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TVTranscript
00:00I don't know that there's been any family in wrestling either related for
00:17real or professionally that had as much impact as much reach and as much
00:22influence as the Graham family did. Graham was the hardest punch in wrestling
00:26history. Eddie Graham was not only a great wrestler and a great promoter, he
00:31was a visionary. Eddie's a championship wrestler from Florida. He was built on
00:35wrestling and the main events were violent. He gave the people the circus.
00:44Eddie Graham was a titan of professional wrestling who ruled his era and passed
00:49on his iconic legacy to his only son Mike. The son of any great athlete, they've
00:55got the scrutiny on him, but Mike Graham didn't take shit off anybody. I think
00:59maybe he felt like he had to be as good as his father. Mike Graham followed in
01:05his father's footsteps to wrestling greatness and also descended into his
01:10own dark world of pain, addiction, and grief. The wrestling culture is very
01:15cutthroat. You have to have this thing about you where nothing's gonna break
01:20you. He was under tremendous pressure from so many different angles. Mike kept
01:25shit to himself, too, like his father. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.
01:29When it all gets pushed under the rug in certain families, who are you supposed to
01:33go to for help? The tragic legacy of a wrestling dynasty, haunted by self-
01:39destruction and suicide. It is with a deep sense of regret that I announce the
01:44untimely death of a friend, colleague, and a leader. It was like somebody dropped a
01:49bomb on all of us. We're a father, father, and we're the kids. Everyone's in the family genes, right?
01:57Once that spotlight's gone or once you don't have that ring, like, it's emptiness.
02:09Championship Wrestling from Florida was one of the most respected and successful
02:14wrestling promotions of modern times. The legacy of the Graham family in
02:19Florida is they meant professional wrestling to millions of people all
02:24over the state for almost 30 years. One member of the Graham family was on the
02:31card or in the main event or behind the scenes. In the glory years when they were
02:35selling a million tickets a year just in the state of Florida to see live matches
02:39and their TV ratings were Super Bowl level. I guess I was used to it, like, when
02:44you don't know what's different, it's just what your life is. And I just knew
02:48that that was a huge part of, like, my grandfather and my dad's life. I am
02:52Nicole Gossett and Eddie Graham was my grandfather and Mike Graham is my
02:56father. And that's Eddie Graham in the center of the ring now, his son Mike
03:00watching very carefully. Every Sunday they'd have matches at the Eddie Graham
03:04Stadium. And the first phone call in the morning was my grandfather calling my
03:08dad to talk about the night. We'd wake up and we'd walk into, like, our family room
03:13to see who was crashed out on our couch for a little while, you know, because we had
03:16different wrestlers sleeping on our couch at times. Magnum TA Terry Allen,
03:20when he first started, he slept on our couch and he was so sweet. And so I was
03:24pretty accustomed to having big, boisterous personalities and people
03:27around. The one that scared me was Andre the Giant. When he came, like, crouching
03:31through our front door, he freaked me out, yeah. I was scared. That was the
03:37family business. Everybody wanted to be on the roster of championship wrestling
03:44from Florida, both for the money, for the weather, for the girls, and also to learn
03:49from Eddie Graham. I'm Jim Cornette. I've had a 40-year career in professional
03:55wrestling, but for even longer than that, I've been a collector and an historian.
03:59Eddie could make you believe that he was the toughest man in the state of Florida,
04:04which is exactly what most of the fans believed. He just had a magnetism about
04:09him and he was somebody that you wanted to listen to, and if you were working for
04:13him, you wanted to follow. A leader, a general.
04:16I was born up in those Tennessee mountains, brother. If you didn't have heart and desire, you were finished to begin with.
04:21So I ain't gonna lay down and quit. That's my bottom line.
04:25There you have it. The comments from Eddie Graham.
04:28There goes a wrestler and one hell of a man.
04:33Eddie was a legend in Florida. He could get a reaction just walking to the ring.
04:39My name is Kevin Sullivan. I worked for the Graham family for decades, and I've been a wrestler for over 50 years.
04:47Your nightmare is just starting.
04:50Eddie was about five, ten and a half, wide shoulders, leech blonde hair, and he just had a presence about him.
