Dark Side of The Ring S6 E05 22nd April 2025 Full Show HD | WWE Dark Side of The Ring Season 6 Episode 5th 2025
Kindly support and do follow my channel so you don't miss any update. Thanks!!!
Kindly support and do follow my channel so you don't miss any update. Thanks!!!
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00I am the greatest! I am the strongest! This is my belt! I got the proof, baby!
00:05A world-class bodybuilder who revolutionized the business of wrestling,
00:10Billy Graham was the first superstar.
00:13Superstar Billy Graham was the biggest box office attraction in the world.
00:17The men of the hour! The men with the power! The men that's too sweet to be sour!
00:22Oh my gosh, perfection. His body was unbelievable.
00:26He was so far ahead of his time, he was an icon, but he was imitated so much.
00:32Every time you watch a wrestling show, Billy Graham influences all of them,
00:35and most of them don't even know it.
00:37You're looking at the strongest wrestler in the world today!
00:41Crowned world champion, Graham spiraled after losing the belt.
00:45Superstar Billy Graham lost the title and never recovered. He had it all taken away.
00:51And the drugs that made him a star proved to be his undoing.
00:55Steroids came to define Billy.
00:58But it absolutely destroyed his joints.
01:01The damage was done.
01:02My dad would do anything to keep that fame and that stardom and that status.
01:07He was at the pinnacle. He was selling out arenas, and then it's yanked from him.
01:11And he couldn't accept it.
01:12And for some people, you get that taken away, you don't have a lot left, except for spite.
01:18So he went to war with Vince McMahon, and Vince could squash like a grape if he wanted to.
01:23The rise of Superstar Billy Graham is fascinating, but the decline of Superstar Billy Graham is tragic.
01:30He overcame everything in life from meager beginnings to be the champion of the world,
01:36but he killed himself in the process.
01:47There he is. Superstar Billy Graham.
01:49Very charismatic, colorful individual.
01:52Look at the size of those upper arms.
01:54Ladies and gentlemen, they border at some 22 inches.
01:57My dad was always Superstar.
02:00Since the day he was born, it was always in him.
02:03He's always been Superstar.
02:05My name is Capella Flaherty, and I am the daughter of Superstar Billy Graham.
02:11I remember being in a match with my brother, and the ceiling of the arena opened up,
02:17and the sunbeams shone down on my dad, and he just lit up.
02:21When that light shone on him, there was no getting away from it.
02:25Oh, they're Superstar. They're Superstar. They're Superstar.
02:27The Superstar Billy Graham.
02:31He was more Superstar than he was Wayne Coleman, at least to myself and my brother.
02:37When he was Wayne Coleman, he was loving, and he loved us.
02:42But I think he loved being Superstar a little bit more.
02:46Very loud, very boisterous, always trying to be the center of attention,
02:50and if he wasn't, he would make sure that he was.
02:53That's just who my dad was.
02:55I'm Joseph Michael Meluso, and I am the son of Superstar Billy Graham.
03:00My dad was always on, even when the camera wasn't on him.
03:04If you don't have a color television, go out and hawk your car and buy a color TV
03:09so you can see Superstar Billy Graham in living, living color.
03:14In the late 1970s, Superstar Billy Graham was on top of the world, redefining the look, the style,
03:24and the idea of the perfect professional wrestler.
03:27Superstar Billy Graham was the world champion of the biggest wrestling company in the United States.
03:34The look is what made Superstar Billy Graham.
03:37Nobody in that era, like, nobody looked like him.
03:40I'm Dave Meltzer, and I've been covering pro wrestling for just over 50 years.
03:44He had the bleach blonde hair and was legitimately a very, very strong guy.
03:49He was very flamboyant.
03:52Whatever it is, Superstar Billy Graham had it.
03:56He had all the charisma.
03:58He had the body.
04:00Most guys look like Chief J Strongbow.
04:03A little bit of a potbelly, a little bit flabby arms.
04:06But Billy had a physique that was phenomenal.
04:11The body in wrestling wasn't crucial until Billy Graham.
04:16I'm Jim Cornette.
04:17I've had a 40-year career in professional wrestling, but for even longer than that, I've been an historian.
04:22He wasn't a polished, in-ring performer, but he looked great and he could talk.
04:29This is the beauty of a champion.
04:31This is the brains of a champion.
04:32Look, look, look.
04:34Before making it big in New York,
04:36Billy Graham had first made a name for himself as a teenager growing up in Arizona.
04:42He was a competitive bodybuilder, and 1961 was Teenage Mr. America.
04:48He was a born athlete and self-made.
04:52When he was in his teens, he took to weightlifting, and he would pour concrete into coffee cans.
04:59And that's how he would lift weights.
05:03I think that was just what made him feel good.
05:06It probably gave him some strength.
05:07When he was younger, his dad used to be very physical, abusive with him, and my dad would get hit with a belt.
