Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the new collaboration between Fanatics Collect and CGC Cards, which are aiming to offer faster grading turnarounds for collectors:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fanatics-collect-cgc-cards-team-up-to-offer-faster-card-grading/
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Here' s a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the man who caught the home run ball hit by Shohei Ohtani on Aug. 23. The blast made the Dodgers' superstar the sixth player in MLB history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season. It was the fan's first time visiting Dodger Stadium and he got the ball after Rays outfielder Jose Siri tossed the ball into the stands after Ohtani's walkoff grand slam.
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www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fan-snared-ohtanis-40-40-club-home-run-ball-thanks-to-jose-siri/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the first gem-mint Wilt Chamberlain card to be graded gem-mint by SGC. It was found by in a cabinet of  an old grocery store owned by his family and brought to the store owned by Minnesota card shop owner Caleb Baker
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/no-tall-tale-wilt-chamberlain-rookie-card-found-in-old-grocery-store-earns-sgc-10/​

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the ongoing legal battle between Heritage Auctions and the Atlanta Braves over disputed Hank Aaron memorabilia:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/heritage-auctions-sues-braves-over-bases-used-during-hank-aarons-715th-homer-game/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about how some of the cards of this year's 2024 U.S.  Olympic team members have fared at auction recently:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/olympic-stars-created-a-buzz-with-collectors-fans/

Here's a story  I wrote about the 1984 Topps football set, which featured rookie cards of John Elway and Dan Marino:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1984-topps-football-set-bookended-by-2-hall-of-fame-quarterbacks/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a road jersey wore during the 1952 and 1953 World Series. The jersey was donated to an orphanage in 1955 in North Carolina, and a boy bought it for $2.50. It will command more than $1.3 million in an upcoming Heritage Auctions sale:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/mantle-road-jersey-from-1952-53-world-series-in-heritage-auctions-sale-traveled-long-road/

Professional wrestlers tell the best stories.

It’s true. I’ve been writing that for years. Mick Foley, Terry Funk, Bret Hart, Steve Keirn — the list goes on — are some of the former wrestlers whose books include compelling stories about life on the road. It’s a concept that began with Joe Jares’ 1974 book, Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?
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But there is always that nagging doubt that some wrestlers might have stayed true to “kayfabe” — blurring the line between staged performances and reality.

That is why wrestling fans should cherish an author like Brad Balukjian. A scientist by trade and a former fact checker, Balukjian has the dogged persistence of a veteran journalist, is a skilled researcher and takes to the road freely like a modern-day Charles Kuralt.

Balukjian has a fine eye for detail and is an engaging storyteller. That comes to the fore in his second book, The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of WrestleMania (Hachette Books; hardback; $30; 317 pages).
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This work is a nuanced look at professional wrestling, focusing primarily on the men who competed on the wrestling card of Dec. 26, 1983. That was the night when the Iron Sheik defeated Bob Backlund for the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) world heavyweight championship. The Iron Sheik, a native of Iran whose character played off the hostage crisis that began in November 1979, would lose the belt on Jan. 23, 1984, to Hulk Hogan — a seminal moment in pro wrestling that launched the entertainment vision of promoter Vince McMahon Jr.
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McMahon “happily held a knife to Kayfabe’s throat,” Balukjian writes.

Balukjian once considered collaborating with his wrestling hero, the Iron Sheik (real name Hossein Khosrow Vaziri) on a book about the grappler’s life — until the wrestler, mired in a drug addiction at the time, threatened to kill him in 2005. Older and wiser 17 years later, Balukjian changed tactics and decided to interview every wrestler on that December 1983 card at Madison Square Garden.

The concept for The Six Pack is similar to Balukjian’s first book, The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife. In that 2020 work, Balukjian interviewed the players he pulled from a pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards that had been left unopened for nearly three decades. He currently runs an online magazine, The Brad Pack, “dedicated to the unsung heroes and untold stories of sports and entertainment” before the internet.

For The Six Pack, Balukjian embarked on a 62-day odyssey that covered 12,525 miles across 33 states and Puerto Rico.

That would include a reunion with the Iron Sheik, who was much more accommodating this time around. Balukjian also connected with Tony Atlas (Anthony White), Tito Santana (Merced Solis), The Masked Superstar/Demolition Ax (Bill Eadie), and Jose Luis Rivera (Marcelino Rivera). He also writes chapters about Sgt. Slaughter (Bob Remus), who was on the card, and Hogan (Terry Bollea), who was not, but played a key role in the WWF’s astounding growth. He did not get the chance to interview either former WWE star — although he did have a brief exchange with Remus at the Iron Sheik’s funeral in June 2023.
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“I want to understand the people behind the characters,” Balukjian writes.

Atlas and Santana consented to interviews as long as they were paid, so Balukjian shelled out $1,000 and $750, respectively. Arriba! indeed.

