SLAGLE:  Hey everyone, thanks for visiting the "Superstar" Billy Graham website at SuperstarBillyGraham.com!  I'm Steve Slagle, and today on our show we have a guy who is familiar to a lot of the older fans, some of the newer wrestling fans might not know his name too well, but he's actually played a big part in the business for the last twenty years or so as a wrestler, trainer, promoter, also as an actor and stuntman.  It's my pleasure to introduce Bill Anderson today.  Bill, how are you doing?  .

ANDERSON:  I'm doing great, Steve!

SLAGLE:  Great!  First of all, can you just give us a little background for the listeners, so they'll know your relationship with pro wrestling?

ANDERSON:  Well, I was trained by Kurt Von Steiger in Phoenix and in Portland way back in 1973 and I began my pro wrestling career on June 16, 1974 in Phoenix.  Since that time I went on to wrestle in the Gulas/Jarrett territory of Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana and all of those states in 1975.  Then, I moved on up in the early eighties to work for Dick the Bruiser out of Indianapolis.  I was living in Chicago at the time and I'd work for him in Hammond, IN. and different places.  I worked for various independents up in Milwaukee, in Missouri, all over the country, actually.  Then, I moved back out to the California area in 1982 and that's when I was working for Mike LaBell, who was one of the great NWA promoters of all time.  Getting to wrestle at the Olympic Auditorium was a real dream of mine and I fulfilled that.  Then, the WWF bought everybody out in 1983 and kind of took over the country with their expansion program.  I started working for them as a wrestler for a few years out here, and eventually did some ring announcing for them also.  It broke off in to other aspects of my career, into refereeing and ring announcing, that sort of thing.

But, in addition to all that, I was also a professional wrestling trainer.  In 1985 I had the chance to train probably one of the greatest classes of all time, and that was with the Ultimate Warrior and Sting, who, obviously, became two of the biggest names in the business.  And, in 1988, I had the privilege of training the late Louie Spicoli (pictured, with Anderson).  He was one of my best friends, one of the true great potential superstars on the new millennium, and unfortunately he did not make it to that point.  He was a casualty of this business, unfortunately, and we can talk more about that later.  In recent years, I've also opened my own wrestling school and I'm training on my own, running my own professional wrestling shows.  I'm training new talent for the World Wrestling Federation...in the past I've had guys like Chris Jericho, The Godfather came through my school and trained at different times to kind of hone their skills of couple of times here and there.  So, you know, I've spent a lot of time in this business.

SLAGLE: Yeah, it certainly sounds like it!  Now, let me ask you...we're here to talk about "Superstar" Billy Graham today, and I was just wondering what your first memories of Graham were?

ANDERSON: Well, I can tell you exactly, and I've told Billy the same thing, the first time I laid eyes on him, personally, physically, it was at the Chicago Amphitheater.  1973 is the year that comes to mind.  I saw him, I believe he was wrestling Billy Robinson that night, and I was standing near the dressing room, like all the fans and the marks were, and I saw this big, hulking-looking guy come walking out of the dressing room.  He was just a monster of a man, with this long blond hair, and such an impressive physique, he just looked perfect.  I'd seen him on TV before and the magazine covers, Inside Wrestling and The Wrestler, all of these magazine covers with him all bloody and everything.

I was a mark at the time, and I just loved seeing him.  I was so impressed with his physique, and I said, boy if there is a guy I can imitate or emulate, this is the man I want to do it with.  You know, "I gotta be like this guy!"  Of course (laughs) I never did do it!  I never had the motivation to train like The Superstar did.  But, I had it in my mind, and he was one of my early heroes in this business -- as other wrestlers found him to be a hero and a role model at the time, too.  I think, eventually, guys like Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura obviously followed in the footsteps of The Superstar.

SLAGLE: Absolutely.  And you mentioned those guys, but there's quite a few others that over the years have...if you think about it, indirectly, not directly, but indirectly, Graham influenced pretty much everyone that came after him, in one sense or another.

ANDERSON: Sure.  It was his interview style, he was one of the great mic men of all time.  Billy is a great speaker, he always was in doing promos, on TV his microphone skills were top notch, and there's not a doubt in my mind, from Scott Steiner on down, that they did not follow him, and copy his style.  Jesse, Hulk, Austin Idol, so many of them.  I can't imagine where they would've been without him, although Scott Steiner really was legitimate in his own way, in his regular gimmick.  Why he switched is beyond me, but that's his own personal choice.  Or, it was a WCW choice for him, I don't know.  But, I think it was done in poor taste, to be very honest with you.

SLAGLE:  How so?