05:17One day, my dad was just big enough and grabbed the belt out of his father's hand.
05:22And that's when he knew the beatings were over, and they were over.
05:25Because he showed, look, I'm bigger than you.
05:27Now I'm stronger than you.
05:28You can't beat me anymore.
05:29Eager to put his physical attributes to work, Wayne Coleman travels from Arizona to Calgary,
05:36where a failed attempt at Canadian football stardom leads him to the legendary Stu Hart.
05:44Billy walks into the gym and meets Stu.
05:47Stu's just enamored by the size of this guy.
05:50He was just a specimen beyond description.
05:53My name is Steve Strong, and I was a professional wrestler for 19 years.
05:59And superstar Billy Graham was one of my best friends.
06:04There's a carte blanche about the dungeon and Stu Hart.
06:08If you broke in with Stu Hart, you could pretty much stamp your past to whatever territory you wanted to go to.
06:15And Super worked up there for a while and left and started his career.
06:19Back in Arizona, a chance encounter with another wrestling legend sets Wayne Coleman on the path to greatness.
06:29We will be the international tag team champions as soon as that match comes off.
06:33And it's going to be the greatest match ever.
06:35The Graham family legacy in wrestling, it's one of the most famous in the history of the business.
06:40In the early 70s, Dr. Jerry Graham is broke and drunk, and he thought, maybe I need another brother.
06:46I just returned from Calgary, and I said, I don't have anywhere really to wrestle now.
06:52And he said, but why don't you just become another Graham brother?
06:56What name do you want?
06:57I said, well, I really like the Reverend Billy Graham.
06:59He said, that's a good name.
07:01You're my youngest brother, Billy Graham.
07:03And superstar Billy Graham is born.
07:07They went to Los Angeles together, and Jerry was just a hopeless drunk.
07:11Jerry lasted a couple of weeks, and they fired him, but Billy had enough charisma that they kept him on.
07:15I am a reflection of perfection, the number one selection.
07:20You got it.
07:21At that time, Billy would train at Gold's Gym like everybody builder would, and he was Arnold Schwarzenegger's regular training partner.
07:28They were very close friends.
07:30I was born in June of 1972, and my father was a heel at the time, and some fans had vandalized my father's Cadillac, so he couldn't drive to pick my mother and I up from the hospital.
07:42So Arnold picked up my mom and my sister from the hospital in his blue Volkswagen bug.
07:49Here's an Arnold picture.
07:50Here's a couple Arnold pictures.
07:51I'm not sure where that was, but...
07:53I think it was in our apartment on Ocean Avenue.
07:55Probably.
07:56I just found this recently.
07:58This is an original Western Union telegram that my mother had sent her parents the day that she married my father.
08:06Whoa.
08:07They went to Vegas.
08:08This is January 19th, 1971.
08:12This is Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Meluso.
08:14That was my grandfather.
08:15Mom and Dad, Billy and I were just married.
08:18We really love each other.
08:19Please try and understand.
08:20I love you both.
08:21My mother was Madeline Meluso.
08:28She worked in a bank in Southern California, and he came in and thought she was really pretty.
08:37She always loved his smile, and he made her laugh a lot.
08:41She fell in love with him.
08:42She thought he was the most handsome man in the world.
08:44She got pregnant with me, and they got an apartment in Santa Monica, California.
08:51She didn't care about the wrestling part of it at all.
08:55She just loved my dad.
08:58I remember Mom tie-dying clothes in our kitchen.
09:02She was a big part of his look.
09:04Mr. Rainbow, more colors of the rainbow.
09:07The prettiest wrestler in the world, Billy's Superstar Queen.
09:10The look was good, and he understood his deal was posing and flexing and everything, but it was really the promos.
09:18And I'm going to take out my frustrations.
09:20I'm going to take out my wrath.
09:22I'm going to take out my anger.
09:24He'd been an evangelist in his younger years.
09:27He was a traveling tent show preacher.
09:30My dad just started preaching as an evangelist when he was in his teens.
09:34He went all over Arizona in particular, speaking at churches, and did feats of strength.
09:38When I listen to his promos now, it's like he's standing in front of a church assembly.
09:44It's the same thing, except it's wrestling.
09:47The superstar, you are the greatest, you are the strongest, you are the man in power.
09:52Billy Graham was probably one of the first to use various catchphrases that he would then start repeating.
09:58I'm the man in power.
10:00The man with the power.
10:00The man with the power.
10:02Too sweet to be sour.
10:04Too sweet to be sour.
10:05I mean, it's legendary stuff.
10:06They were unbelievable promos back then.
10:08These hands can crush coconuts.
10:11These hands can straighten out of horseshoes.
10:13You know what this arm can do?
10:15In 1975, Billy Graham's star is already on the rise when he gets a call from Vince McMahon Sr., New York's top promoter.
10:24He weighed in at 285 pounds and superstar, Billy Graham!
