Ric Flair wrestling signs

If there is one person in the world that personifies wrestling its Ric Flair. I guess a lot of people would say Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin or even the Rock, but for me the choice is crystal clear, The Nature Boy Ric Flair!

We have met Ric Flair once and for me as a wrestling fan that was like meeting Elvis Presley or someone equally famous. Ric was very nice and we got a lovely picture of him and my kids when he was sitting at a bar (surprise surprise!). We also got the best damn autographed promo we have ever seen and a memory for life, thanks so much for that.

At the time we met Ric we did not have the signs with us, in fact, we had not made any good ones. After the meeting I did want to do something extra, something unique so I put a lot of thought into it before I sat down and started drawing. The first one came out like this,



and as you can see its not finished. I basically copied a picture from one of the Survivor Series Dvds and I did not do a very good job with it. Working on the the text I slowly figured that out and I also realised that the text was boring and not a sign that stands out. So I gave it all up, scrapped the project and went back to the old drawing board, as the saying goes! Here I started to think of what I could do that would be original but still point out the greatness of Ric Flair and I finally came up with it. Since Ric is fantastic the slogan became "FANTASRIC FLAIRTASTIC" which I feel is something new, I have never seen it on other signs, but still it is a sign pointing out whats important about The Nature Boy. No picture, since I basically suck at that, but a WWE-logo as a background and adding The Nature Boy and the sign was ready. I dont know about you readers but this is one of my favorite signs. Its original, its well done and it says it all. I hope we get to show it for The Man one of these days.

The Highlanders wrestling sign

We have never seen the Highlanders live but since I am originally from Scotland we thought that we should be prepared. At one time there were rumours that they were moving the tagteam from RAW to Smackdown so we were kind of hoping to use this sign in Barcelona. Never the less, if they are still with the WWE the next time we go we will bring it then.

What I did here was draw the scottish flag as a background and then I got the idea for the text from looking at one of my many whisky bottles. The Highlanders beeing a tagteam, well, thats truly a double, I would not have it any other way! It took some time to draw this one, especially the tartan in the text which is quite hard to see on the picture. Mind you, after a few doubles I always have problems to see!

Booker T, King Booker + Sharmell sign

Just recently Booker T, or King Booker as he has been calling himself lately, left the WWE. What he and his wife Sharmell, who also was an employee at the WWE, will be doing in the future is at this moment unknown. Anyway, I have made two signs for Booker and one for his wife.

The first sign we brought along to Helsinki Finland the last time WWE were there. After the show we went back to the hotel and sat in the lobbybar. As Booker T whizzed in we frantically dug in our bag and got the sign up. Booker had then already gone into the elevator but as the elevators were made of glass he could see out. When the elevator started moving up he saw our sign held the thumb up and waved to us. We met Booker briefly the next morning, we did not have the sign out then but he stopped and signed autographs before he rushed in to the bus that was leaving for the airport. Its a big sign and I quite like the solution I came up with for his catchprase "5 time WCW-champion", the hand that shows five fingers and the text.


The second sign was made for Bookers wife Sharmell and is basically the same as the first sign. I just re-used the catchprase/hand but changed it to "5 star, 5 star diva". Not one of my masterpieces but it serves its purpose.

The last sign I made when Booker T changed his gimmick to King Booker. I meant to bring it along to Barcelona but since Booker changed brands from Smackdown to RAW it remained at home, where it probably will be staying for a long time. Here I like the crown as the background and the fonts from one of the Royal Rumble-logos which I changed to "Royal Humble" instead. The "Royal Humble" is also written with a silverpen that shines which is quite a good effect at a dark wrestling-event.

Rob Van Dam, RVD sign

We have never seen Rob Van Dam live, which is a pity. As of know when Rob is not wrestling we dont know if we will ever get to use this sign that I made but we are hoping for a comeback so we will keep it.

I got the idea for the sign from one of my sons RVD T-shirts. It has a skeleton of a dragon on it and its one of his cooler shirts. I thought that I would just try to copy the dragon and add a little text and then I would have a cool sign! It looks better in real and you see the detailing on the sign much better and I am quite proud of it. Someway its much easier to do drawings in black & white, when I add colours I generally f thing up! Its a large sign and I hope we get to use it one of this days because it did take some time to get it perfect!

John "Nitro" Morrison sign

One of the problems with making signs is the change of characters that wrestlers often have. One day you make a good sign but its hopelessly outdated the next day! This sign I made for Johnny Nitro, and Melina who used to be his valet. As we all know Nitro is not Nitro anymore, he is John Morrison, hinting on his likeness with the late great singer from the Doors and him and Melina are not even on the same show anymore. I will just have to make a new one for him but in the meantime, here is the Nitro sign.
The only thought here was to copy the logo from the WCW Nitro show and thats exactly what I have done. I have just changed the text but all in all its the same as the WCW-logo. I was really pleased with this one but I never got to use it. We have stood just a few feet away from John and Melina but it was early morning and they were rushing out to the bus from the hotel-lobby so we never got a chance to show it. Anyway, here it is, a large sign that will have to stay forever in my storageroom because I cant see him going back to his old gimmick:

Matt Hardy wrestling signs

Matt Hardy is one of our favorite wrestlers, if not the favorite, and we have had the fortunate luck to see him perform live four times. Needless to say a few signs have been made. The first one seen below was made at the time Matt Hardy just had been rehired by the WWE after the "Edge-Lita-Matt"-controversy. I can honestly not say why I had to draw Matts face because I am not very good att drawing faces as you can see (and will see again on other signs). Its a big sign and the thought is good, the text came out nice but overall it stinks a bit. After looking at it I decided to make a new one around that time (Edge etc) and that came out better. Its the one at the very bottom of this blog.