04:59Nobody else was ever in his class. The genius of the business, R. Einstein.
05:05Eddie was from the hills in Chattanooga. Very difficult life. His father died young.
05:12Eddie came up through the College of Hard Knocks. Just a good old tough country boy.
05:18My name is Dottie Curtis, and I am the wife of the late Don Curtis.
05:25Don was a very, very knowledgeable wrestler.
05:29Don and Eddie met back in around 52, I think it was.
05:34They became friends, and Eddie asked Don to come up here to Jacksonville, and he was the promoter up here for quite a few years.
05:42Now it's Graham for the good solid chop across the throat.
05:45Eddie Graham is probably one of the finest wrestlers that was around in his time.
05:54I don't think there'll ever be another Eddie Graham.
05:57Though born Edward Gossett, Eddie's wrestling career is forever altered when he adopts the Graham name from one of the ring's top stars.
06:06The originator of the Graham wrestling family dynasty was Dr. Jerry Graham.
06:13He had the bleached hair, and he carried himself like a star, and what's more, he had the gift of gab.
06:19We will be the international tag team champions as soon as that match comes off, and it's going to be the greatest match ever.
06:24Brother teams in New York were over at the time, but if you could find a guy that looks something like you, nobody's reading your birth certificate, just say it's your brother.
06:35Eddie Gossett was in Texas wrestling as Rip Rogers, and a lot of people told him, you look like Jerry Graham.
06:44Jerry and Eddie connected, and in 1958, the Graham brothers, the Golden Grahams, as a team, ruled the roost in wrestling in the biggest TV market in the country,
06:55where wrestling is already red hot, being presented in the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden.
07:01Dr. Graham has just the treatment for that tired, nagging backache. Eddie performs the surgery while Jerry looks on approvingly.
07:08If you could sell out Madison Square Garden, you could sell out anywhere.
07:13Eddie and Dr. Jerry made a fantastic duo, aided by everybody, and just really drew the crowds in.
07:23And just main eventing Madison Square Garden, they were probably making close to six figures per year in 1958 and 1959, and that would translate into somewhere over a million bucks apiece in today's money.
07:37With money and fame to burn, Eddie and Jerry are box office sensations.
07:42But before long, Dr. Jerry's behavior outside the ring becomes even more notorious than his matches.
07:49Dr. Jerry Graham, as big of a genius as he was in wrestling, was an alcoholic, was mentally ill, and he got in a lot of trouble, and caused a lot of trouble.
08:00Jerry Graham, to impress fans, used to light his cigars with hundred dollar bills.
08:05Or he would walk into a biker bar and walk right up in front of a guy and say, hey, my name's Balls, you got any?
08:15But the most shocking incident involving Jerry Graham transpires years later, in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.
08:23One day he got the word that his mother was sick and in the hospital.
08:27And he called the hospital and he told the doctor that his mother better come out of that hospital in good health.
08:33And then she died.
08:36So Dr. Jerry Graham shows up with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38 caliber revolver, and an 8-inch long hunting knife.
08:46And appears in the intensive care unit where he fires a shot at the doctor.
08:53And then goes down the hallway and grabs the gurney that his mother's body is on.
09:01And as he's taking it down the hallway, here come the orderlies and the interns.
09:06And they're trying to tackle him.
09:08So he grabs his mother's corpse and slings her over his shoulder.
09:14And he's screaming, I just want to take her and bury her!
09:17Jerry Graham was so good at his chosen profession that he was also completely, utterly insane.
09:27After two years, Eddie Graham could not put up with being partners with Jerry Graham anymore.
09:34And he had to leave the greatest spot that he'd ever had.
09:38In 1960, Eddie uproots his family from New York and settles in Tampa, the hub of championship wrestling.
09:46He was a visionary. He said to himself, I know my capabilities as a wrestler.
09:53I can get over here. I can be the star. And this whole thing can be bigger.
09:59And over the next 25 years, not only did he become the most successful wrestler in the history of Florida and the most popular,
10:06but he worked his way into being able to buy into the promotion, then taking it over completely
10:13and expanding wrestling in the state of Florida and made it the place that everybody wanted to go to wrestle and to learn.