10:30Billy was very, very excited about being at Madison Square Garden and being in the limelight.
10:37McMahon has a clear vision for the superstar with a bold plan for the future of the world championship.
10:46Bruno Sammartino is ready to step down as being the champion.
10:50He'd already had a nine-year run from 63 to 71, and then he was champion again in the mid-70s.
10:57Bruno was a living god to the wrestling fans.
11:00He was so admired and so idolized.
11:05Bruno was so embedded into the history of the sport and New York, but it was time for him to drop the strap.
11:12You know, when you've had it for so long and so long, there has to be a passing of the guard.
11:18Bob Backlund was an instance guy.
11:20He wanted that squeaky clean guy who could go to schools and tell kids, don't do drugs, don't smoke.
11:25Bobby Backlund was my tag team partner before he went up there.
11:29He was a great athlete, but his promos were the drizzling shits.
11:33I've been raised on the farm, and climbing has been a part of my life.
11:38Bruno wanted to lose the belt to somebody huge, a big man.
11:43So, Billy Graham becomes the transitional champion.
11:47He will hold the belt for almost a year, and then he will lose it on such and such date so they can crown their new champion, the All-American Boy Bob Backlund.
11:58That's the deal.
11:58So, Billy knew the day he was winning it, he knew the day he was losing it.
12:02He was told.
12:03Two, three, I can't, it's over.
12:06But something happens.
12:08Graham wins the title.
12:09Even though he's a bad guy, people start cheering for him.
12:13Billy Graham became the hottest box office attraction in the business.
12:17He's selling out Madison Square Garden.
12:19The winner of the month and still champion, Superstar.
12:24Every month, there's 25,000 people watching Billy Graham defend the title.
12:30But Vince Sr. always had a plan, and he was always regimented.
12:34He was sticking to it, no matter what.
12:36It was strictly, we want a babyface as the champion.
12:40And Billy was not going to be that babyface.
12:42And this is what led to Billy Graham's downfall.
12:45Superstar Billy Graham's reign as champion ushers in an era of good fortune for his family.
13:04We had a very nice house in New York.
13:06We had maids in New York.
13:08We had a three-story home in New York.
13:09We had a limo.
13:11We had a lot of money.
13:12I remember going in their bedroom, and I found his championship belt.
13:18I'm like, ooh, this is cool.
13:19And I took it out.
13:20I laid it on the bed.
13:22I was shining his belt so the gold would sparkle and the little gems.
13:26And then I put it back so I didn't get in trouble.
13:29But for Billy's wife, Madeline, and their children, those good fortunes prove short-lived.
13:36I know he loved my mother, but there was something going on while he was married to my mother.
13:43I remember him talking to my mom when he told her that he wanted to divorce her.
13:50I was hiding behind the couch.
13:52She's crying.
13:53And I'm looking at my dad, and he's breaking my mother's heart right now saying, I'm in love with Valerie.
13:59When I was 18 years old, I met him at an IHOP.
14:04It was right next to the hotel where he was staying.
14:08And I would go and sit at the IHOP just to get a glimpse of him.
14:12And that particular night, they came in and sat down at the table next to us and just started talking.
14:16Hi, I'm Valerie Coleman, and I was married to Superstar Billy Graham for just short of 45 years.
14:25Basically, from the time we met, we were together all the time.
14:29Yeah, it sucked, but it was just really sad watching my parents break up right in front of me.
14:37It was probably almost a year before he told me about his family.
14:47It was devastating.
14:49I didn't know what to do.
14:50I was very conflicted, but ultimately, I didn't leave him.
14:56And we were married a couple of months later.
15:01With a new wife and a new life, Superstar Billy Graham feels on top of the world.
15:08I had a universal appeal.
15:10I crossed all lines.
15:12I crossed all borders.
15:13And I had all types of fans.
15:16And I told him, I said, we're going to have a sellout after sellout after sellout.
15:20But even as Superstar pushes himself to deliver, the demands of being champion wreak havoc on his body.
15:28He'd always have pills around.
15:30And so when he would call us, it's clear in his voice that he was definitely on something.
15:37Yeah, I mean, he was in pain, you know.
15:39And when you're in pain, you want to take medicine.
15:42And unfortunately, he had that type of personality that he just abused it.
15:47He just didn't know how to control it.
15:48He overdosed in his hotel room in New York several times while he was champion.
15:54It was all pharmaceuticals, uppers, downers, trying to get through the pain and just live with it.
16:00He had an overdose in the hotel room.
16:04He had gone into the bathroom and taken a handful of pills and came out.
16:08And all of a sudden, his body rolls over.
16:11And he's not breathing at all.
16:13I would call downstairs and I'm begging for them to come help.
16:19And this woman comes up and she starts pounding and beating his chest and screaming, don't die on me.
16:24And she's cussing him out, don't you die on me.
16:26And she's beating him.
16:27Paramedics get there and they're trying to use the defibrillators and things on him.
