411’s A&E Biography: WWE Legends Report – ‘The Curse of The Von Erichs’ Part 1

-Run Time: 1:26:19
-Source: A&E

-The WWE block on A&E is back and I have always covered Rivals, LFG, and Greatest Moments. For this run, Rivals is on hiatus, so I figured I would tackle their Biography: WWE Legends series. This is the first part of a two part series on The Von Erich Family. I will note I have seen the World Class documentary WWE released years ago and also watched The Iron Claw several times (loved the movie) so I am familiar with their story. The Von Erichs story was famous/infamous enough that it even reached my mom, who is not a wrestling fan, as she knew about the tragedies of the family. I am curious to see if anything new can be offered here as at least they will have World Class footage since the WWE owns the library.

-“The following program contains discussions of child sexual abue and substance abuse. Viewer discretion is advised.”

-We start with Kevin Von Erich, who says he had to grow up knowing life was about laughing it up all day. He remembers being a little kid and how it was beautiful. He can’t wait to wake up in the morning and thanks the lord for another day. He used to think life was too long, but now thinks it is too short.

-That leads to the tease of what’s to come with talking heads and we see the Von Erich Family Tree. Wrestling has more than one royal family! Austin, Shawn, and Taker are some of the talking heads. We get Iron Claw footage as well and someone notes they did a great job, but it would have been nice if they had the real story. Here we go!

-Von Erich Ranch: Boerne, TX: Kevin is playing football with his grandkids. He says if he wasn’t raised the way he was, he might be different. He loved the time with his brothers and notes his dad didn’t know what it was like to have brothers. He was an only child and Kevin can’t imagine what that would be like.

-Jack Adkisson was bron Aug. 16, 1929 and became Fritz Von Erich, the patriarch of the Von Erich Family. His dad was busy and didn’t have much time for him outside of time they were hunting.

-We hear from Kristen Nikolas, Fritz’s granddaughter. It seems stories were Fritz would be put in the woods to fight other kids because that’s what they did in Texas back then and if Fritz lost, his dad would beat him. The one person he felt loved him, was his grandfather, Ross. At age 12 someone asked Fritz if he wanted a ride to his grandpa’s and he took the guy up on the offer. The man molested Fritz. He wanted to see his grandpa so bad, he let it happen several times a week as it was worth it to him.

-Kevin says he never knew that story and is surprised by it. He notes maybe he felt he didn’t need to know, but says he did tell Kristen things he would never tell him. Yeah, that makes sense as I can’t see Fritz telling his boys something like that as I assume to him, it would make him weak.

-We see photos of Fritz playing football in high school and he found that was the best way to get people to notice him. He ended up getting a scholarship to play football at SMU and he also threw the discus.

-He met his wife, Doris, in college and we get an old interview from Fritz that marrying her, cost him his scholarship. It seems one of the conditions was you could not get married and keep your scholarship if you were a freshman.

-Fritz took jobs as a detective and bus driver to support his wife and baby, Jack Jr. He then met Ed “Strangler” Lewis, who pitched the idea of wrestling to him. Fritz saw the money he could make and never looked back. David Shoemaker is here as a talking head to bring some historical data.

-Fritz opted to be a heel and became an evil German because it was easy to be hated in that role. David Manning says Fritz looked the part of a villain and played it unbelievably. They discuss The Iron Claw and we see photos of him putting in on the faces of bloodied opponents.

-Kevin is born May of 1957 and we see him watching home videos with his grandkids. Oh, they are crushing it with the music choice. Don’t know the name of the song being played here, but I am vibing now. I am smiling watching the kids watch these video with their dad/grandad.

-1959 they were living in a trailer up near Niagara Falls. Jackie (Jr) asked if he could go a couple houses up to play with his friend. They found out Jackie wasn’t there when it was time to come home and Doris immediately knew something was wrong. The grandkids call Doris, “Mimi.” She dropped the phone, ran outside and was screaming Jackies’ name. Everyone in the town was looking for him as were the police. They sent Doris home and a cop said they found him. She thought it meant they found him safe, but she knew something was wrong. “At six years old, he was just gone.”

-He touched a spot on a mobile home that was wired wrong by the owner and it shocked him and he feel face first into a puddle. He could not move and the cause of death was drowning. Kevin says Fritz came home and punched the window of the car and broke the glass. We hear from Doris through old footage and it’s heartbreaking. She became angry towards God and felt God owed her one for taking her baby. She also blamed Fritz for being gone, and he blamed himself as well. This is already heavy and this is just the first tragedy.

