The Sheik Has Arrived

Going back to a post I did on June 1^st where I had shown some of my recent wrestling I had stated that I am on the hunt for an Iron Sheik autograph but it had to be the right one with his full wrestling name, well I finally picked one up.

Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, also known as The Iron Sheik, has appeared in a number of Topps and Leaf releases in the past 5 years and he does have official autographs in these sets but the problem I had is he usually signed just “Sheik” and I wanted his entire moniker. Fortunately he signs often for his fans and this is when “IRON” will usually be added so while I like his Leaf Originals autograph cards I went searching elsewhere.

 

I was in a bit of a quandary, I wanted to find a card I liked, signed with “IRON Sheik” in a way that I liked. This has been at long search, well over a year, for the right card for my collection. I finally found the perfect card, a 1985 Topps WWF Iron Sheik #2 signed in silver ink pen and when the dealer dropped the price to $14.99 plus $3.00 shipping I hit the BIN and finally I could smile.

 

The card was authenticated by PSA and encased and I was wavering on whether to remove it or leave it encased but the Post Office made the decision for me when the card came in and the case had a crack across the face which was not in the original picture. There was a documentary about Vaziri last year called "The Sheik" where he talks about how following the Iran hostage crisis people used to threaten to kill him all the time even when he was out and about, maybe my mail carrier is just holding on to her anger from the 1980s and took it out on the case.

Here he is, the Iron Sheik himself free from his plastic casing.