10:22Eddie probably bought the territory just knowing that he had the wherewithal,
10:28the brains, the connections with the talent to take the territory to another level.
10:35Hi, I'm B. Brian Blair and I started wrestling in Florida in 1977.
10:41Got my start right here in Tampa.
10:44The armory was hot. I would call it like Saturday night fever. It was so entertaining.
10:57All the wrestlers from championship wrestling from Florida gave their all every Tuesday night at that place.
11:03Growing up in Tampa, wrestlers were just huge. Fans would come up to them.
11:07We couldn't go anywhere without someone wanting to talk to my dad or my granddad.
11:11And it was telling that Eddie Graham would have continued good relations with Vince McMahon Sr.
11:17and later on with Vince McMahon Jr.
11:20He was someone that the other promoters all called to ask for advice.
11:25The president of the N.W.A., Eddie Graham, now describing the conditions in the contract.
11:30Both wrestlers are to post...
11:32The National Wrestling Alliance was an organization of promoters from regional territories all over the country.
11:37There was no major decision made in the N.W.A. without consulting Eddie Graham.
11:43He was president twice. He was well respected, but he was a complicated guy.
11:50Eddie would do some violent things.
11:53He was a tough, tough person. You either did what he told you to do or you were out.
12:00Now there was the side of Eddie Graham that did want to keep the credibility of the wrestling business.
12:07And guys were expected to lay shit in, to make people believe what they were doing was real.
12:14Eddie Graham was a stickler. He said, if anybody here gets their ass kicked by a mark, you're fired.
12:21In other words, you get your butt kicked by a wrestling fan, you're out of here.
12:25You protect the business at all costs.
12:26I guess you could call it maybe a horror chamber down there at the Sportatorium.
12:33But fellas would say they wanted to wrestle, and they figured all you had to do was get in the ring and perform.
12:41They'd put them through their paces and, you know, some of them were just, they couldn't take it.
12:47I had to do things that I'm not proud of, that I didn't like to do.
12:54Like what?
12:56A couple of them I did.
12:58Well, they wanted you to break people's bones.
13:05Somehow, this guy got booked for TV.
13:09He said, oh, I've worked some local shows. I'm a butcher by trade.
13:14And I see Eddie's ass broke up like a dog's.
13:17And the guy says, I'm going to make you look good and I'm going to tell all the guys you're a nice guy.
13:22The guy drifts off the corner and he said, if he doesn't come back bleeding, you're through.
13:31I kept my job.
13:36Your marching orders were to make this guy bleed.
13:39I had a family.
13:41At that period, it was my livelihood.
13:44It wasn't his livelihood.
13:46He was going to go back to that job no matter what.
13:49Worst thing I probably ever did.
13:50Eddie's hard-nosed ambition to dominate the wrestling trade is all-consuming.
13:56But his desire for power is far from his only flaw.
14:07Wrestler and promoter Eddie Graham is known for his unrelenting drive, limitless ambition and his determination to legitimize the business.
14:16Eddie was a go-getter.
14:18He had a portfolio of a lot of property.
14:23He expanded outside of the wrestling business.
14:26He wanted to write checks rather than receive checks.
14:30Eddie wanted to elevate the perception of wrestling.
14:34That's where he started getting involved with the Boys Ranch and with charitable organizations in every town and every county in Florida.
14:42They're furthering amateur wrestling programs.
14:45Eddie was a rock star in Florida.
14:47I mean, politicians were kissing Eddie's ass.
14:50To be seen on Championship Press in Florida when you're running for office was a big deal.
14:56And I'm sure Eddie got favors from that too.
15:00Eddie was involved in everything.
15:05I think Eddie put a lot of pressure on himself.
15:09He never wanted to fail in anything he did.
15:11And for most of the things that he did, like flying and being a boatsman and that, diving, he was fabulous.
15:20His only problem was that alcohol got to him.
15:24One night, Eddie was drinking and decided he was going out on his boat.
15:30And his son, Mike, was panicking because he took off in the car.
15:34And so Mike, as a young boy, he got on his bicycle.
15:37And he drove to a cross bridge over the water.
