Story: The son of legendary wrestling star, promoter, and booker Eddie Graham, Mike Graham was a regular on Championship Wrestling from Florida, so he knows all the ins and outs of the territory and its eventual demise. After Eddie’s death, CWF would merge with Jim Crockett Promotions, which seemed like a good match, but soon enough, Crockett would shut down CWF and do little in terms of making use of the potential of the CWF storylines and characters. In this episode of Guest Booker, Mike Graham sits down to discuss how he would have handled the merger.

Entertainment Value: I don’t know that Mike Graham would be my first choice for this Guest Booker, but he did know the Florida territory more than most of his peers, so he was a natural choice to revisit the CWF/Crockett merger. Graham guides us through an in depth tour of Florida wrestling, including some candid, difficult exchanges about his late father. I commend Graham for being so open about a tough topic and his words help us understand Eddie a little more, which is good since Eddie was CWF, for all intents and purposes. He tells a lot of stories from the road and being out on the town, as well as how new wrestlers were broken in and who were the real stars of CWF.

While Graham shares some interesting and humorous stories from Florida’s days as a territory, his interview here seems like an odd entry in Guest Booker. The entire session lasts just under an hour and a half, with the lion’s share devoted to Graham’s memories. I’d say about twenty minutes deal with the booking aspect of the interview, with most of that centered on choosing a roster and a little on how the television would work. I hoped to hear ideas about feuds and storylines, but there is none of that here, just the roster and television approach. So it is hard to judge Graham’s concept, as it is so vague and he provides little to no detail. So if you just want to listen to Graham’s CWF memories, this will scratch that itch, but as a Guest Booker episode, I was let down here.

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