Career
He began his career as the storyline brother of Dr. Jerry Graham after fellow wrestler Frankie Cain (The Great Mephisto)suggested they resembled each other. They began wrestling together in 1963 in Stampede Wrestling. Later that summer, Johnson wrestled a series of matches against Chief Big Heart.
He wrestled in the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) with Jerry Graham beginning in 1964. They won the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship from Don McClarity and Argentina Apollo, holding it for eight months, before losing the belts to another heel tagteam, Gene Kiniski & Waldo Von Erich. It was during this time that he became known as "Crazy" Luke Graham.
Graham enjoyed most of his success for the Los Angeles territory in the mid to late 1960s. He held the WWA World Title for that office in 1965. He dropped the belt to Pedro Morales. In the late 60s, he was a mid card performer for Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association (AWA) out of Minneapolis.
After leaving the AWA, Luke had a brief run with Tarzan Tyler as the first WWWF Tag Team Champions in 1971. One story was that the team allegedly defeating Dick the Bruiser and The Sheik for the belts, however, no record of any match between the two teams has ever been documented. The other story is that they won it from Bepo & Geeto Mongol. Once champions, the team held the belts for six months while feuding with Chief Jay Strongbow, Gorilla Monsoon, and Pedro Morales.
In 1974, he was the United States Champion in the Pacific Northeast. He retired in the late 1980s. He teamed with his son, Luke, Jr., however, in 2001 and started Galaxy Championship Wrestling, Inc. Galaxy Championship Wrestling, Inc. went on to become publicly-traded under the symbol GXCW on the NASD OTCBB and was eventually merged with FUSA following Luke Sr. heart attack and deteriorating health.
Read more about this topic: Grady Johnson
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)