The Beckett Blog

“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

He’s a 16-time world heavyweight champion — a guy who still today talks a great game and will be in the middle of the action (but not actually wrestling) alongside actor Mickey Rourke Sunday at WrestleMania 25 in Houston.

He’s known as the greatest wrestler of all time — the best bleeder, too.  He’s known as a guy who wrestled hard but partied harder — after all, he is the guy also known as the limosine ridin’ jet flyin’ kiss stealin’ wheelin’ dealin’ son of a gun.

He’s a guy who led The Four Horsemen and was the backbone of another famous faction, Evolution, in more recent years. He’s a WWE Hall of Famer — the first guy inducted before his career was over. He’s the guy who literally traveled around the world as the last great NWA world heavyweight champion before World Wrestling Entertainment changed the landscape of professional wrestling.

And, until now — until Panini America landed him for an autograph signing earlier this year — he also had been known as the greatest professional wrestler to never sign autographs for a trading card company.

That’s right, despite his decades in the business — and he appeared on his first wrestling card back in 1982 — and his long runs with WCW and WWE, he never signed a single certified autograph for inclusion in packs of wrestling cards. Never for Topps’ WCW sets of the late 1990s, never for Fleer’s WWE sets and none for Topps in its current run as a WWE licensee.

But he has now. And you can own one — a signed promotional Donruss Americana card specially produced just for this contest with Beckett Media.

(more…)