We had big, big week for autograph returns, as we had 32 successes come back this week.
We had a ton of successes and had many legends. The highlights are baseball great Camilo Pascual, NXT’s Kelani Jordan, Reds great Chico Cardenas and more.
We post these every Sunday on our YouTube channel, so if ‘through the mail autographs’ are something you’re interested in, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We had massive week for autograph returns, as we had 38 (!) successes come back this week.
We had more successes than we’ve ever had in a week with baseball Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski (yes, and no), The Rock’s daughter NXT’s Ava & more
We post these every Sunday on our YouTube channel, so if ‘through the mail autographs’ are something you’re interested in, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
I had another solid week for autograph returns, as we had 22 successes come back this week.
We had some pretty nice returns this week with former Kansas City Royals great Frank White, Rick Honeycutt, and many other vintage returns.
We post these every Sunday on our YouTube channel, so if ‘through the mail autographs’ are something you’re interested in, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
So, I’ve been busy starting a new hobby this year. I’ve been sending off sports cards to athletes through the mail to get signed. I found it to be rewarding and fun.
I’m horrible at anything video-wise, but I have been posting videos on my YouTube channel. I include my weekly returns from athletes from baseball, football, basketball, and even WWE and the Olympics. I’ll explain how I do this below the embedded video.
There’s usually a buzz that surrounds any of WWE’s Big Four pay-per-view events. I did not feel any buzz this past weekend when WWE had their second-biggest event of the year, the 2022 Royal Rumble.
You could make excuses as to why this event didn’t feel very big, but the biggest one is that WWE no longer has larger-than-life stars.
WWE is getting paid big money for their weekly television, pay-per-views premium live events, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pays them handsomely for two big shows every year for the foreseeable future. They just had an investor call on Thursday and announced their first-ever year $1 billion+ in revenue ($1.095 billion in 2021). They aren’t motivated to make big stars right now. If they made another guy as big as The Rock or Steve Austin, they would have to pay them more and wreck their pay structure. They had their biggest profit ever and they still cited ‘budget reasons’ when they fired dozens and dozens of on-screen talent, and even more off-air employees.
This weekend, WWE had their 2021 ‘Survivor Series” pay-per-view from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. It was panned as a boring show by most, and for me, the only thing worth watching was the opening match between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair.
The “Survivor Series” used to be one of the biggest, most-anticipated shows of the year, but it hasn’t been that in a long, long time. WWE didn’t dedicate much time building up this PPV as they’ve been hot-shotting title matches in hopes of keeping their ratings above all-time record lows. They really only focused on the upcoming PPV over the last two weeks, and it wasn’t a successful build.
Late last month, Ring of Honor Wrestling announced they will be taking a hiatus to regroup and assess a new vision for the company. All contracted talent will be let go from their contracts at the start of 2022.
ROH is expected to resume tapings in April 2022 and will essentially become a super-indie by paying top independent stars on a per-show appearance. Many of their wrestlers may still appear for them on those deals while also taking a steady diet of indie bookings. There are a dozen or so wrestlers/teams that will have significant interest from the other top wrestling companies in the world.
It’s been awhile since I posted about upcoming Funko releases. I think I may have skipped the last series, but the upcoming toys to be released in early-2020 are must-haves.
We have reviewed a lot of Mattel’s WWE Elite figures, but Funko has also released solid figures in the past. I’m a big collector and you can see some of my collection on my Instagram, @vintagetoybob.
This upcoming set has a couple chase figures and exclusives that can be found at Amazon and Wal-Mart. We will also see the first Hulk Hogan Funko figure since his racist remarks were made public years ago.
Here are some pictures of Funko’s Winter 2020 WWE POP! vinyl releases.
It’s been awhile since we added to our ‘Sports Crush’ list.
We’ve written over a dozen ‘Sports Crush’ posts since we launched AmericasWhiteBoy.com. We have spotlighted a ton of WWE Divas (Becky Lynch, Mandy Rose, Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss, Liv Morgan and others). The readers still keep those among the some of the highest traffic on the site, so we will keep delivering.
Cathy Kelley got her start on AfterBuzz TV, which is owned by WWE mega-fan Maria Menounos and her husband. Kelley was part of many WWE recap shows and also contributed to radio shows on Sirius XM. She was signed to WWE in 2016 and has been the host for many WWE shows on their YouTube channel and has been a mainstay on NXT in recent years. You can now see her every Wednesday night on NXT on the USA Network.
Check out why we are crushing on Cathy Kelly with our picture gallery.
WWE chose the absolute worst time to book what may go down as one of the worst pay-per-views of all-time.
I’m sure WWE were walking with a little extra pep in their step after a strong debut on FOX on Friday. They scored their biggest rating in years and they are now rolling in dough with their new television deals kicking in this week.
This pay-per-view may have been doomed from the start since they spent the final Smackdown celebrating themselves, and they only officially announced three matches prior to ‘Hell In A Cell’. They also made it clear that they didn’t care about this pay-per-view as they used Smackdown to build towards the show in Saudi Arabia on October 31st.
It’s been three years since the WWE aired its Cruiserweight Classic tournament on the WWE Network. It was meant to give fans some nostalgia of the great Cruiserweight matches on WCW. All-time greats like Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Ultimo Dragon and others helped WCW feel different than WWF, which then almost exclusively featured large, hulking wrestlers.
The Cruiserweight Classic was critically-loved as the action was high-flying and some stuff was never seen on a WWE-branded product before this tournament. The actual streaming numbers aren’t known, but it helped launch the new cruiserweight division.
Many of the wrestlers in this tournament have went on to have careers in WWE and a few have gained stardom elsewhere.
Where are the Cruiserweight Classic wrestlers now?
Back in early 2014, when the WWE signed Japanese pro wrestler KENTA, it was a huge deal. He was one of the biggest stars in Japan and an in-ring wizard. It was also a sign of things to come for WWE’s NXT developmental brand.
Kevin Steen, El Generico, Prince Devitt and KENTA were early coups for the NXT brand. Those four performers were supposed to be the foundation for bringing the NXT brand up to the level of Ring of Honor and other upper indies. Three of the four performers met or exceeded expectations, but KENTA never really even stood a chance to succeed.
KENTA is an innovative wrestler. He invented and popularized many moves that other wrestlers imitated, which is one of the many reasons for his short-lived WWE career.