Product Details

• Actors: WWE Home Video, Billy Graham
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: World Wrestling
• DVD Release Date: January 17, 2006
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000BSZAGK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,560 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

20 YEARS TOO SOON:SUPERSTAR BILLY GRA - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars superstardom, November 4, 2005

By 

Sandra A. Gingras - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 20 Years Too Soon - Superstar Billy Graham (WWE) (DVD)

will feature a documentary on Graham's career as well as the following matches:

*WWWF champion Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Billy Graham (Baltimore, Maryland 4/30/77, Graham's title win)

*WWWF champion Superstar Billy Graham vs. Ivan Putski (Madison Square Garden, 8/29/77)

*WWWF champion Superstar Billy Graham vs. Dusty Rhodes - Texas Death Match (Madison Square Garden, 10/24/77)

*WWF champion Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Billy Graham (Madison Square Garden, 11/21/82)

Superstar Billy Graham vs. Armando Rodriguez (AWA All Star Wrestling, 8/25/73)

*Superstar Billy Graham vs. Angel Rivera (AWA All Star Wrestling, 10/6/73)

The DVD will also feature six promos in the Extra section, listed as:

"I am the arm wrestling champion of the universe." 10/6/73

"These hands can crush coconuts."

"I don't want you to ask me any questions" 8/27/75

"This is the beauty of a champion" 6/27/77

"I am the most colorful man in all of wrestling" 9/3/85

"The people want the real thing" 9/10/85

"The comeback" 11/29/86

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoy the footage of the superstar, but this is definetely McMahon filtered!, January 19, 2006

By 

Mike G. (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 20 Years Too Soon - Superstar Billy Graham (WWE) (DVD)

I am a huge superstar fan going back to his late 70s / early 80s heyday. While I certainly enjoyed this dvd's footage of da man, I was also disappointed by the somewhat "light" content and especially the slant that McMahon put on this one. Obviously, since it is WWE produced, this is no suprise. As a previous reviewer said, this is way to short to properly chronicle the superstar. Many of his territories, angles, big matches, etc...were completely left out. It showed the WWWF as the main and really only stage for him, again understandable as they produced this. But he was really great outside of the WWWF, what about the NWA, AWA, CWF, Mid-Atlantic, his huge match vs Harley Race? What troubled me was the way McMahon portrayed him towards the end. He made the superstar look like a low life who crawled back for forgiveness, and McMahon was very smug and unsincere when he said that he decided to forgive him because he (Vince) was at the top and Graham at the bottom. He also said that if he was as low as Graham he would not forgive anyone. The fact that he called Graham a derogatory explative that I will not repeat here - and a con-man on this dvd, which should be a tribute to Graham, is a disgrace. When Graham's wife was trying to explain that he is not a con man, and he has alot of character, I found that sad that she had to try and explain. Sure, Graham admits he lied because he was frustrated, but what about the fact that he was fired from the company, when I have read many times in the past that he said McMahon told him that he would always have a place in the company and there would be a place on the payroll for him? McMahon fired him when he was very sick and needed support, and after all Graham had done for the company for many, many years? I don't blame Graham for putting up with this current treatment and biting his tongue on many issues, as at least he is financially ok now as a result. So, I would reccomend to get this dvd, but keep strictly Graham in mind (proceeds he will make from this), ignore the WWE treatment, and look elsewhere for "unbiased" material on him. Graham's own website is really good by the way.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gone from the wrestling scene, but not CERTAINLY forgotten!!, January 8, 2006

By 

Karen Santucci (Basking Ridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 20 Years Too Soon - Superstar Billy Graham (WWE) (DVD)

In the 1970s (1975 to 1978 to be exact) I was fortunate to be old enough to really experience and follow the phenomenal era that was defined by the way too brief arrival of one Superstar Billy Graham's era in the WWWF (even met the man once in Pennsylvania as well as outside the Garden before one of his record setting 19 sell-out MSG performances). I can not begin to explain nor describe the ENORMOUS impact Wayne Coleman (aka Superstar Graham) had in the field of Pro Wrestling in the 1970s! I recall some of the last Graham/Sammartino matches booked at NY's Madison Square Garden in the early summer of 1977 and can easily compare those events to the excitement generated by Ali/Frazier's historic battle in 1971! People paid to stand in the hallways and corridors of MSG in order to witness this wrestling Main Event...And like Ali/Frazier it didn't fail to entertain nor excite! If anything this book not only tells fans the way it truly was for Graham back in the day - like it or not - when he not only became a true mat legend, but a bodybuilding icon as well! Hell, even the legendary Arnold was transfixed by Grahams enormous 22 early on in their California days training as boduybuilers, and became one of his early friends in the process! With Grahams's enormous 22" biceps Arnold trained and befriended the young grappler early in their careers before each became the leaders in their own unique professions. Since the mid to late 1970s, there has been nothing like Superstar Graham and that inlcludes the contrived and monotonous '80s version of the phenomenal advent of "Hulkamania" that was all but born out of Superstar's way too short but still enormously influential reign as WWWF champion from April '77 to February '78. If anything, this book defines the horrible price one unfortunate, yet oddly blessed man was always willing to risk (regardless of how reckless those risks were) in order to achieve ultimate fame and fortune on his own terms, only to have it systematically taken away from him, by design, when he easily became the most famous pro-wrestler in the world! Graham does't hold anything back and tells it like it is and was! He comes clean with the destructive lifestyle and reckless habits that brought about his rapid downfall after losing the WWWF title to young, talented, but largely uncharasmatic contender named Bob Baclund in 1978. Whether or not you are a wrestling fan, this book will excite you, make you laugh, make you cry, and make you understand the enormous loss of genuine talent when it is eventually neglected.