WWE Legends - Superstar Billy Graham: Tangled Ropes (World wrestling entertainment) by Graham Billy & Greenberg Keith Elliot

Author:Graham, Billy & Greenberg, Keith Elliot [Graham, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Wrestling Entertainment
Published: 2010-05-08T07:00:00+00:00

“Not dead ones,” I’d remind Koloff.

On this photo shoot, Apter and I wandered around the same way, past the theaters showing kung-fu movies and XXX features, and took pictures with the people. On the street, I never received any heel heat in New York—a city former mayor John Lindsay described as not only the nation’s melting pot but “the casserole, the chafing dish, and the charcoal grill.” Everyone crowded around me for autographs—men in leisure suits, kids from Harlem coming out of the video arcade, subway workers on break, junkies looking to cop dope. It reminded me of Jesus, preaching the word alongside beggars, tax collectors, and Mary Magdalene.

With the denizens of Times Square trailing behind us, I made openmouthed Muhammad Ali faces in the lens and signed people’s arms. Then, on a traffic island on Broadway, I jumped up on a cement garbage can, tore off my shirt, and flexed against the wintry chill. As Bill snapped away, the crowd stood around him and cheered. Even at that early stage, I knew that I was ready to pop as a babyface.

Bruno and I took our feud to Baltimore, Providence, Toronto—where the promotion had a working relationship with the WWWF—and Augusta, Maine, among other venues. WWWF fans were incredibly intense in Boston; there was a net over the ring on poles to catch hurled debris. During one clash in Madison Square Garden, I rolled to ringside after a bodyslam and headed back to the dressing room, waving the match off. Special referee Gorilla Monsoon chased me down the aisle, ducked under one of my right crosses, and carried me back to the ring like a sack of potatoes. There, Sammartino finished me off.

The fans went insane, literally leaping into the air, pumping their fists.

The people just never grew tired of us.

Even Bruno’s teenage son David—who later wrestled in the World Wrestling Federation—seemed to lose his senses over the rivalry. Before a match in Bruno’s hometown of Pittsburgh, the kid approached me in the dressing room with an unusual proposition:

“Hey, Superstar, do you mind if I walk to the ring with you?”

I didn’t know if David was just having fun, or trying to spite his father in some way. “Ask your dad,” I told him.

David did, and Bruno shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead,” he said. “I don’t care.”

So instead of the Grand Wizard that night, I was escorted to the ring by David Sammartino, who raised my arm in the air and heeled for the crowd. A group of Pittsburgh Steelers were in the front row. Everyone knew the Sammartino family in Pittsburgh, and these guys were truly bewildered. But they were having a blast.

Cowboy Stan Hansen was a big, strong guy who began going around the horn with Bruno after we played out our program—string of matches—in different cities. During an April 26, 1976, challenge at Madison Square Garden, Hansen tried an unconventional type of bodyslam, crossing arms and turning Bruno around in the middle of the move. Both guys were sweaty, and Stan was still green.

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