You’ll have no reason to Rumble over this piece of WWE memorabilia
World Wrestling Entertainment 2008 Royal Rumble autograph plaque. (WWE photo)
With my first blog post here at Beckett Media, I figured I’d throw out something that you might not expect — yet something that more than a few collectors might be interested in.
A piece of professional wrestling memorabilia.
It’s a plaque for the 2008 Royal Rumble, limited to only 500 copies, which includes a piece of ring mat and ring rope used during the event held in Madison Square Garden — along with the autographs of 11 WWE stars. Included are the signatures of John Cena, Jeff Hardy, Beth Phoenix, CM Punk, Mr. Kennedy, The Miz, John Morrison, Tommy Dreamer, Hornswoggle, William Regal and Hardcore Holly.
It’s a solid piece of WWE memorabilia that can currently be found in the clearance “aisle” of WWEShop.com for half price ($99.98).
Why did I choose this item to write about? Consider this …
You’ll be hard-pressed to purchase certified autographs of all of these wrestlers for less than that price — if they even had certified autographed cards produced by Topps or Fleer in the last decade. (The WWE women’s champion Phoenix — aka “The Glamazon” — and the diminutive former WWE cruiserweight champion Hornswoggle do not yet have autographed cards.)
Simply put, it’s a good buy for an interested collector who’s on a budget.
Sure, the WWE is not sports — the world of professional wrestling is sports entertainment (check out this highlight video). It’s a television show where athletes (don’t deny them that) perform toward a fixed outcome — everyone knows that. Yet, at the same time, they entertain millions of fans every week.
And of course, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m definitely one of them.
Chris Olds has collected sports cards and memorabilia since 1987. Before coming to Beckett Media, he wrote about the hobby for the Orlando Sentinel on his blog, SportsStuff, and for the San Antonio Express-News and The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. Do you have a comment, question or idea? Send e-mail to him at colds@beckett.com.
thanks for the heads up on this. they also have a few other collectible plaques #d to 500. I think they had a Wrestlemania one with about 7 autographs. They have a stone cold – condemned auto for like $50. It comes with 2 bullet casings from the movie too. All #d to 500.
The WrestleMania plaque is a good buy,too — but its original price was $150. (I was there in Orlando and already picked on up awhile back.) The Austin plaque is interesting — but I wasn’t a big fan of that movie at all.