“Superstar” Billy Graham’s WWWF title run began on April 30, 1977, in Baltimore, MD, with a non-clean win over Bruno Sammartino. Graham was very much ahead of his time with
his character, charisma, presence, and promos, many of which were reminiscent
of Muhammed Ali. Graham’s career story
was that of vast untapped potential in that Vince McMahon Sr. decided to Bob
Backlund the highlight of the WWWF over him.
Graham would return to the WWWF after this run, on two occasions but
never holding the championship again.
Alongside the likes of Bruno, Bob Backlund, Pedro Morales, and Hulk
Hogan, Graham was a record setter for sell-outs at Madison Square Garden. He sold out MSG numerous times during this
run, along with his return in the 80’s working with Bob Backlund, and even in
his final run in the late 80’s. On
October 16, 1987, as the headliners, Graham and Butch Reed sold out the Garden
for a cage match that Graham won. Here
are his championship reign stats…
Total matches-165
Overall wins-65%
Clean wins-47%
Non-clean wins-18%
Overall losses-27%
No Contests/Draws-5%
Tag Team matches-2%
When
compared to Ivan Koloff, Graham’s numbers are not far off, as Ivan has a higher
overall winning percentage but slightly less clean wins. Koloff had a considerably better loss
percentage but of course, he had far less total matches in his reign. Graham fought a diverse collection of
wrestlers, and he travelled outside of the WWWF territory as champion, to
places like Florida, Japan, and Detroit.
The most amount of his clean wins came over Larry Zbyszko (11), Tony
Garea (12), and “Chief” Jay Strongbow (14).
Against Bruno Sammartino, he only won clean once, in a cage match, once in non-clean fights, two losses, and
three no contests. In typical McMahon
fashion, Bruno was still kept strong despite not being champion.
Graham’s
biggest rival was against Dusty Rhodes, as he lost twelve total times, and only
won once. However, the vast majority of
those losses were in Florida for Championship Wrestling from Florida and in
fact, Graham lost most of his matches that he wrestled in Florida. His other high collected losses came from Bob
Backlund, Strongbow, and Ivan Putski, with most being via count-out or
disqualification. Graham also wrestled
some unique opponents during his reign, such as Chavo Guerrero (in a loss), Raymond
Rougeau, Strong Kobayashi, Edouard Carpentier, and Riki Choshu. Graham lost the title to Bob Backlund on
February 20, 1978, in New York City. If
one was looking strictly at clean wins, “Superstar” Billy Graham holds the top
spot for now but he also holds the top loss count. It would be a cliché to say that Graham was a
pioneer in wrestling and certainly paved the way for the modern wrestling
landscape.
It
should be mentioned that the previous heel champion, Stan Stasiak, failed to
hold the title for at least six matches, and did not qualify for this project. If you have questions or suggestions, follow me on Twitter @stevesgraps, or email me at stevesgraps@yahoo.com