Balukjian, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, owns a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California at Berkeley. He spent a year in Tahiti working on his doctorate, where he discovered 17 species of green flash bugs.

But as a youth growing up near Providence, Rhode Island, Balukjian was enamored with pro wrestling, even calling himself “Exciting Balukjian” and copying his heroes with ranting, finger-pointing promos.

“Wrestling was the ultimate outlet, a world where I could be strong and fearless,” he writes. “Much to my parents’ chagrin, I never grew out of wrestling.”

Many of the former wrestlers never grew out of it either, as the squared circle defined their careers. Some, like Atlas, had fallen on hard times.

This is where Balukjian excels.

Balukjian finds Atlas in Maine, a personal trainer at the YMCA. Now 70, Atlas was one of nine children who grew up in Low Moor, Virginia, and was raised by his mother and grandmother. His father, who abandoned the family, claimed to have fathered 36 children before meeting Atlas’ mother.

Bullied as a child — he went into a coma as a 6-year-old after being pushed off a bridge— Atlas worked to get stronger by lifting weights and soon excelled in boxing and wrestling. He would win the Mr. USA bodybuilding competition in 1979 and by 1982 was pulling in WWF crowds as a marquee wrestler.

Atlas went from making $65 a week as a dishwasher to earning $1,500 in his first week as a pro wrestler. But while “Tony’s rise was meteoric, his fall was just as sudden,” Balukjian writes.
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Descending into drug addiction and fired from the WWF, Atlas attempted suicide twice before turning his life around in 1989.
It is a poignant story.

Balukjian buttresses every chapter with great detail, interviewing the wrestlers’ friends, family members, high school coaches and historical society workers.

Santana’s story chronicles a Latino facing racism in the lower Rio Grande Valley area of Texas. His father was a crew leader for migrant workers who would travel north to Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana to pick fruits and vegetables. Family members worked hard but had difficulty being served at restaurants.

Football gave Santana an outlet, “a chance to bash heads without getting in trouble,” Balukjian writes. As a pro wrestler, he peaked at a $176,000 salary in 1984, but he did not have health or retirement benefits; his paycheck depended on a particular night’s match and nothing was guaranteed. Santana decided to get out of the business after McMahon changed his character in the early 1990s to “El Matador” and realized the character was not getting any traction.

“Tito is one of the few people to leave the wrestling business on his terms, something that a control freak like Vince doesn’t like,” Balukjian writes.

Santana would go on to become a middle school teacher in New Jersey.

Balukjian made a mighty effort to connect with Slaughter, at one point finding his North Carolin residence and walking up the driveway to ring his doorbell (nobody was home).

His fact-checking background came into play, since the Sgt. Slaughter character claimed he was a veteran of the Vietnam War. He was not, according to military records obtained by a reporter through the Freedom of Information Act. Bob Remus, however, go to barber school.

Slaughter excelled as a babyface and as a heel.

He apparently did not want to speak with Balukjian, even encouraging his friends not to engage with him. He did, however, talk with his high school football coach.

“I always knew when I started the journey that it was unlikely that all of the Six Packers would meet with me,” Balukjian writes. “Some people don’t want to be found.

“And despite my effort to force an encounter, I have to accept that I did everything I could and still came up short.”

Eadie, who covered his face as the Masked Superstar and Demolition Ax, would later work as a teacher at a juvenile detention center.
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He sued McMahon and the WWF for breach of an oral contract, unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentation and fraudulent inducement to contract. The case dragged on for 11 years before Eadie and the WWF settled, with Eadie having “bested the almighty emperor (McMahon),” Balukjian writes.

The business end of pro wrestling is never far from Balukjian’s mind, and he writes about contracts, deals and the cutthroat world that helped McMahon build the WWE into such a profitable venture.

The chapter about Rivera reveals the difficulty a wrestler who is down the card — usually referred to as a “jobber” — endures while trying to make a living.

“He was a utility player … meaning his specialty was losing matches,” Balukjian writes.

Still Rivera has a sense of pride for his role. “I did a lot of things to make those people look good,” he said.

There are chapters on Hogan and McMahon—particularly an enlightening look at the Hulkster’s musical career before he became a wrestler and his childhood home in the Port Tampa area of Tampa, Florida — but the real focus in The Six Pack is with the other wrestlers — and that is what makes this book so compelling.

Balukjian returns to meet with the Iron Sheik, who had endured an embarrassing drug bust with “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan in 1987 and the devastating 2003 murder of Marissa, his eldest daughter, which certainly led to his drug addiction and his random threat to kill Balukjian two years later.

Balukjian shines a light on many of the struggles the wrestlers faced — drug addition, disconnected family lives and the inevitable fall when an athlete steps away from the spotlight.
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His unvarnished observations of people and his interactions with the wrestlers ring true. That makes The Six Pack truly one of the most honest books about professional wrestling.