Atsuko Nishida Ken Sugimori and were given away in Japan as part of a promotion. Earlier this year, a lower quality version of the same card sold for just under $1 million.
After Paul’s win in the ring, the Guiness Book of World Records was on hand to award him a plaque and a place in history. Paul’s achievement? Purchasing the “most expensive Pokémon trading card sold at a private sale” at a listed price of $5,275,000, which is probably what the card is worth less the fees Paul paid that brought the total to $6 million.
Paul is a master hype man and this isn’t the first time he’s worn Poké-bling to a fight. Paul made headlines after a similar stunt last year before his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. He paid $150,000 for a first edition Charizard, wore it into the ring, and then claimed it was worth $1 million.
The price of Pokémon cards skyrocketed during the pandemic. A mix of nostalgia and boredom led people across the world to revisit their old hobby, dig old cards out of their closet, and try to sell them. There was such a run on cards that stores like Target stopped selling them after several violent incidents in their stores and parking lots where people fought over the collectibles.
Paul, meanwhile—who is inexplicably pitched to be a babyface in the pro wrestling world after The Miz turned on him after their triumph against the Mysterios— has stoked the fires of the speculative market. But he isn’t immune to the vagaries of the online collectible world and its many scams. In January, he spent $3.5 million on Pokémon cards. It was a scam. His boxes were full of G.I. Joe cards.
