Vince was never going to give Graham any more time with the belt than what was agreed to, as he'd been warned by Eddie Graham (Florida promoter and friend of Vince the elder) that Billy, like Dusty Rhodes, would eventually use his popularity to hijack the booking and payouts, as they'd both tried to do in Florida and elsewhere. Big Vince had decided, after Bruno pulling that shit, he wasn't going to allow it to happen any longer.
Graham might have gotten another year out of his reign as a babyface... maybe. Graham was absolutely the drizzling shits was a wrestler, considerably worse than Hogan. Beyond physical presence, Graham's only viable in ring attribute was selling the shit out of babyface's offense. I don't believe he could have kept interest up for long, if he had to wrestle like a babyface.
Backlund, despite his vanilla promo ability, was terrific in ring. He wrestled like an NWA wrestler, and at least at the top of the card, got the WWWF away from the "punch, kick, armlock, stomp" style that had infested that fed during Bruno's time.
Whatever one may say about his personality, Backlund was a pro. Always stayed in top shape, never tried to interfere with bookings or hijack paydays, and most importantly was fucking over. He held the title 2 months shy of 6 years. If he wasn't over, Vince Sr. would have moved away from him in short order.
