Nothing on the Observer site yet, but I've gotten a couple of e-mails about Mike Graham dying today. If so, I feel kind of bad about all the shit he's gotten in recent years from, well, everyone. Sounds like his life was going very badly and it might have been a suicide. RIP.
Alex Marvez of Fox Sports, who is a big wrestling fan, saying suicide.
ReplyDeleteWhy has everyone been giving him shit over the years? I don't really know anything about him, he was kind of before my time.
ReplyDeleteIn honor of mike let me quote the best thing he ever said: "jeff jarrett, broke a million guitars and never drew a dime."
ReplyDeleteBasically because he would talk lots of shit about guys like luger/heyman/etc. On that show on wwe on demand despite being relevant because of his dad.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that most things that were said about him were negative. His threats to cut Benoit's neck or something were a huge part of the Radicalz leaving WCW.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I never saw him wrestle, but I was getting really annoyed watching WWE Legends Roundtable, where he talked like he knew everything about the business and acted like he was at the table with his peers. He made it in wrestling because his dad dictated that it be so. He also would not shut up during those roundtables.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just recently saw the shoot interview he did on the subject. He actually doesn't come off that bad, assuming what he said is accurate - that Benoit and the Radicalz were pissed off and threatening to quit if Sullivan was put in charge, so Graham went to Benoit and said that nobody pushed him harder than Sullivan did, despite him stealing his wife. The gist of it was that if Graham had has his wife stolen by a guy he was pushing and then had to show up to work every day and face him he'd kick the shit out of him. He says kicked the shit out of, Benoit says slit his throat. He does have a bit of a point - Sullivan pushed Benoit hard and you never heard of him lobbying to bury him after the Nancy situation. He seemed to take the whole thing pretty well.
ReplyDeleteThe first quote that came through my head too. Cheers Mike.
ReplyDeleteI remember some bit during Scott Hall's final WCW run where he had a backstage skit with Graham and Graham told him to do something and Hall was like, "You don't tell me what to do, you're not my boss," and I remember thinking "OH HO HO, EES FUNNY B/C MIKE GRAHAM REALLY IS HIS BOSS!!!"
ReplyDeleteHe wrestled the wcw battle bowl lottery in 91. YouTube it. He's bragged about sandbagging liger and not catching him duribg the match because he didn't believe in that style. He's also taken credit for every success in wcw
ReplyDeleteWow didn't expect that. Maybe sitting at the Legends roundtable made him realize he never made it big :(. I was one who badmouthed him on youtube anyway...I don't see anything wrong with what he said about Benoit, he was just way ahead of his time
ReplyDeleteMy condolences to the Graham family.
ReplyDeleteI remember when Graham made that statement about Jarrett on the Rise and Fall of WCW dvd. To be fair, when I heard him say that, I immediately thought why would Graham say that? It's not like Mike Graham made it into the wrestling business on his own merits.
In hindsight, I wish he would have cut Benoit's neck.
ReplyDeleteHe was short. Average wrestler. As the type of wrestler started to transform from generic mat wrestlers to a more athletic style, he could not adapt.
ReplyDeleteWhen WCW brought in more athletic cruiserweights like Jushin Liger, Graham really could not hang with those guys and retired and worked behind the scenes with WCW for a long time.
He LOVED Michael Hayes. Man, He would put Michael Hayes and the Freedbirds as the greatest draws next to Hulk Hogan.
ReplyDeleteWhen did he brag about sandbagging Liger? I've got to read/hear that.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, WHY would you brag about that?
ReplyDeleteI followed the wrestling world happenings fairly closely during the Monday Night Wars, and I don't remember hearing his name until he either threatened to kill Benoit or gave D-Lo shit for breaking Droz's neck, if that was him.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I won't defend Benoit, because time is passed and I moved on, but, how is wishing one man committed a hienous crime years before that would have prevent someone from committing one later a worthwhile comment to make on a blog where people are offering condolences for the family of a man who, if he truly did commit suicide, had demons that he felt could not be overcome?
ReplyDeleteI feel especially sorry for his family, because the regret they're left with and the internal questions of "could we have done something" are a terrible burden to carry. Like him or not, and I never met him, so I can't really say I did or didn't, people are hurting who were left behind.
You're right; it was inappropriate for me to post that.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Scott was on vacation
ReplyDeleteSuicide is selffish.
ReplyDeleteYou would think if his daddy committed suicide he wouldnt follow in his footsteps.
Oh well.
By the sounds of some tweets he had his father's troubles with alcohol as well.
ReplyDeleteHe's not drawing now either. 23 comments for a wrestling death? Terrible.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the disconnect between "does things that are good for wrestling, from the standpoint of a fan." and "is a decent person" can sometimes be a mile wide. Sullivan came off really well in Foley's book and I still consider him as good a judge of character as you'll find in wrestling.
