JBL, John Bradshaw Layfield-signs

Here are two more signs that I have made and these were made for JBL, John Bradshaw Layfield. We had the signs with us to one of the shows we attented in Helsinki Finland but since we had lousy seats they were not seen by the WWE-wrestlers. We did thou get some positive feedback from the other wrestlingfans we met at the arena (even thou a few of them wondered how we could support a heel). For the first sign I used JBLs catchphrase and the chanting he always started when he held one of his monologues. Very few people reach the heights of JBL on the microphone and it is no wonder that he now works as an announcer on Smackdown since his injuries keep him from wrestling in the ring. I am quite happy with the way the We bow to the wrestling God -sign came out.

My second JBL-sign is also from his character when he wrestled. He used to portray himself as an american hero and thinking of the logo from the Great American Bash I got the idea for the sign straight away. It took some time to get everything straight and the stars were really difficult to make but all in all it also turned out well.

As I wrote earlier JBL has never seen the signs but we have met him in person, partly. The first time it was just me who met him on the streets of Helsinki the first time WWE were in Finland. JBL was not a part of the show but was on a world wide tour with one of the Divas promoting the WWE. At that time he was still Bradshaw and that can be seen on the photo he let me take of him on a snowy Helsinki-street (photo can be found in our wrestlingblog, see address in the the first post, Torrie Wilson). The second time was when my nine year old daughter asked for an autograph at the hotel they were staying. JBL just smiled and walked on by. We dont blame him to much for that thou, Eddy Guerrero had just passed away a week before and most of the wrestlers we saw that time were still quite upset, we fully understand if their thoughts were elsewhere. We do hope that we will get to meet JBL one of these days because he is really entertaining and a big part of making Smackdown a show you want to watch, his comments are just hilarious.

Kane-sign

This is our Kane, the Big Red Machine-sign and what I did here was to use one the logos from a Wrestlemania-event as the base for the sign. It measures 64 x 46 centimeters so it is quite large and it took some time to create. By the way, if you wonder what the grey round things are in the corners of all the signs its just weights that keep the signs straight. I keep them rolled up so that was the only way to get decent photos of them. Back to Kane, this sign was noticed by him in Barcelona but as always my photographs of that are just plain awful. I will either have to learn how to take photographs or by a new camera! Still, I am really happy with the sign and it really looks better in real than on the photo (I took the this photo so you count out the rest). Anyway, we have met Kane twice, one of the meetings is published on the swedish blog and the last meeting from Barcelona will be published soon with photos (at least I can take decent photos of objects that are standing still and posing). Kane is also a very nice person who has taken time to pose with my kids for photos and chat with us. Its persons like him that makes us want to continue going to the live-events. It was a real treat, both the times we met him.

Rey Mysterio-sign

The second sign featured in this new blog is our Nobody does it like Rey Mysterio-sign. The thought here is more of the picture than the text. I wanted to to draw something that resembled Rey and that stood out a bit from other 619-signs. This particular sign was noticed by Rey Mysterio in Barcelona september 2007. He stopped and pointed at it, gave the thumbs up and winked at my son who held it up. I was standing on a chair trying to photograph the moment but since I am a lousy photographer the photos did not turn out well at all. We have had the pleasure of meeting Rey twice in person, both times in Finland when we were staying at the same hotel, no photos were taken but we do have autographs and photos from the show on our swedish blog (see the first post in this blog). Rey Mysterio is a true professional who has taken time to chat with us, especially the kids.

Torrie Wilson-sign

Welcome to this new blog that will feature different wrestling signs designed by me, and I have designed a lot! It all started approximately five years ago when the WWE desided to have their first House-show in the northern hemisphere, namely Scandinavia and to pin-point it, Finland. I live in Sweden but I have been a wrestling-fan since I was a kid growing up in Scotland. Moving to Sweden, where wrestling at that time just did not exist, was a bit of a culture shock so I guess I held on to this somewhat strange and sometimes childish interest just because it was something that only I new about and could keep as my own. Now I am grown up, in most ways, I have my own kids and I have passed my interest for this strange sport over to my kids. Going to live-events with kids means that you have to produce signs and according to my kids, they have to be good! I have discovered that it has been a good way of spending quality time with the kids, you sit and chat whilst creating the signs and in general you have a good time. The kids have not done any of the signs, they have been busy with other artwork, scrapbooking, homework etc but you get to speak to them and you get them away from the computers. And, I should mention this as well, I really enjoy making the signs myself.

We have been to five live-events, the four first in Finland and the last one me and my son saw in Barcelona, Spain. Whilst in Spain and at the the show in the Badalona Basketball Arena we had great seats and some great signs as well. The show was sold out and the crowd was extatic so keeping order of the signs was impossible. We chose a few that we did think stood out and hoped for the best. Luckily enough we were noticed by some of the wrestlers, Rey Mysterio, Kane and Torrie Wilson. Our Torrie-sign was also photographed by one of the WWE-photographers and the picture was featured on the http://www.wwe.com/. Here below you can see the picture with my son holding the sign and me to the right of him.

Coming back to Sweden we had a few requests to show all our signs so that is basically what I will do here. I will probably try to to publish pictures of 1-2 signs per week and also give a little background information about the sign and/or the wrestler featured on the sign. We would be more than happy if you took the time to leave comments and if you have any ideas for new signs, just write it down and there is a chance that I will make one since I do still make a couple a month. Some of the signs are good, some are maybe not, some are just text and some are drawn by me. Since the signmaking has been going on for a few years now some of the wrestlers featured on the signs are still competing today, some have retired, some have changed gimmicks since the signs were made and some have even left this earth. All of the signs are 64 x 46 centimeters except a few that are a bit smaller (the Torrie Wilson-sign is 46 x 22). We have also met quite a few of the wrestling Superstars that I do signs about in person. If anyone is interested you can always go to http://macgregor.webblogg.se/wrestling to see photos from the actual meetings and also from the events we have attented. For your info the blog is in swedish and I have yet to write and publish photos about are last meetings in Spain.

So the first sign up is of course the Torrie Wilson We flew in in from Sweden just to see Torrie Wilson-sign. The idea with this one, except for celebrating Torrie of course, is to make a bold statement. I mean, if you have actually flown in from Sweden to Spain "just" to see one of the persons in the WWE you should be noticed. And so we were! We also had the pleasure of meeting Ms Wilson at the airport and she was a charming and very friendly person and we thank her for taking the time to chat with us. A photo of her and my son will be posted on our blog (mentioned above) with text in swedish in the near future.