15:42And his idea was he was going to jump off that bridge and onto the boat
15:48because he was afraid his father would kill himself out in the water.
15:52And thank God he missed the boat.
15:54I mean, it wasn't there.
15:56Because if he'd have jumped off of that bridge, he would have possibly drowned in the water.
16:02That scared Eddie.
16:04That was one of his sobering moments, if you want to call it that.
16:09Mike idolized his father and vice versa.
16:13I believe you told me that your own boy does quite a little wrestling.
16:17Well, yes, he does.
16:19In fact, I'm hoping he'll take the state tournament in the 95-pound division.
16:23How old is he?
16:24He's 10 years old.
16:26Even though he's a lovable father, he was demanding.
16:29He put high expectations on Mike.
16:34Then when my dad started wrestling, he obviously started wrestling under Mike Graham.
16:38So maybe that gave him a little bit more of a chip on his shoulder at times.
16:42At 222.5 pounds, Mike Graham, Mike Graham.
16:46He gave me all the tools to get as good as I could get before I turned pro.
16:52But even at that, the pressure really, and a lot of it came from him.
16:56I loved going someplace where he wasn't going to be because I knew I could go out, I could wrestle.
17:01I could come back and it was a constant scrutiny.
17:05My grandfather did throw my dad in the ring like, OK, let's see what you got.
17:09Graham breaking it up again, arm drag takedown.
17:12I remember my dad always saying, Nicole, don't worry.
17:15The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
17:17So he was not intimidated by anyone's size.
17:20Mike was shorter and didn't have the same over-the-top personality.
17:26But he had the wrestling knowledge in there from growing up with Eddie Graham.
17:31And there it is, there's a fall right out of the blue.
17:34So he was a very good worker.
17:37He was in plenty of great tag teams, but the attention never went on him specifically.
17:43And to be honest, he didn't want to be the top guy.
17:46He didn't want to be the big star because people would have said it was because of his father.
17:50Mike swallowed a lot of shit, you know, and left things go.
17:54He did it as well, if not better than anybody I ever saw being a promoter's kid to blend in with the guys.
18:01And Graham after Kevin Sullivan.
18:03I had the pleasure of being his partner, and I had the pleasure of being his opponent.
18:08They're going to hang him.
18:10I get violent solvent, I'm waiting for you.
18:12If you go to Mike's bad side, you're on his bad side.
18:15And he wasn't going to back down.
18:17He knew the pressure he was under.
18:19He couldn't go home if he got his ass kicked.
18:22My grandfather was bloody all the time, right?
18:25My dad also was bloody.
18:27So mornings in my house, my mom would get my brother and I up.
18:29My dad would be in bed because he'd get home so late and he was just hungover, beat up.
18:34And we'd go in to like kiss my dad goodbye in the morning.
18:37And there'd be like tape on his forehead with blood and like bite marks on his finger and the smell of alcohol oozing from his body.
18:46And we'd kiss him goodbye.
18:48See you later, dad. Have a good day.
18:50Let me turn right now to Mike Graham because I know he's...
18:53As the 1980s dawn, Mike Graham joins Eddie in steering the ship at Championship Wrestling from Florida.
19:00As the company becomes a breeding ground for wrestling legends, including Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes.
19:08I am the dream. I am the man. Go on with it, baby.
19:12Dusty was like the original surrogate son. He loved Dusty. And Dusty loved him too.
19:19Dusty Rhodes, of course, was always around.
19:22We'd all go out to the beach together. Dusty would always say that fat looks better tan.
19:28Eddie Graham took Dusty under his wing and he became the most popular wrestler in the history of the state of Florida.
19:34When Dusty turned baby face, the territory was on fire and all of us became so close. We were like family.
19:42And now the ring beginning to fill. Jerry Briscoe charges in, Don Serrano, Brian Blair and a host of others.
19:47As this younger generation elevates the territory to a whole new level, Eddie, now in his 50s, decides to quit the ring for good.
19:56Just as his pursuits outside of the business begin to bring him trouble.
20:01There were a lot of things going on in Eddie's life. He was torn between two women.
20:06He was in business with some shady characters.
20:10I could tell that Eddie was drinking too much. He was maybe taking too much medication.
