10 Things You Didn't Know About Superstar Billy Graham

3. Graham Was Nearly Given The Hulk Hogan Gimmick...

€œI always thought that we missed the boat with Superstar, and quite frankly, had I been in charge at the time, he would have been Hulk Hogan for me€ €“ Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon, Sr. was an old school wrestling promoter, through and through. He lived by the old ways, the old codes and the old agreements. He wasn€™t always trusted by the NWA, but he was always respected by his rivals. Under his watchful, steady guidance, the WWWF had blossomed into a major territory, with the earnest, reliable and principled Bruno Sammartino as its biggest and brightest star. Vince€™s father, Jess McMahon (along with former €˜Goldust Trio€™ member Toots Mondt) had founded the WWWF€™s precursor, Capitol Wrestling Corporation. His biggest star had been €˜Nature Boy€™ Buddy Rogers, a charismatic heel with an athletic build and an irrepressible aura of vanity about him. These men, Vince Jr€™s forebears, were the old guard; the keepers of the wrestling flame. Through trial and error, they knew what worked and what wouldn€™t, or at least, they thought they did. The younger Vince McMahon was a different animal entirely. He didn€™t meet his biological father until he was 12 and, before then, had been subjected to a rough upbringing that included an abusive stepfather. The lessons learned by the son were violently detached from those espoused by the father. From an early age, Vince Jr. learned to be ruthless, cunning and, if necessary, cruel. To this day, McMahon is as well known for his occasional generosity as he is for his callousness and all around combativeness. Vince€™s outlook on the business differs greatly from that of his father or his grandfather. For Vince Jr, wrestling always needed an edge. €˜Sports entertainment€™ needed rebellion and Billy Graham was the perfect rebel. With The Superstar as his Champion, Vince wanted to crown wrestling€™s ultimate rogue and market him as a rock star showman and mainstream celebrity. ...But his dad didn€™t approve. Despite his son€™s best efforts, Vince Sr. did not think that The Superstar would make it as a babyface. Senior€™s thinking was that Graham was too big, that his size and obvious strength would make it impossible to illicit sympathy from the capacity crowd. He wanted Superstar to continue playing the role of an arrogant, musclebound bully. It seems likely that Vince Jr€™s idea was to market Billy Graham as a €˜tweener€™ (across between a heel and a babyface), so that he€™d essentially be a babyface with rougher edges. His arrogance and pomposity would remain intact, but the fans would be allowed to fully connect with his charisma and charm. In truth, this is exactly the same approach McMahon took with The Rock when he flipped him baby in the late 1990€™s. The idea of a rebel character that fans could cheer for and get behind was also dusted off and re-hashed for the €˜Stone Cold€™ Steve Austin character from the mid 90€™s onwards. Had Vince Jr, taken over his father€™s company sooner, Superstar Billy Graham would have been Hulk Hogan. No question about it. However, the character may not have been as big, because cable TV and the Pay Per View format were still a few years away at that time, so Graham being the number one star in wrestling would probably not have transitioned to the same level of national success that Hogan€™s run did. Still, it does get you thinking, doesn€™t it? When the three greatest (super)stars in WWE history stood together at WrestleMania XXX earlier this year, how many people considered that Vince had promoted each one of them using plans that he had clearly first laid out for Billy Graham? What does that tell you about The Superstar€™s place in wrestling history? In fact, what term does WWE now use to describe all of its contracted wrestlers?