ANDERSON:  I think it's very demeaning to The Superstar's legend.  Him growing out his little goatee' and bleaching it and all that, I think it's...I don't like it.  I don't like it unless he gave credit where it was due, and that he stole the gimmick from "Superstar" Billy Graham.  I felt insulted, to be honest with you, on a personal level, the first time I saw him come out and start talking like that, with the "brutha" and all that.  I felt like I was raped and pillaged, I felt like my friend was.

SLAGLE: Yeah, I think they were just counting on the fact that so many fans are younger and newer who have no idea who "Superstar" Billy Graham is...

ANDERSON: That could be, that could be.  And, again, it's part of a business where they insult the fans without them knowing that they're being insulted.

SLAGLE:  I will say this, though, I think Steiner, even though it's obvious that he has taken a lot from Superstar, at least he's done something with it.  His interviews have improved a great deal.

ANDERSON:  True.

SLAGLE: I can see your point, too, though.

ANDERSON: Yeah, you know, it's just a personal thing.  I just saw it as a big rip off.

SLAGLE:  Well, I wouldn't even mind it if he would just, in an interview sometime, acknowledge where a lot of it came from.  He had the opportunity on WCW Live quite a while back and failed to do that.

ANDERSON: Well, they give them some room in those interviews, and a lot of it's live, most of it is.  They have a chance to say what's on their mind, and he could just -- without looking like he's a wimp or anything else, a copy of somebody -- he could do it in a style that would at least draw credit to where it's due.  .

SLAGLE:  Yeah, I mean, Hulk and Jesse have both acknowledged Superstar as an influence, I don't see where Scott Steiner would be lessened in any way by doing the same, but...

ANDERSON:  Right.

SLAGLE: Anyway, I wanted to ask you about some of your thoughts on Graham as a wrestler and as a performer.  You know, a lot of times, people, I think, don't give him as much credit as he may deserve in a lot of ways, as someone who commanded attention in the ring and really knew how to work the fans...

ANDERSON: Oh, man, his psychology was right on.  He was one of the top performers -- psychologically -- in the ring.  He made any babyface look good.  He was predominately a heel during his career, but he made babyfaces look good.  He could bring the best out of any `baby, whether they a big, heavy set Gorilla Monsoon, no disrespect intended to the late Gorilla, he was a good friend of mine and a fantastic man.  But, Gorilla couldn't move worth beans.  And, Billy would make him look like a superstar, no pun intended.  He could bring out the best in Dusty Rhodes, although Dusty was one of the greatest attractions of all time, I always felt, and never got due credit as a performer, too.  But, Billy brought out the best in everyone.  He was a big man who was not afraid to go up on the top rope and dive off, and he was ahead of his time in some aspects.  He didn't do moonsaults like they do nowadays, but...

SLAGLE:  Nobody did back then, though.   There was Mil Mascaras (pictured, left), and that's about it!

ANDERSON:  Yeah, yeah.  And, so, I always felt that Billy was very much ahead of his time, and a very hard-working heel out there.  He was always trying to entertain.  He was very giving in the ring.  In fact, it's obvious now that he gave so much his body has given out on him.

SLAGLE: Actually, that brings me back to something you touched on before about Louie Spicoli being a casualty of wrestling.  With the way the business is, there's just no way to avoid these types of incidents, or is there?  Is there a way that wrestling can avoid a guy like Spicoli losing his life?

ANDERSON:  It's really tough, and I'll tell ya, as close as I was to Louis, there was really nothing I could do to change the inevitable with him.  He had busted his butt for so many years, he started in `88, and busted his but for so many years trying to get a spot with the WWF.  And, they finally gave him the spot as Rad Radford.  He found life on the road very tough, and he was very lonely.  He was without his girlfriend, his family.  He was a big family man, he wasn't married, but he had his grandmother and his mom that he lived with, his sister and brother.  He came from a divorced family, and he missed his dad and family a lot.  So, on the road, he would take comfort like the guys do.  They go to bars, they'd be taking some pain killers and that sort of thing, because he was working his butt off.  He was working with stiff guys who didn't know how to work.  I can't think of the guy's name in the WWF -- a big, bulky black guy?

SLAGLE:  Oh, yeah, he's in WCW now.  His name is Tony Norris...Ahmed Johnson.

ANDERSON:  Right.  That man hurt Louis so many times, and he'd tell me, "Bill, I'm just in such pain!"  And, he'd counter that pain with pills and he slowly, slowly, slowly killed himself with it all.  And that's where a lot of that came from, trying to comfort himself on the road -- which is the whole point of Billy's book.  Your toughest battles are not in the ring.  It's what you do with yourself outside of the ring.  The wrestling business isn't that tough.  It's the life outside of the ring that's the killer, and it's killed a lot of people, and it's taken a toll on a lot of people.