20:17He had a lot of struggles in his life, personally.
20:23When he came back in the plane at nighttime, there was a store that was open and he could get a cheap bottle of wine there.
20:35Every time he was driving, he would chuck a lug that wine down and he would take the bottle and he'd throw it out of the car into the grass.
20:46And he came home one night and the place wasn't open and he was so desperate.
20:52He went out into the field there and he groveled around in the dirt and found all these bottles.
21:02And he sat there in the field and drank the dregs out of those bottles.
21:10By this time, alcohol had taken over. He couldn't stop.
21:23Consumed by his alcoholism and burdened with personal and professional troubles,
21:29Eddie Graham struggles to find meaning beyond the ring.
21:33Over time, people forget who you are, right?
21:37My grandmother told a story about how they had gone to a restaurant and they didn't know who he was.
21:44He wasn't in the spotlight anymore, but I remember my grandmother being like how he was just not himself after that encounter.
21:54When that career is over, who are you?
21:57He was looking back in the mirror.
22:00One of the last checks my grandfather wrote was to a liquor store for $8 and in the memo it said peace of mind.
22:10I think if anyone's had time of their life and they just can't find comfort within themselves and they feel like everything's out of control, you just don't have that peace of mind and he couldn't find it.
22:20He turned 55 and I had gone over to my grandparents' house and I was roller skating and I was like skating around him in circles and I'm like so what'd you get for your birthday?
22:34He's like 55 and I was like 55 what? He said 55 years.
22:41Looking back, I realize he was telling me that he was done.
22:48That he got 55 years is what he had.
22:56I was at the Super Bowl, the Miami Dolphins were playing the San Francisco 49ers.
23:01They paged me, Mike Graham, Mike Graham, please come to the box office.
23:06I walked into the box office, I was like hey, my name's Mike Graham.
23:09They paged me and the woman goes, oh yeah, you gotta call home.
23:13Call home.
23:15What's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong?
23:17It's your dad.
23:19Dad?
23:21What's wrong with my dad?
23:23His wife, Lucy, went out is what she told my daughter and when she came back, he had shot himself not once but twice.
23:36That's what I heard from what the coroner said and I will spare you the gory details.
23:43I will spare you the gory details about the bedroom.
23:46He's in the hospital, he's hooked up to machines and a family member has to stay to unplug him or keep him alive.
23:54And I got back home the next morning and went to the hospital and there he sat back in the corner, his head all bandaged up and everything.
24:03I said, well it was no accident.
24:06So I looked at mom and I said, mom, you know, you gotta do it.
24:11He wouldn't want to be here like this.
24:14So we went out.
24:16I said, okay, bullet.
24:18And he lived about five minutes.
24:24It was shocking.
24:26I mean, everybody was in a state of shock.
24:31It is with a deep sense of regret that I announce to you at this time the untimely death of a friend, a colleague, and a leader.
24:41Eddie Grant.
24:47I immediately started crying.
24:52I couldn't believe it.
24:54I mean, why?
24:56Why, Eddie?
24:58Why would you do that to your son?
25:00To your grandchildren?
25:04We were young, but my brother was like, if he loved us so much, how could he do this?
25:10My brother was very attached to my grandfather.
25:14Very attached.
25:16I think that people knew he was depressed, but they never thought Eddie would go that far.
25:23He was keeping that to himself.
25:26I think he bottled a lot of it up because he didn't want people to know he wasn't as strong as his outside persona was.
25:34He realized that if he let people know he was weak, that there were people that would love to have just walked in and taken over.
25:44And I think he was probably fighting for the territory, too.
25:50We hear the news, Eddie Graham's dead.
25:53And holy shit, what's going to happen to Florida?
25:56We found out within a year, Florida was on its last legs.
26:02Vince McMahon was starting the national expansion in 1984, and the territories were going out of business because Vince was trying to suck up all the talent.
26:11When WWE started robbing the territories, Eddie saw the writing on the wall, probably much earlier than most of the people did.
26:23A year before Eddie passed away, the territories started struggling.
26:30Yeah, big time.
26:32Tell me about that.
26:34Well, Dusty left. Took the whole crew with him.
