Billy Graham was way ahead of his time, so you cant really blame him for wanting to stay around as long as he could. But he ended up sticking around far past his prime, and due to severe injuries wasnt able to keep up with his opponents in the ring. He didn't resemble any sort of superstar by the end. Graham was a top star in the WWWF and the NWA, but his run in the WrestleMania era was awful. After being gone for a few years, Mean Gene Okerlund told us the former champ was returning. We then saw Graham in Arizona with a tarantula on his head for some reason. The promo was brief, but Superstar assured he was bad to the bone. Did he really just mean he had bad bones? Because after re-joining the company in 1986, Billy needed a new hip. He went away for a bit, and returned as a shell of a shell of his former self. Here was the guy that Hogan copied, but just looked like an old, broken down Hogan. When He Should Have Hung Up The Tights: His run against Bob Backlund in 1983 would have been okay to call it quits. However, even by that point he was in rough shape. An over-reliance on steroids, and a horrible drug addiction took their toll on him and had robbed him of his superhuman physique.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