16:32His heart had stopped.
16:33They, you know, shocked him back.
16:37So, yeah, that was a pretty intense time.
16:40After almost a year as champion, Billy Graham is set to lose the belt to Bob Backlund,
17:00following the plan originally laid out by Vince McMahon Sr.
17:03His run was the hottest it ever was.
17:06But I think in his mind, it's like, I'm going to prove them wrong.
17:10I'm going to draw so big that they can't take the title from me.
17:13Graham went to Vince Sr.
17:14He's like, how can you do it?
17:15We're selling out.
17:16We're turning them away.
17:18The New York promoters had always put their heavyweight championship on a hero.
17:23And Vince Sr. was looking for his next champion, who was going to be Bob Backlund.
17:29He had planned this for a year and a half and nothing was going to change his mind.
17:32Ask Bobby Backlund when you see him, how he expects to get out of the Superstar Bureau.
17:38Ask him right with him.
17:39Right before he goes out, before the match, he was trying to get them to change their mind.
17:43And they're like, no, we're going with Bob Backlund.
17:44The NCAA completion title now.
17:46Playout to the end.
17:47Bob Backlund.
17:49I hate that f***ing guy.
17:51Wait a minute.
17:52Bob Backlund has Superstar Billy Graham in the air.
17:55There may not be any stake for them.
17:57He's in the middle of the year.
17:59What's common theme right?
18:00Down to the canvas.
18:01Backlund covers play on one, two, and three.
18:06The World Wrestling Federation champion.
18:08He was the biggest box office attraction in the business.
18:11And it was taken away from him.
18:13He couldn't understand why.
18:14All the struggles, all the pain, working his way up from nothing to being champion of the world.
18:22Then all of a sudden, what is it?
18:24In his mind, he's like, what was the point?
18:26Did I do something wrong?
18:28These guys obviously don't know greatness when they see it.
18:31So it hit him very hard.
18:32That's all that there is in this world is the championship belt.
18:36It's the greatest wrestler on the world.
18:38Wayne was very, very, his entire life, a very insecure person.
18:43It's kind of hard to believe when you would look at him with the physique and everything.
18:47But he was very insecure.
18:48So he just never could believe that he was really worth anything.
18:53He was beaten down so much growing up.
18:57Not just the physical, but also the verbal abuse and being told that you're worthless, you're no good, you'll never be anything, you're ugly.
19:04And he took it.
19:05He received that.
19:06He accepted that.
19:08You know, and he believed it.
19:09His entire life had stayed with him.
19:13Being on top, being the champion, carrying that belt meant so much to him.
19:17And when he lost that title, it certainly changed everything from that day forward.
19:23It just flat out was devastating to him.
19:26It destroyed his ego.
19:32One day he started a big bonfire.
19:35Burned all of his wrestling gear.
19:37Boots, his jackets, his robes, his attire.
19:42You know, he just, he burned everything.
19:45For Billy Graham, losing the championship was more than just a storyline.
20:04It was a blow to his self-worth and his confidence.
20:07It was everything to Billy.
20:09It was his life.
20:10It was bigger than I could even understand.
20:12Some guys can't take it.
20:15He wasn't mentally capable of seeing the light in other places.
20:20Hi, I'm Steve Kern, and I've been in professional wrestling over 40 years.
20:24And I've shared a locker room with superstar Billy Graham.
20:27He saw the big money was New York.
20:29He was the man.
20:30He had the belt.
20:32Now he's beltless.
20:33You didn't win that belt.
20:34Somebody told you that you're going to get that belt.
20:36It's not real, the part about you're a champion or you're not a champion.
20:40It's not real.
20:43Like a year later, Billy's running a lawn care business or something in Arizona, you
20:48know, wrestling on Friday nights.
20:49I mean, it's out of it so much that people thought he died.
20:53It's in the paper.
20:54He's dead.
20:56Gorilla Monsoon wrote that his tragic news, Billy Graham has died from cancer.
21:00And for a couple of years there, I mean, he was right.
21:04That superstar Billy Graham was dead.
21:06When he lost the belt, that was the beginning of his decline, and a lot of it was mental.
21:14We went back to Phoenix, and he didn't know about withdrawals.
21:18And he just, cold turkey, stopped taking pills on our road trip.
21:22And we were in this ran down little hotel in New Mexico, and he had a grand mal seizure.
21:28And I called paramedics, and they thought he tried to kill himself.
21:33So he didn't try to kill himself, he was actually trying to live.
21:36And instead of going home, he went into a rehab.
21:39But it didn't work.
21:41It didn't last.
21:41I was so afraid of him dying.
21:46And I, you know, was naive enough to think I could love him back from whatever brink he was on.
21:55Broke and frustrated by his stagnant career, Graham seeks to reinvent himself and get back into the business that made him famous.
22:03He was so crestfallen that he wanted to reinvent himself and do it in a vindictive style that would say,
22:12screw you if you didn't want that original superstar, I'm going to give you something else.