26:39Dad had spent years getting Dusty over and creating Dusty Rhodes, but when Dusty left, he took half the territory with him.
26:46And that really made Dad mad. It was like he was almost trying to kill the territory for taking all the talent with him.
26:51In 1984, Dusty Rhodes leaves Florida to work for Jim Crockett Promotions.
26:58With the wrestling industry in chaos, Mike Graham is still reeling from his father's death when he inherits the daunting task of leading the territory.
27:08Mike picked up like a man, ran the territory, and, you know, life went on.
27:16Mike was obviously attempting to fill his father's shoes. It wasn't just him trying to do everything, but it just, it wasn't the same place.
27:29They even ran an angle after Eddie's death with the Freebirds were down there and they were trying to heat things up and they thought,
27:36well, if we desecrate the memory of Florida's most popular wrestler ever, then the fans will hate us.
27:43It's like father, like son. You're both losers.
27:48Eddie would have wanted Mike to use his death in something that enhanced wrestling.
27:56I'm going to prove to you that he was more of a man than the three of you will ever be. As long as you live, your a**es are mine.
28:05It was too far. It was too much. The fans could tell it was desperation because they could see the crowds had shrunk.
28:11At the time, things were already shifting. I guess cable TV was starting to come out and my dad was just trying to keep it afloat.
28:19And no matter what he did, it wasn't going to quite stay afloat.
28:23Struggling under the weight of Eddie's absence, the once great territory lasts just two more years before closing its doors.
28:31Eddie would have been the only one to be able to save it because of all of the NWA promoters of every other territory in the country,
28:39the one guy that had the best relationship with Vince McMahon Sr. and would have had one with Vince Jr. was Eddie Graham and he was gone.
28:50Mike and I were at a bar having a couple beers and just talking about his dad and all of a sudden he broke down.
28:57I could tell that his dad not being there weighed heavy on Mike every single day.
29:05Already grieving the death of his father and the loss of their family's wrestling empire, Mike Graham is soon to face another devastating tragedy.
29:21Following his father's death and the collapse of their company, Mike Graham must now forge a new path outside the promotion that has defined his life's work.
29:31This should be an interesting matchup. Mike Graham and Diamond Dallas Page to take on Bill Kazmaier and Juicin' Thunder Liger.
29:39By that point Mike was closing in on 40. He got a position with WCW and he was trying to help mentor some of the younger guys.
29:48Obviously people who knew Mike and knew Eddie respected him and etc.
29:52But I think unfortunately he never made his mark in WCW as anybody with a lot of pull because he was just one of the soldiers at that time.
30:01I think that when it shifted and it was more theatrics, it was being written by people that had no idea about wrestling.
30:11He got a little bit bitter because he was old school. My dad was definitely not a corporate guy.
30:15Mike never reached the pinnacle of Eddie's dreams but he still had a very successful wrestling career and he was a good businessman.
30:24He had a great lifestyle, lived on the water, had a multitude of boats. He won a bunch of offshore races.
30:32My brother loved racing boats and so my dad and brother actually got the chance to race a couple of times.
30:40My dad never wanted to sit still. He would always be like, yeah you sleep when you die.
30:46He got his first tattoo when he was 40 and it was a skull with fire coming out of the head and a lightning bolt going through it.
30:55And then underneath it, it said peace of mind.
30:58So my dad would always talk to my brother and I about it. Peace of mind. If you don't have it, you have nothing.
31:07But like his father before him, Mike's search for inner peace often ends at the bottom of a bottle.
31:13He had two driver's licenses actually. One legally under Mike Gossett and one under Mike Graham.
31:21So Mike Gossett got one DUI, then Mike Graham got one. And then his drinking got so much worse.
31:30After my grandfather passed away, he was miserable and it just, he changed.
31:36Normally, my dad was not like that. He never showed that side to my brother and I. He was always just upbeat.
31:43More tough to my brother, I think, because he wanted him to be a strong, strong man.
31:49Steven did have to fight and prove that he wasn't a wimp growing up.
31:56Because he was from a wrestling family and he did have kind of like a stronger build,
32:02I think everyone expected him to be some tough, mean guy.