ReplyDeleteRIP. Feel sorry for the guy if all the drinking stories were true.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if he had lots of concussions, but I gotta wonder if CTE is partly a factor.
ReplyDelete"Dad there's an evil monkey in my closet"
ReplyDelete"I don't care son, I just don't care"
Kinda how feel about this latest death.
Um, normally that works in precisely the opposite way. Suicide runs in families.
ReplyDeleteBrutal, yet made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteMike Graham, appeared on a million WWE "documentaries," never drew a dime.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Graham ever said it to try to make himself look better, as if Graham drew anything, but it was more of the fact that WCW wanted to keep pushing Jarrett when he was a bad draw. And to finish the quote, "Jarrett broke 1,000 guitars, NEVER DREW A DIME, but in his mind he still thought he was bigger and better than Hulk Hogan."
ReplyDeleteDon't matter how much you draw to make a comment saying that Jarrett was stupid for thinking he was in Hogan's league.
Sorry, but I don't have the slightest CLUE who this person is.
ReplyDeleteI watched some shoots with Sullivan lat night and he comes off well. I really don't see him as the psycho asshole he was made out to be. He's friends with Flair but even defends Scott Steiner's Nitro shoot on Flair by saying Flair kind of derailed his push years ago and WCW was so miserable at the time everyone was on edge. His thoughts on Benoit seem reasonable. He doesn't even mention Nancy, just talks about wrestling and he did push Benoit. And really, Benoit stole his wife, who would blame him if he punched him out? The only other person I heard talk negatively about him was Jericho in his first book. It wasn't terribly negative but Jericho was tight with Benoit to.
ReplyDeleteBut c'mon man! He invented the Tree of Woe! Master of the Double Stomp. The Taskmaster, leader of the Dungeon of Doom! Cool dude.
ReplyDeleteSullivan wasn't the problem. But Graham illustrated the issue with Sullivan being in charge quite nicely by getting in Benoit's face. Sullivan was a true professional, but the people around him obviously weren't.
ReplyDeleteDo some research then, you've clearly got access to that thing they have now, you know, THE INTERNET.
ReplyDeleteThat's Kevin Sullivan - I can see why you'd confuse him with Mike Sullivan, geographically and stuff, but physically they look totally different ;)
ReplyDeleteSo weird. I saw that specific clip on YouTube just last night. I thought "Oh, it's Mike Graham. I've heard he's kind of over-inflates his importance in general..."
ReplyDeleteBut I have to say his comments about Benoit, the situation after Benoit left WCW after winning the world title and whether he was fired/quit and all that, it was believable as any other version I've heard. Maybe not the part about how Benoit was practically quaking in fear, but I'll allow him a LITTLE bullshit. He was a wrestler, you've got to expect some.
Still. Suicide. Sad for him and his family.
So because Mike Graham killed himself, it's inappropriate to say that, hypothetically, you wish he'd have killed Benoit before Benoit killed his wife & kid if Benoit had hypothetically stolen said wife from him? That's two layers of hypothetical and still doesn't explain why that's inappropriate for him to say, considering it's germane to the subject people are discussing. I don't see what's wrong with it, apart from saying "sad stuff happened so we can't talk about other sad stuff!" Who gives a shit? It's part of Graham's legacy. Had he not said that & other douchey stuff, most of us wouldn't remember him at all.
ReplyDeleteMy comment was based on a belief that murder is wrong, and in a post that people are offering condolences to a man who has passed family, that maybe saying that he should have murdered someone during his life was a tad tasteless. But that's just the way I feel, and I wasn't asking for an apology or a retraction, I was just voicing my own opinion, which is what I believed a blog comment section is for. I never actually said it was "inappropriate" just asked if it was "worthwhile" meaning, in my mind, this wasn't the best place for it.
ReplyDeleteHey there. Sorry for the late reply. It was around 2003 during an interview--I could be wrong about where it was but I think it was LiveAudioWrestling. He didn't think Liger knew how to work and total disrespected him during the Lethal Lottery tag match. He definitely said it, as I remember saying to myself--did Mike Graham...Mike Graham!?? just say Liger didn't know how to work!? http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=027862.
ReplyDeleteMy previous experience hearing his name in the sheets was in fall 1999--a few months after D-Low had the accident with Droz, D-Low visited Russo during a WCW show (just to get some ideas about perhaps going there after his contract was up--he always did well under Russo) and Graham confronted him and talked shit about "crippling a guy" and nobody should hire him. I always felt that was wrong--and that was months before he threatened the Radicalz with slitting their throats.
Damn, that quote was the first thing that popped into my head too when Isaw this thread...
ReplyDelete