22:18He comes back to the WWF, bald head, much smaller, looked like a completely different guy.
22:24And he claimed that he had left wrestling and he'd become the world's martial arts champion.
22:28When I give him the superstar chop, the people will fall out of their seats, will fall out of their seats, drop dead.
22:35I watched him one of the very first times, I think.
22:39And I said, what the f*** is he doing?
22:42This isn't the superstar I remember.
22:46Superstar Billy Graham!
22:49He would just do karate chops, he'd have a black belt.
22:52Just, like, kind of stood there, was pretty immobile.
22:54It was, like, really lame, and his wrestling wasn't good at all at that point.
22:58He was covering up his body all of a sudden, like, with his judo jacket on, you know,
23:03and he looked kind of hokey, kind of like a guy that fell out of a third-grade judo class.
23:10So bad, and he just looked so defeated.
23:13He just was not the same person.
23:16It was something he did out of being desperate to get back into the limelight.
23:22Superstar in big trouble!
23:24Unfortunately, Billy's body started giving out.
23:27He started getting hip injuries.
23:29That was a sad time.
23:31I look at him when he was like that, and it just makes me so sad, because he was so thin,
23:38he was so high on pills, and he did not know who he was.
23:42Everything has been said, everything has been done, all the preparation, everything is ready.
23:48He just looks so sick to me.
23:51It's hard for me to look at him during that time.
23:53It really is.
23:54I don't like it.
23:55That's one of the darkest times of my life.
23:58When he started using pain pills and sleeping pills again, that's when he became emaciated.
24:03I mean, he looked like he was dying.
24:05It was a horrible time.
24:07I mean, McMahon had aspirations to push him to the moon, but Billy lost his mojo.
24:13It was gone.
24:14Look at this!
24:15Look at the top!
24:16Less than a year into his return, Billy Graham leaves the WWF for a second time.
24:22Who knows what the plans were for him?
24:24Because before too long, Hulkamania is running wild.
24:28Hulk Hogan, he drops a big leg on him!
24:31He's not for the cover of the leg, one, two, he's not out!
24:34The way the business was growing, McMahon kind of transitioned into making Hogan his ideal
24:40version of Superstar Billy Graham and embellishing that character and creating someone that maybe
24:46he felt like he didn't do enough of for Billy Graham.
24:50The pythons are ready for the largest arms in the world!
24:53Superstar Billy Graham will put the 22-inch python arms around your body and squeeze!
24:58The promo skills, the posing, all of that stuff, it came from Billy Graham.
25:05Hulk Hogan, he was wearing boas and things like that.
25:09I want to know one thing, brother!
25:11Superstar started brother, brother!
25:13Hey, brother!
25:14Hey, brother!
25:14How you doing, brother?
25:15I got the Hulk Hogan war bonnet on now, brother!
25:18Literally, though, everything from, you know, the ear of Wayne ripping the shirt off and throwing
25:23it out to the crowd.
25:24You name it, he did it.
25:26Look at the videos.
25:26There's Wayne doing it.
25:27You're going to see a lot of number one contenders come and go, brother.
25:31But there's only one Hulkster.
25:32There's only one Hulk Hogan, daddy.
25:34My dad, deep down, knew that, you know, Hulk was younger and more relevant at the time
25:40and was probably a little jealous.
25:43Vince had said that if the Billy Graham of 1974 was around in 1984, he could have been Hulk
25:51Hogan.
25:52Unbelievable!
25:52Unbelievable!
25:57The former World Wrestling Federation heavyweight champ, now working out every day and training
26:02with a vision, a vision of being back in the squared circle.
26:07Superstar Billy Graham is on top of his game and the future is mine.
26:10The Pythons are back!
26:11In 1987, following his first failed attempt to reinvent himself, Billy Graham once again
26:18attempts a comeback.
26:19Billy's not the same.
26:21The fans aren't the same.
26:22And Billy was more considered an old-timer by 86 and 87.
26:29He tore his body up.
26:32He had his ankle fused.
26:33They had a steel rod that went from the bottom of his heel through his leg.
26:38My right leg is now approximately one inch shorter than my left leg.
26:43The whole ankle joint had deteriorated from taking a lot of steroids on a long-term basis.
26:49His spine was collapsing.
26:50It was an absolute mess.
26:52It was that steroids had eaten him up.
26:55Billy was pumping a lot of steroids in his body still.
26:59He'd always been on steroids.
27:00He was one of the original users of steroids in wrestling.
27:04To him, it was normal.
27:05He didn't care, you know, what anybody thought of him.
27:07Because he still, first of all, he knew he had to do the work.
27:10Anybody can take steroids, but not anybody's going to have a physique.
27:13I started in the mid-60s.
27:15A friend of mine at Arizona State University at the time, he kind of introduced me and some
27:20of my friends to steroids.