32:08I think that that hurt him in the long run, but he just kind of never found his stride.
32:17We talked every day, you know, text, phone call, whatever.
32:21I sent my brother a text in the morning. He didn't respond. I just thought he was working or doing something.
32:26And then my dad called me asking me if I'd heard from Steven.
32:30And I was like, I'll go check on him.
32:35And so that's how we found out that he took his life.
32:45When I found my brother, I, you know, ran outside and I called my dad first.
32:53My dad was saying he'd be there. I'm like, no, no, don't come here. Don't come here.
32:57And so once I was able to leave, I walked in the kitchen with my dad and he said,
33:05he said, it's a good thing you found Steven, because if I would have found him,
33:10you'd be burying both of us because I'd have taken my life right then and there.
33:14It just floored me. I don't know what the demons were that got him.
33:21Again, now here's his sister, poor little Nicole, you know, just distraught.
33:28His dad, everybody distraught, you know, it just didn't have to be.
33:36I wasn't expecting it at all.
33:40Because Steven and I went through and saw how hard it was with my grandfather.
33:44We saw what it did to my dad. We saw how it absolutely destroyed our family.
33:48But with my grandfather doing what he did, I felt that it made it an option.
33:55It turned into something that my brother felt, nah, he did it.
34:02Now we have my grandfather and my brother, who is my best friend, you know,
34:07and I found my brother. So everyone was so worried about me.
34:11But I was worried about my dad.
34:18Haunted by the death of his son Steven in 2010,
34:23Mike Graham struggles with the pain of losing another family member to suicide.
34:29I think every parent blames themselves.
34:32He said, I must have been a shitty son and a shitty father.
34:37Pretty heavy.
34:39Sometimes we're our own worst critics and we're hard on ourselves about it.
34:44And I think that, you know, there's many things that Mike could have thought about.
34:51And it was just another one of the things, just knocking on the bad side of his brain.
34:58You know, between his dad and now my brother, he just, he just absolutely was crushed.
35:05Mike and I were close, but we weren't that fuzzy fuzzy.
35:10Mike and I were close, but we weren't that fuzzy fuzzy.
35:14Good feeling close.
35:16He called me up and said, hey, you know, I love you, right?
35:20I said, I love you too, Mike.
35:23That was it. He hung up the phone.
35:28My dad met my daughter and I at a park and I was like, dad, this ends with Steven.
35:34I'm like, look at her. She doesn't deserve this.
35:37What your dad did was horrible.
35:39What Steven did, we're never going to recover from it, but this ends now.
35:44Look at her. She doesn't deserve this.
35:47And he was like, you're right, Nicole. You're right, Nicole. You're right.
35:52But less than two years later, he did the same.
35:56He was in Daytona Beach, bike week or something, with his wife.
36:03And from what I gather, she went outside and said she was going to go see some friends.
36:20When she got back and opened the door, simultaneously, she heard a gunshot.
36:33And there was Mike, dead in his son Steven's cowboy boots.
36:53He couldn't break the cycle.
36:57You can't see what's behind the person's eyes.
37:01They're telling you one thing, they're smiling, but they may be just absolutely torn up inside.
37:08Then you realize he's gone. End of story, you know. No more. There's no more.
37:15I mean, I was still trying to pick out the pieces after my brother.
37:19It was less than two years apart between my brother and my dad.
37:23After the conversations I had with my dad, asking him, telling him, begging him, please, this ends with Steven.
37:29It was just a different level of pain.
37:34Mike had been away from wrestling for some time, and I hadn't seen him in years.
37:39But then the news comes out.
37:42That was a shock.
37:44Even if you're not shocked at anything in wrestling, you still think, well, the same thing can't happen to two different generations.
37:50They can't do the same thing. And it happened to three generations.
37:54You just, how much, the same family, how much more can go on?
38:00The pattern of suicide that haunts the Gossett family reaches far beyond Eddie, Mike and Steven.
38:06This heartbreaking cycle of tragedy actually spans four generations and five men.
38:13A lot of people don't know this, but Eddie's father killed himself.
38:18And also, Eddie's brother Skip killed himself.
38:22It's a very vicious cycle when you have more than one suicide.
