CheapShots: Can We Stop Giving Superstar Billy Graham a Platform?

Cheap Shots are unfiltered, uncensored opinions, and those opinions reflect only the author!

I want to preface this by saying that I have nothing against Superstar Billy Graham, at least as far as his wrestling career goes. He was a good champion and was the inspiration for many of the superstars we still enjoy today. In his post wrestling career, he has shown himself to be a bitter, hateful old man and we need to stop giving him the attention he wants so badly. I won’t go into his previous tantrums because that would be a different article entirely.

Superstar is fond of lashing out over seemingly innocuous things and this one is no exception. He’s apparently angry that not only is Ronda Rousey calling herself ‘Rowdy’ but he seems to be mad that a woman he considers a ‘failed’ UFC star competed at WrestleMania and nearly made one of the all-time greats tap out.

Seriously? How is a woman who only lost TWO matches in her entire UFC career, put women MMA competitors on the map, and garnered more attention for WrestleMania 34 in the mainstream media than the rest of the card, a failure? The match was almost universally praised and was a huge highlight of the WrestleMania 34 card. Superstar complains about Rousey nearly making Triple H tap because apparently a man like Triple H couldn’t possibly tap out to a woman, even a woman who was an Olympic level athlete.

As for the ‘Rowdy’ part. Apparently Superstar was unaware of, or is ignoring, the fact that Rousey asked Piper for permission to use the name because she was a huge fan of his (and a fan of professional wrestling in general). Piper readily gave her his permission and ONLY then did Rousey use the ‘Rowdy’ nickname. Something else Superstar failed to notice was that the leather jacket Rousey wore to the ring belonged to Piper. It was given to her by Piper’s son. Bottom line, the ‘Rowdy’ nickname was not gimmick infringement by Rousey, she had permission to use it. It’s not her fault that Piper didn’t clear this with Superstar.

Like I said at the beginning, I have nothing against Superstar as far as his wrestling career went, and I understand that his championship run didn’t end the way he’d wanted it to Vince Sr was a man of his word, and he’d given his word to Bob Backlund, but his bitter lashing out is tainting his legacy and it’s time wrestling fans stopped listening to him.