For the purpose of recovering the intriguing electronic properties of freestanding graphene at a solid surface, graphene self-organized on a Au monolayer on Ni(111) is prepared and characterized by scanning tunneling microscopy. Angle-resolved photoemission reveals a gapless linear pi-band dispersion near K[over] as a fingerprint of strictly monolayer graphene and a Dirac crossing energy equal to the Fermi energy (EF) within 25 meV meaning charge neutrality. Spin resolution shows a Rashba effect on the pi states with a large (approximately 13 meV) spin-orbit splitting up to EF which is independent of k.