Graham signed up with the AWA again in October 1983, wrestling mainly in the Mid West. By the following year he had regained his earlier body weight and in April 1984 he began his NWA run with Championship Wrestling from Florida, first as a member of Kevin Sullivan's Army of Darkness and later as the group's opponent after he tired of Sullivan's abuse of his valet Fallen Angel and stopped Sullivan from beating her at ringside. From November 1984 Graham joined Jim Crockett Promotions (Mid-Atlantic Wrestling) in North Carolina, working for Paul Jones in his feud against Jimmy Valiant. It was during this stint, in the summer of 1985, that Graham bulked up further, and returned to his tie-dyed look, growing a full goatee and dyeing the mustache blond. Graham returned to the WWF one more time in June 1986, now as a fan favorite. After a few appearances, it was diagnosed in August that he required a hip replacement. The footage of Graham's hip replacement surgery was shown on WWF TV on September 27 as a means of promoting his comeback. He returned in mid-1987 and worked a heavy schedule from mid July to late October, feuding with Harley Race and Butch Reed. However, the strain on his hip as well as his ankles also deteriorating proved to be too much. In Syracuse on October 27, the One Man Gang supposedly retired him from active competition permanently with a running splash on the concrete floor after Graham's win over Reed. In this incident, aired on the November 14, 1987 episode of "Superstars", Don Muraco came to Graham's aid, and Graham subsequently became Muraco's manager. Graham's last wrestling match, also against Butch Reed and at 44 years of age, actually took place on November 7, 1987, in St Louis, Missouri. Over the next year, in between bouts of surgery, Graham worked for the WWF as a commentator. On March 14, 2004, Graham was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, the night before "WrestleMania XX", by then-World Heavyweight Champion Triple H, whom Graham had helped inspire to become a professional wrestler. Graham later sold his WWE Hall of Fame ring to purchase anti-rejection medications to help treat his liver transplant. Several months later, Graham joined WWE on a swing of nine televised events where he was interviewed by Jonathan Coachman (on December 28) before performing a skit which ended with Coachman getting knocked out. On February 25, 2005, Graham appeared at another live event and was again interviewed by Coachman before knocking him out.