Superstar instead of Hogan?

By Scott Keith on 1 January 2019

Hi Scott,

Several months back there was discussion on your blog about if not Hogan
in 1984, then who could have taken his place?
One name that wasn't brought up that I think could have done it was
Superstar Billy Graham. I suspect if Vince called him towards the end of
1983 and said "Come back as the old Superstar and we'll give you the
title" he would have done it. I think he would have worked almost as
well as Hogan in terms of charisma, media handling, wrestling style and
the body type that Vince liked.
Only thing is, I don't see him doing it for very long. I think come WM4,
Savage gets the belt and Superstar retires due to his hips being shot.
Savage holds on to the belt for more than a year, mainly as a face and
then eventually turns heel in time to drop it to Warrior. When Warrior
bombs, Savage turns face again and gets it back. He does an angle with
Mr. Perfect, then drops the belt back and forth with Undertaker, Flair,
maybe Yokozuna, then passes the torch to Bret Hart (perhaps as a heel in
WMX or earlier – SummerSlam 93) as Vince looks for a replacement for an
aging Savage.
I think this line of events would not have made Vince as much money, but
I can see it resulting in much better wrestling. Savage would have
worked feuds with guys that Hogan didn't (Perfect) or they would have
been much better feuds (Rick Rude with Elizabeth in a Cheryl Roberts
like role). Even with guys like Earthquake, Sgt. Slaughter, Undertaker
they would have been much better matches. Bret might have been a better
draw at first if he had the boost of having the torch passed to him from
a previous champ like Savage at some point.

Have you SEEN the stuff from the end of 83 that I've been reviewing? Superstar's body was shot and whatever in-ring charisma he had was gone. It would have been a complete disaster. No argument if you say, for example, Graham shouldn't have lost the WWF title to Backlund for another year or two. But once he was done, he was DONE.