-Fritz says he did not have a God at that time, but said if he got back to Texas, he would follow God. He got back and we go to Kevin showing kids footage of the ranch.

-More boys follow as Dave is born in 58, Kerry in 60, Mike is born in 64, Chris in 69. Kevin loved the job of being the big brother and that is one thing you can always feel and hear in his words: He loved his brothers! They were boys that went hunting and played sports. Brian Adias was friends with Kerry and says their ranch was like Disney World.

-Fritz and Doris tried to make their house be the fun house where nobody wanted to leave. That was a way to keep them safe from the world. I can understand because they just lost a child. Of course they are going to be more protective. Fritz was going to be the father, his father wasn’t and be around for his boys according to Kevin. We see more home videos.

-We get more footage of Fritz wrestling and he became an Idol in Texas. JBL says he could have been King of Texas. Kevin says guys from The Cowboys would call his dad for advice and it never dawned on him how important his dad was. He was a big star in Japan and would take his boys with him and Kevin got to go first as the oldest. Kevin recalls all the photographers waiting outside the plane and he couldn’t believe they were waiting for his dad.

-Shoemaker notes that Fritz wanted to conquer the world and learned the business. He took over The Dallas promotion. Bruce talks about Fritz using his power to take over the booking of Dallas and Texas. Yeah, don’t you hate someone using their power to take control in wrestling.

-Kevin mentions Chris had asthma that stunted his growth and he never became the athlete the other four boys did. Yep, and that played on Chris mentally. The other four boys were super athletes and Kevin talks about playing football and only caring to see if his dad was cheering. David was 6’7” and a great basketball player. They both got scholarships to North Texas, when it was a more powerful football school than today.

-Kevin says he went to play football and didn’t care about the academics. He ended up tearing his ACL and when he was cleared to return, he tore the other one. That ended his football dreams and he knew it was over. “Time to make a living.” He dropped out of college and gave wrestling a try.

-Fritz was in charge of World Class and we see Kevin’s debut match in 1976. JBL remembers the debut and says he was an incredible star athlete. Kevin says the crowds were growing and they had to change buildings. He realized he could never make this kind of money doing any other job. David sees what his brother is doing and makes his debut in 1977. Dave loved basketball, but when he got that first wrestling paycheck, basketball went away. David picked up on the psychology of wrestling quickly and Bruce notes he was a natural that had all the tools. He had his first sell-out at 18 against Harley Race and we see the footage from the match. Harley puts David over on the mic after the match. That had to be cool!

-Fritz wanted his boys to go to college and have desk jobs, but realized wrestling was all they knew. They had to talk Fritz into letting them wrestle and as they produced sold out crowd, Fritz had to roll with it. They are giving us some sweet World Class footage here. Doris made sure they committed 100%. Fritz also didi’t have to pay the boys as much as the other wrestlers and the boys were okay with that. “We did it for the family.”

-Dave gets married young to a woman named Candy. They had a daughter and David wanted to get off the road already at this point. Dave was planning a cruise and gets the call the child had passed from SIDS. Brutal! It affected the marriage and they drifted apart, leading to divorce. “Nobody wants to bury their kids.” Shoemaker brings up that Doris and Jack’s first child and now first grandchild died as kids. You start wondering about being cursed.

-Kerry was the big brother when Dave and Kevin were out. He would let things go such as drinking and staying out late. Kerry was all about fun and wanted to make people laugh. Brian notes Kerry was always playing ribs and was also an elite athlete. Kevin says Kerry was gifted and offered a full scholarship to play football at Texas. He didn’t want to play football though and opted to throw the discus. He was the top ranked thrower in the country for Houston University. Kerry went there because the coach was also the Olympic Coach. He was going to represent the US, but that was 1980 in Moscow and the US boycotted. Kerry didn’t want to wait four more years, so left college.

-We meet Cathy Murray, who is Kerry’s ex-wife. She was also a very good athlete. They met at a party thrown by one of the brothers. It was a first love for both and she says it was very powerful for her.

-Kevin met Pam and they got married in 1980. She always wanted to marry a godly man and that’s what Kevin was on the inside, but on the outside just looked like a handsome jock.