38:29One suicide is one too many.
38:31But when you have multiple suicides within the same family structure, it's just tragic.
38:37My only explanation or thought, because I'm not a doctor, obviously,
38:42but is that when one happens, then it makes it viable for someone else when they're having a hard time.
38:49And also the fact that depression and addiction is hereditary.
38:54And unless you have someone step in and recognize it and get help
38:59and let them know that it's not normal what you're feeling, but it's going to be okay,
39:06that just wasn't quite happening in my family.
39:09Big time lesson to learn.
39:11Because it isn't just the people that go, it's the people that are left behind.
39:17Heavy burden for Nicole to carry and heavy burden for her daughter.
39:35We are at the old armory, which is now the Brian Glaser Jewish Community Center.
39:41And Larry Simon, who was Boris Malenko, who my grandfather had huge feuds with,
39:46his son helped put this together in a way to commemorate all the wrestlers
39:51that came here every Tuesday for many, many years.
39:55So it's pretty great to see, actually.
39:58This is my dad and my grandfather.
40:01Mike and Eddie Graham have won the Florida Tag Team Championship.
40:06Nothing can keep the fans away.
40:08This was the home of the Titans of Tampa.
40:11And this will always be the house the championship wrestling from Florida built.
40:15I think wrestling fans should know that they absolutely respected the fans.
40:25And I hope that the fans that met them felt that.
40:28There was so much good, so much laughter, a lot of good times.
40:34And those are the things that I focus on more than anything else,
40:38because they were really exceptional people.
40:40I remember Eddie, my papa, as bare-chested,
40:45with a cast net off the dock catching mullet for us.
40:49A lot of love. A lot of love.
40:52My brother, my bestie, my best friend.
40:56I just wish he knew how everyone loved him and wanted to be there for him.
41:05Dad.
41:07Dad.
41:10We had that tough relationship because I called him out on things.
41:16But there was so much love and respect.
41:22I miss my dad so much. I wish he was here to see my daughter grow up.
41:27Because he's missing out on a lot, but that I miss him.
41:30Some of the best times of my life were with the Grahams.
41:33With all the people that the Grahams brought in,
41:36there is a plethora of good times.
41:40A plethora of good times.
41:42They're friends of mine.
41:44I enjoyed my time with them.
41:47I wish we could have had a lot more days.
41:50The thing to do is not dwell on the bad.
41:54Dwell on the good.
41:56That's what gets me through.
41:58Nicole, love her. Love her.
42:02She's the legacy of their family.
42:05My grandfather being silly with me always.
42:08And it took me a while to get to a place where I felt like I could finally offer some type of assistance.
42:14And so I found the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.
42:17And they offer amazing services.
42:19And I feel that I've come to a point in my recovery and healing
42:23that I can hopefully get a word out there that may strike a chord with someone
42:28to make them call for help.
42:30Or survivors that are struggling to get out of bed because they've lost family members
42:35to know that they should live their lives to honor those that they have lost.
42:40There has to be a lesson to everybody that's watching this program
42:44that if you feel suicidal, there's help right around the corner.
42:47And I don't care who you are, somebody loves you. Always.
42:51You have to just make that step by reaching out to someone
42:55just to say, something's not right.
42:57I'm having these thoughts.
42:59Just speak up is what I'd ask.
43:01You can have fame, family, money.
43:05But if you don't have that peace of mind, you have nothing.
43:08My grandfather and my dad clearly didn't have it.
43:12And my brother didn't have it.
43:14But it occurred to me less than a year ago that I have it.
43:19And I had been wanting to get a tattoo.
43:21I'm not a tattoo person.
43:23And all I wanted was my handwriting that says peace of mind and a semicolon
43:26which represents mental health, suicide awareness.
43:29Very simple.
43:31And it's just an amazing reminder of where I've gotten with my life
43:35and how I feel and peace.
43:38I have so much to be grateful for.
43:41And I'm going to live my best life because that's the best way I can honor them.
43:45I am so happy right now.
43:47Things are great. My daughter's thriving.
43:49Amazing friends, family.
43:51I'm really happy, actually.
43:53Is that a show?
43:54Yeah.