Hidden in my Collection - Eddie Guerrero Autograph

Well, one plus that can be found in my plight of the missing Red Backs is that I'm bound to uncover some hidden gems in my collection and resurrect an old blog theme.  I'm not sure if any of you missed the feature, but it looks like I will be attempting to bring it back.  Who knows.  Anyway, while I was checking the drawers of my china cabinet, I came across this autograph that my good friend Mike picked up for me back in 2003.  Yeah, this isn't baseball related, but as many of you know, I really enjoy wrestling.

This autograph is of former WWE Champion and crowd favorite, Eddie Guerrero.  Guerrero (b. 1967 - d. 2005) was a member of the famous Guerrero wrestling family and gained fame while wrestling in Mexico and Japan before heading to the now defunct WCW.  He wrestled in WWE from 2000 until his death in 2005.  Guerrero was known as a villain, but his charisma and wrestling skills won him the respect of wrestling fans around the world.

He had battled addiction throughout the final years of his life, but toward the end, he cleaned himself up and became a born again Christian.  It appeared that he had turned his life around until his nephew Chavo Guerrero found him unresponsive in a Minneapolis Minnesota hotel room.  When paramedics arrived on the scene, he was pronounced dead.  I remember that as being one of the saddest days I had ever experienced as a wrestling fan.

I still watch the Youtube video from the next night's Monday Night Raw where WWE Superstars paid tribute to Guerrero with a 10-bell salute.  Here is the link to the tribute, in case anyone was curious.

Yeah, this post ended up being kind of a downer.  Sorry about that.  I thought it was really cool that I found this auto while I was looking for something I had misplaced.  I have kept this locked away in a drawer so it wouldn't get lost (and thankfully, it hasn't), but now that I look at it and I think about how much my friend Mike means to me (he had a birthday yesterday), I think I'm going to the store and am picking up a frame for it so I can hang it on the wall in the man cave.  This autograph deserves to be displayed proudly (away from sunlight, of course) and not locked away in a drawer so no one can see it, so now, it will no longer be 'Hidden in my Collection.'