The next sign is our The next Heavyweight-Champion of the World-sign and that was made in support for Matt Hardys intentions to go to the next level of superstardoom. Its also a large sign and it took days to make with all the doodling on the belt (which does not show to well on the photo). We brought it along to Barcelona and had it up but Matt never saw it, but some of the spanish crowd that we met were impressed and even asked to have their photograps taken with it. Needless to say we let them! We later met Matt at the airport but this sign was in the suitcase so we will just have to bring it along to the next event we go to and see if we cant get him to notice it there because we do think its a good one.

The F#ck Edge-sign, made as the classic Stone Cold F#ck fear-logo with the writing Loyal MH-fans in the fonts used in Matts logo, I made after seeing how terrible the Matt Face-sign came out. Its a rather small sign, one of the smallest I have made, but still one of our favorites. It was made to show support for Matt in the Edge-story and its not that we hate Edge, we just like Matt! And Matt liked the sign which felt very rewarding! When we met him in Finland he got to see it.

Below you can see me, holding the sign with a ultra-cool Matt Hardy beside me pointing on the sign that he really did enjoy. We have met Matt Hardy three times and he has always been great to us every time. We know that we sometimes might be in the way or that we take up time that the superstars might want to do other things but Matt has never made us feel that way. He is always the prince of cool who really seems to appreciate his fans and we thank him for that.

CM Punk sign

This is kind of a last minute job. We do like CM Punk but we have never had any reason to make a Punk-sign since he has never been on the roster of the events we have been to. Finding out that the Smackdown-event in Barcelona was going to be a Smackdown/ECW-show I quickly threw myself on to the drawing board. No time for thinking so I just grabbed a Pepsi-bottle and tried to copy the logo. It came out well and I am particulary proud of the "shine" that is around the logo (it looks much better in real, mainly because I used a light-blue glitter pen). We brought the sign to Barcelona, qued up for the event with our tickets where it read Smackdown/ECW and lord and behold, there was not an ECW-wrestler in sight! We will just have to keep this sign but if we will be going to an event where CM Punk is going to perform, I will try to make a more original one.

Vincent Kennedy McMahon sign

This sign does not have any history since we have not met Vince or seen him live. We have only been to House-shows and it seems that the chairman of the board seldom or never attends them. Pity that because it would be rather cool to see Vince perform. Anyway, the actual sign is, as all wrestling fans can see, taken straight from one of the storylines Vince has been involved in. I have often wondered why the WWE never printed a McMahon T-shirt where it read Join the Club on the front of the shirt and Kiss my ass! on the back. I sure it would have sold a lot at the time of the storyline, I know I would have bought one! I am quite happy with the way the sign came out, the message is good and the picture that I drew of Vince is actually quite lifelike, something you cant say about some other signs that I have drawn and that you will see later in the blog. We are keeping the sign in hope that we will go to the US and see a PPV live one of these days and actually get to see the man himself in person. Tonight´s the night for No Mercy 2007, that would have been a great place to display this sign.

Chavo Guerrero sign

Another of our signs that has not been seen by any wrestlers and the explenation for that is that Chavo was not on the tour at the event we were going to. The thought with this sign is to emphasize Chavos relation with Eddy Guerrero who passed away. Eddy who was known as Latino Heat was the more shining superstar so I wanted to point out that we still have Chavo and he keeps the heat up in the arenas as well. Maybe not one of my masterworks but the flames do look better than they do on my photo. Chavo was one of the first wrestlers me and my son met, at that time we did not have any signs, and he was an extremly nice and humble person, nothing like the loudmouth Chavo that is a part of his gimmick. It would be nice to see Chavo getting a real break in the WWE and a push up because we think he deserves it. Not only for his in-ring skills and acting but also for the way he treated us when we met him

The Undertaker sign

Another sign and this time its the Undertaker who is on it. This sign was made by me just before the WWE came to Finland a couple of years ago. The sign was not seen by anybody since we were sitting in quite lousy seats so we never bothered to take our signs out. It is a quite large sign (thou it does not look like it on this picture) and it is actually not to shabby in real life. I am particulary satisfied with the text which came out well when I chose to do it in gothic style. Dead, but more alive than ever was also very fitting and I think I caught some of his persona in the picture. We never got to show the sign for the Undertaker which was a shame but we did meet him at the hotel after the show and both kids got really nice signed pictures from him. We have met the man himself twice, the first time he was doing his "American Bad-Ass gimmick" and the second time he was back as "the Dead Man". Both times he has written autographs and said a few words to us. A true professional and a nice man, even thou he is a bit scary in real life as well!