27:22And we put on like 35, 40 pounds of muscle.
27:24We couldn't believe our eyes.
27:26And I started taking steroids then for powerlifting and bodybuilding purposes.
27:30He had a big ego and he took loids to look good, just like Arnold Schwarzenegger did.
27:38All the bodybuilders of the 60s and 70s.
27:41Anybody in my industry in the 70s and 80s, they were playing with steroids because they
27:46saw the effect on promoters when they had a better body.
27:50He was really struggling mentally with it.
27:55I think he wanted to be who he was back in the 70s and it wasn't going to happen.
28:01He would get in these moods and he could get really incredibly rageful.
28:06He never was physically abusive to me, but he would destroy the house and he could be very
28:13intimidating.
28:14So if he wanted a shot in his hip, you know, I would have to get him the shot, but I would
28:20stab him.
28:22That was just my only thing I could do.
28:23I would use it like a dagger or a dart and do it as hard as I could.
28:28The mental anguish that he was going through, I'm sure, was amplified also by the physical
28:35pain of his body and the fact that he wasn't in the ring.
28:39He wasn't wrestling, which is what he wanted to do.
28:42Even as he got older, he always talked about how he lost that belt and that he shouldn't
28:48have lost it that soon.
28:50I'm like, well, dad, that's the way that it was supposed to happen.
28:53But I think that once he lost that, that was his downfall.
28:59Billy never, ever, ever, ever, ever forgave Vince McMahon Sr. for having him drop the belt
29:07to Bob Backlund.
29:07And one to segue into the early 90s, I think Billy was just going, how can I hurt Vince McMahon?
29:14To be successful in pro wrestling is an absolute must to take steroids.
29:21From 1985 to 1991, McMahon and a doctor conspired to distribute steroids to the wrestlers to enhance
29:29their size and muscle development.
29:30Dr. Zahorian was the wrestling commission doctor, but then he became close to some of
29:37the wrestlers and he became their drug supplier of prescription drugs.
29:42He sent through the mail thousands upon thousands of pills just to my husband alone.
29:47He made a ton of money, got very, very rich off of their suffering and their addiction.
29:53Billy testified for the prosecution.
29:56Here was, you know, the former world champion on the witness stand talking about his life
30:02and history with anabolic steroids.
30:05But he didn't go after Vince, he didn't go after Hogan then.
30:08And then Hogan goes on Arsenio Hall.
30:11I saw a guy on a program named Billy Graham.
30:14What's up with him?
30:15Well, superstar Billy Graham apparently in the 70s was one of the top wrestlers.
30:20Hulk says something to the effect, oh, he's just like some old time, like that he was
30:25nobody, that he was a nobody.
30:27That's when things started changing with Wayne about the way that he felt about Terry, about
30:32Hulk.
30:33And he apparently was a heavy duty steroid abuser.
30:36Graham was furious at Hogan for using his name like that because Hogan was doing the same
30:43steroids.
30:44So Billy was really mad.
30:45And so at that point, he went and said that, you know, Hogan did steroids.
30:48I know he did steroids.
30:49Of course, he did steroids.
30:51Well, I remember the first night I met Hulk Hogan.
30:54It was in a local nightclub in Tampa.
30:56And one night in walks the future Hulk Hogan, Terry Bolle.
31:00He said, I want to know two things.
31:02How do I become a professional wrestler?
31:04And how do I take steroids?
31:06And Billy had the bitterness against Vince, too.
31:09That's how it really manifested.
31:12And because of that, we end up on the Phil Donahue show.
31:15Superstar Billy Graham.
31:16I'll tell you what, he's won his share.
31:19It's Billy.
31:20It's Bruno.
31:21It's myself.
31:22It's Meltzer.
31:23And then we found out that McMahon was, in fact, going to be there.
31:27They want to do a story on steroid use in wrestling.
31:29The tension you could cut with a knife.
31:31And Billy wanted to unload.
31:33The selling of drugs by Dr. George Zahorian that's gone on for 15 years in the world wrestling
31:38therapy.
31:38Billy said, I shot Hogan up with steroids.
31:41I've injected the man myself probably a half a dozen times.
31:44And Vince just goes, you're lying.
31:46You never shot Hogan up with steroids.
31:48When Vince looks at him and he says, this is a superstar.
31:50You know that's not true.
31:52I literally started to cry in the audience.
31:55I knew when Wayne was lying.
31:57I think he had an enormous amount of guilt over it after it was all said and done.
32:03He's human.
32:04He's just a human being.
32:05He's just a man.
32:06And he was bitter.
32:07And he was hurt.
32:09I mean, when you've been physical since you were 10 years old, and all of a sudden he's
32:13crippled.
32:14And there's this awful, awful bitterness towards certain people.
32:17And Vince happened to be one of them.
32:19Also available at these fine retailers.
32:26Struggling with addiction and financial ruin, Billy's relationship with his children unravels.
