Guest Booker: Mike Graham

(The CWF/Crockett Merger)

Kayfabe Commentaries

www.kayfabecommentaries.com

$20.00

Reviewed by Joe Babinsack

Championship Wrestling from Florida is one more of the many, now mythical regions that supplied its fans with a wrestling product, a series of legendary moments, and a still compelling tapestry of storylines that persisted long after the company disappeared into wrestling history.

While Eddie Graham didn’t start the promotion, nor was the singular star of the promotion in its hey-day, he was the driving force for what seems to have been one more Old School mentality office, where booking and creating stars meant creating the ‘reality’ of professional wrestling, and creating that reality meant a hard line on the sort of nonsense that is commonplace today.

Sure, intermingling between faces and heels seems rather quaint, and insisting that a wrestler who loses a fight be immediately fired seems rather barbaric, but the connection between the fan, the sport and the wrestlers was of the utmost importance.

Again, not something exactly commonplace today, but when Graham jealously guarded the reputation and the presentation and the whole notion of kayfabe; and when he defended his borders (as Mike says, Florida only really had one border – Georgia – because no one’s promoting in or over the Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico).

Well, the Cuban wrestling scene did go downhill after Batista, didn’t it?

Florida Wrestling was known for a lot of things. Founded by “Cowboy” Luttrell, the promotion was solid for the 1950’s, and bought into by Eddie Graham in the early sixties, and Luttrell was seemingly pushed out in 1971. It was a mainstay of the National Wrestling Alliance, and Eddie was a two term President, and one of the kingmakers – especially in the 1970’s with Jack Brisco.

Florida was known for flashy superstars, from Dusty Rhodes to the “satanic” version of Kevin Sullivan, from appearances by Superstar Billy Graham to Lex Lugar, and a wide range of faces who moved in and out of the territory.

Florida was especially known for the training of Hiro Matsuda. Also for Boris Malenko. But underlying Florida was that sense of heels running the show, which naturally is explained by Eddie Graham’s career being more successful with that flavor.

What’s fascinating is the stories of how Eddie’s wrestling approach (and intrinsic talent as a heel) impacted the lives, lifestyles and ability of his family to live in a community. What’s amazing is that Eddie Graham learned the business from the Funks in West Texas, and the McMahons in New York City, and created his own company by setting a foundation of community work and service, all the while keeping the entertainment factor and the larger than life factor balanced so that he could be successful with his office, and see his family prosper in the real world.

While Mike Graham – the star of the Guest Booker – touches upon this glorious history, he more supplements the stories and the philosophy and the legend of his father. That story is not the focus of the DVD, but the shadow of Eddie, who unfortunately took his own life in the mid-1980’s, is obviously one that lives with Mike to this day.

I greatly appreciated Sean Oliver’s take on the subjects, inching close to asking some very personal and difficult questions, but guiding the talk to make sure that all the subjects were covered, and that Mike had the ability to present his take on things.

Not that asking Mike Graham for his opinion is a difficult thing!

Graham has had his moments in recent memory. He’s got a perspective on professional wrestling’s history that has few peers, and an outspoken attitude that borders on the outlandish at times, but he certainly has an amazing talent for keeping it real while he tells his tales.

Can you refute what Mike Graham says?

I’ll let the viewer be the judge of that. What’s fascinating is how Mike lets it be known, for example, that he was probably the only guy who was at the funerals of Jim Crockett Sr. and Vince McMahon Sr. and he thus was able to tell both notable Juniors (yeah, I know Vince hates that, so be it) that they needed to keep the regions alive for their own good.

That was some twenty five years ago, by his telling.

Now, was that unrealistic? Is it something refutable?

Perhaps not, but perhaps it’s something that seems perfectly said in the hindsight of the last quarter of a century.

There are other tales and a whole lot of perspective and a great insight into professional wrestling philosophy that a student of the sport can glean from this DVD, and for that, I do recommend it.

On the other hand, the Guest Booker focus this time is firstly a brief period when Jim Crockett Promotions bought into the CWF, and pretty much ran it into the ground: not knowing, not caring and not seemingly bothering to try to maintain the history and the circuit of established cities in Florida.

At the time, in the 1980’s when Crockett was dominating TBS and expanding from the Mid-Atlantic base of operations, and just took over Florida, and got Dusty Rhodes on board, and when WCW was really becoming the NWA, it seemed like Florida was just not that important.

TBS now had Lex Lugar, Dusty, Kevin Sullivan, and it had the voice – the Dean of Professional Wrestling – Gordon Solie on board. CWF was losing, and there’s an obvious diminishment of the territory after Eddie Graham’s death. And Sean Oliver does press Mike to address how much Dusty’s betrayal of sorts impacted not only the whole scene, but the passing of his father.

Mike doesn’t bite on that direction.

But there’s little else that he does dodge.

I loved hearing how he claims that Buddy Rogers was one of the worst for booking himself to the detriment of the promotion. I’ve heard those stories before. Graham explains how in one night, Rogers beat two main competitors and the champion, and Eddie wondered aloud what he was doing.

Rogers was fired the next day.

You can see that streak in Mike – the sense of not holding back on opinions. Sure, he’s not firing people, but he’s firing off words and he’s not going to hold back on the JCP company, or WCW or the WWE or anyone.

That’s what’s entertaining about it all.

Whether or not Mike’s perspectives on The Radicalz and their move from WCW to WWE based on Kevin Sullivan getting the head booking position were 100% -- as Mike and Kevin are obviously good buddies – there is a sense of Mike really saying to some of the people involved, really questioning how they perceived it all.

And the story about how Human Resources tried to come down on Mike for ‘threatening’ an employee is priceless.

The other part about the Guest Booker series is the obligatory ‘pick out your roster and book it better’ game, with Mike Graham cherry picking a roster from CWF/WCW, and then building his own promotion from it, and how he’d do it.

I love the concept, but the framework is always wanting to me.

Could Mike book better than Crockett (read Dusty Rhodes) at the time? I bet he would today, but I’m not so certain. The reality is that today’s concept of booking revolves around a static roster, and that’s the mentality that is eroding the future of this once great pastime. That makes it a bit fuzzy to figure out when Mike merges the two worlds – I think Mike Graham has more booking comprehension today than anyone but a small handful of guys (Cornette, Heyman, Matysik) but he is heavily influenced by his working with WCW and WWE and maintaining that modern status quo.

Regardless, booking philosophy presented by Mike, channeling from what he learned from Eddie, is something to devour. Whether or not Mike’s stories are another aspect of kayfabe is a point to debate, but that’s a point for the viewer to debate.

But it’s all entertaining, and that’s what it’s all about, and I don’t regret watching Kayfabe Commentaries and their efforts to relive and present the past, glorious history of professional wrestling, and this is one more great chapter.

Joe Babinsack can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Pittsburghers should look for Bruno on PCNC’s Night Talk. There’s an interesting call from some smart-aleck around the 50 minute mark, asking about Flair and Hogan.

 [