32:32There is a difference between a dad and a father.
32:36A father's somebody who in every aspect is always there for the children.
32:41And my father was a dad because he got my mother pregnant with me.
32:46And that's kind of it, really.
32:50I mean, I hate to say this, but my father never really paid child support ever.
32:54So my mother went back to working at the bank.
32:57My mom was working a lot, doing two or three jobs.
33:01But she would make sure that me and my sister ate.
33:05She always was verbal about how hurt she was.
33:09But she loved him until the day she died.
33:12I mean, my mother never remarried.
33:16He'd moved on.
33:17He'd married Valerie.
33:18He fell in love.
33:20We were part of his past life.
33:23And he never helped us.
33:24There was never a father figure in my life.
33:27I never respected the guy as a kid.
33:29I never respected him as I got older.
33:32He made me very angry about how he treated myself and my sister and my mom.
33:37He made me very angry.
33:39I mean, it was heartbreaking.
33:41You know, because I look at him and I love him.
33:43You know, and I just wanted him to want to be with us.
33:46And he didn't want it.
33:48He just didn't want it.
33:49Joey knew that my dad, I think, loved me more than him.
33:57My brother was born sick.
33:59He was born with a hole in his heart.
34:01So I think because my brother wasn't perfect, my dad kind of pushed him aside a little bit.
34:07He would forget my brother's birthday all the time because my dad didn't really care about him.
34:14When I was 18, I changed my name from Joseph Cole Coleman to Joseph Michael Meluso because Meluso is my mom's maiden name.
34:23I decided I was moving on from who my dad was in my life.
34:29And I was hoping it hurt him when I did it.
34:32That destroyed him.
34:34It broke his heart completely.
34:37He hurt me my entire life.
34:40I made him upset or mad at me.
34:42Tough shit.
34:42I don't care.
34:43He loved those kids so much.
34:48He didn't know how to be the dad that he wanted to be.
34:52He never had a role model.
34:55Unfortunately, so much of his life was defined by his dad.
34:59I'm very happy that he found Valerie and they were in love for so long because they truly were meant to be together.
35:05I don't like the fact that he treated us as if we weren't there anymore.
35:11I just knew that my dad was full of shit, but I accepted because I loved him.
35:18But my father was not invited to my wedding, so my brother gave me away.
35:24I was lonely.
35:27I was depressed.
35:29And I'm telling you, I felt every emotion that you brothers have felt in your life.
35:34Alienated from his children and the world of wrestling, Wayne Coleman returns to his roots as a preacher.
35:41He didn't have anything else.
35:43And he knew he was good at ministry.
35:45So he went back to that.
35:47I think as he got older, he went full-blown with the church and maybe to make amends to God for the sins that he committed in his life.
35:57He truly believed, and I believe it as well, that his true calling was for ministry.
36:07Wayne wrote the play called The Empty Ring.
36:11It was Wayne's life story, and it was a wrestling ring, but it was empty for him.
36:15There was no fulfillment.
36:17And Jake the Snake played Wayne's part.
36:19I wanted my daddy to look me in the eye and say, son, I'm proud of you.
36:25But he couldn't do it.
36:27One scene was a hotel room, and he overdoses in the scene.
36:31And it shows him, like, taking the bottle of pills, and it's very dark.
36:35And there's a lot of demons all around Jake.
36:37They're swirling, like, trying to get him.
36:39But ultimately, it's a redemption story.
36:41And it was so emotional for me to watch that because it was so real, you know, and it was his life.
36:47And it's what we lived.
36:49You could see, like, this peace and this joy inside of him.
36:53But even as Graham finds peace, the damage to his body from years of wrestling and drug abuse continue to take their toll.
37:01He had contracted hepatitis from, I think, a cut on his knee from wrestling is what he told me.
37:08The common belief of the doctors is that I probably attracted hepatitis B from a co-mingling of blood because that's the only way you get it.
37:20And, of course, you know, back in the 70s, all the masses were pretty much blood mass back then.
37:26His liver was, like, turned to a rock.
37:28It just, the years of abuse on his body and all the drugs he was doing.
37:31One night, we're laying in bed, and he coughed.
37:36And I felt something wet hit me in the face.
37:41And I jump up and turn on the light, and I'm covered in blood.
37:44And he was bleeding out.
37:47We got to the hospital, and they said there was nothing they could do for him.
37:53That's when they told us, he's got stage 4 liver disease.
37:56He has to have a transplant.
37:57He was getting sicker and sicker and sicker.
38:02And, um, he's like, Capella, I've only got, like, 6 weeks.
38:06Max.
38:11Well, there's really no need for a lucky charm when you ride.
38:13Not when America's number one motorcycle insurance got your back.
38:16We're just going to ignore the fact that Carl has a rabbit.
38:20Named Swoot.
38:23Wrestling is telling a story, and Eddie was very good at that.
38:26He was a perfectionist at booking.
38:28And that's why you wind up with burnout.
38:31I don't think he was the booker more than 6 months anywhere.
38:34That demotion pretty much broke his heart.
38:37I don't think that pain ever left him.
38:41He would have gone on to be one of the most influential minds in wrestling.
38:46But it didn't happen that way.
38:48Dark Side of the Ring.
38:49New episode next Tuesday at 10 on Vice.
38:52Ravaged by Hepatitis C, superstar Billy Graham faces a fight for survival, requiring a liver transplant just to stay alive.
39:02Knowing that he might not wake up, he called Vince.
39:07And he just asked him again to forgive him, and he told him that he loved him.
39:11And he thanked him for everything he'd ever done for him.
39:14But that tells you his heart.
39:15What was on his mind were the people that he had hurt.
39:18You know, people, things he hadn't forgiven himself for.
39:23Vince was gracious enough, and he was very kind, thankfully.
39:26Joey, because he didn't have to be even then, but he was.
39:31This poor girl had died and donated all her organs that could be donated.
39:36Thank God for that, because I really thought he was going to, that was it.
39:40That was it for him.
39:41And then, short while after that, I told him, I'm never going to forget all the things that happened in the past between you and mom and me and Joey.
39:52But I'm an adult now.
39:53I'm pregnant.
39:54You're going to be a grandfather.
39:56And I can forgive.
39:58I was given 21 more years with him.
40:02You know, God, for whatever reason, he had his hand on Wayne's life.
40:06And he never let go, and he never gave up on him.
40:09He was a walking miracle.
40:14In January 2023, after two decades of battling liver and heart issues, Graham is hospitalized once more.
40:23All the times he got sick, I'm like, my dad's always bounced back.
40:26I'm not worried about it.
40:27And me and my sister talked for about six months before.
40:31She's like, do you think we should go see him?
40:33And I'm like, he's fine.
40:35He's fine.
40:36He always gets sick.
40:37He always gets better.
40:39I was still conflicted if I was going to go or not.
40:42I just, I had had enough.
40:44You know, if he dies, he dies.
40:46Okay, God's going to take him.
40:47And that's just what happens to us.
40:49We live, we die.
40:50And, you know, as much as he had disappointed me for most of my life,
40:56I wanted to make him happy at the end.
41:00For a while, I was like, why the hell should I go see him?
41:03Why should I have to put myself out to go see my father in Arizona when he never did anything for me?
41:09I mean, what am I supposed to do?
41:10And then I saw some pictures that Valerie posted.
41:16And that's when I saw my dad as my dad.
41:20He wasn't a superstar anymore.
41:22He is going to die.
41:24So that's when I went to go see him.
41:27He started actually telling me some stories about my mom.
41:31And it sounded like he was very, very remorseful about how he treated her.
41:40How he wished he could have been a better person.
41:42And when I heard that, I knew he was dying.
41:45And I looked at him and his body was, he was just, I hate to say it, but he was so small.
41:53He had no muscle anymore.
41:55And I looked at my dad, I'm like, oh my God, this is not superstar Billy Graham anymore.
42:03My brother had flown out there before I did.
42:07So I bought a ticket and I flew out there by myself.
42:11I played him, Bob Dylan, and that meant a lot to him.
42:15I put that music on and he closed his eyes and he put his head back.
42:18And he got this little faint smile, his best smile that he could give at the time.
42:23And he just was so happy to be listening to Dylan.
42:26And it made me happy that I could do that for him.
42:29You know, and the next day, Valerie and I are talking to the doctors and we're like, you
42:34know what, Valerie, it was like, it's time.
42:39My sister was with him at the hospital and I was home and I could hear my dad on the phone.
42:44I told him, I said, dad, you know, we've had our problems in life.
42:48We've had a lot of issues with each other.
42:49I've hated you for a very long time, but I, I always understood you were my dad and I
42:55always have loved you.
42:56So I just want you to know that I've always loved you.
43:00And
43:01the last words he told me, I could hear him
43:09trying to get the words out.
43:16He just said, I love you.
43:19And that's the last thing.
43:23That's the last thing I heard from my dad.
43:27That's it.
43:29And it wasn't the superstar.
43:32It was my dad.
43:35He's been gone for 17 months, but there's no relief.
43:39There's not, I just miss him.
43:42I can't even describe it.
43:44So
43:44He was appreciated.
43:48He was loved.
43:48He was admired.
43:49He was respected.
43:51He is superstar Billy Graham.
43:57He's missed.
43:58You know, he's missed by so many that he would never have imagined missing.
44:02But he is.
44:03It's a tragic story because of somebody who had it all and who lost it all.
44:08I am happy that he had God in his life.
44:10I'm not happy about all the other things, but I am happy that he is my dad.
44:14I understand where he was coming from more now and the job he had in the life that he
44:18was trying to have.
44:19And we want it to be.
44:21He was superstar.
44:22I want it to be.