-We see Von Erich Mania taking over in Texas as people are swarming Kevin and David. Kerry sees this and wants to wrestle, but Fritz wants him to finish college. Kerry told his dad if he wouldn’t let him work, he would go work for someone else. Dave was the best worker, Kerry had the looks and charisma, and Kevin had a little of everything. They soon realized they could make more money if each brother worked a different town instead of all three being on the same show.

-We are up to 1981 (I was born) and get more sweet World Class footage. Shoemaker says there is a misconception that Fritz made them wrestle. There was an allure for the brothers and Fritz basically said if they are in, we need to make the most of it. We get to listen to The Grange by ZZ Top as they continue to kill it was the music selection on this show. JBL notes it became a rock show and the other matches were good, but the Von Erichs were a rock show. The guys wanted to be them and the girls wanted to date them.

-The Sportatorium: Austin calls it the greatest building in the world. MarK Henry says he only got to go once and bragged to his fans for weeks that he got to see The Von Erichs live. Hey, Bill Irwin is here and says it wasn’t your dad’s wrestling anymore. They put boom mics in the ring and started syndication. They ended up being in 47 markets and it’s fun hearing Austin and Michaels talk about finding World Class on TV and becoming fans. Taker says it was almost religion and The Von Erichs were superheroes. They talk about how popular The Cowboys were, but they wore helmets. Timmy Newsome, Cowboys player, says they would get tickets to go watch. JBL says Texas was all about The Cowboys and Von Erichs. Not wrestling, but The Von Erichs. The fans took ownership of the boys as they watched them grow up. That right there is the connection! Fritz taught them they were somebody, but nobody at the same time as the fans made them.

-Kevin looks back on having fun with his brothers making all the various spot shows. They just took their boots and trunks going town to town making a living and laughed the whole time. “Man, that was fun. Just me and my brothers.”

-Michael Hayes says Fritz was a family man and business man, but family was his business. There was a ton of pressure on the kids to keep this thing going as they were worried any slip could bring the whole thing down.

-We see old footage of Kevin giving people a tour of The Sportatorium long after it had served it’s purpose. Shoemaker says Kevin was an entertainer, but is a simple guy. His first child, Kristen, was born in 1981. That changed his priorities and wrestling became work. He would show up, do the match, and head right home. He needed to be home for his Queen and his baby. He says Fritz loved being a grandfather and she had Fritz wrapped around his finger. Makes sense! Kristen says her grandad was the epitome of safety for her. Mimi was so loving and made all the grandkids feel like they were part of a community.

-Kristen first realized something was different about her family when they went to Six Flags and they police escorted them and they got a few hours before the park opened. When the crowd came in, they started following them and she had no clue why people were crying over her “boring dad.” Ha!

-The Freebirds! If they don’t play Bad Street at some point, what are we doing? Taker says the Birds were so easy to hate. It was Georgia vs Texas and played off college football vibes. Now, Georgia and Texas are in the same football conference. JBL says it was like setting a nuclear bomb off in Texas. They went from 4000 people at shows to over 8000. Hayes says there was a respect between the two sides and the fans ate all of it up. OLD LADIES IN THE FRONT ROW BOOING THE BIRDS! Texas loved people fighting and they made sure to beat the hell out of each other. The fans believed what they were doing was real. Hayes: “Often times after the matches, I felt it was real. Because it hurt.” That leads to pills being taken.

-Kevin says when you are young, you feel you are bulletproof. They were also conditioned to wrestle hurt because you weren’t paid if you didn’t. They would take injections to numb nerve endings. Kevin didn’t want to do that, so he grew his own marijuana. He doesn’t want to be a proponent, but wanted to make sure it was safe so he grew his own. To him, it came from God as a plant.

-Kerry went to prescription drugs and had to find things harder and stronger. That gets you in a cycle and doctors would write prescriptions because they are famous. Hayes says “the doctor prescribed it, so it’s legal. A lot of people got fooled by that.” Kerry fought between his health and keeping up with The Von Erich image.

-Dave was the only one that liked strong liquor. He had a bottle of it in his bag and was using it to ease stomach pain he had. He had diarrhea for months. He was married to Trish, and didn’t tell her much so she would not worry. Kerry and Kevin got him to see a proctologist. That didn’t go over well as they tried to strap him down to check his rectum. He stormed out and Kevin thinks if the exam would have been done they would have found something.

-Brian says David started taking pain killers and would be drooling from the mouth. He would be a puddle and they had to help get him up and in the ring. Fritz was irate about it and we see an interview here he talks about the image they had to keep and how they owed it to the fans. Doris was more concerned with family image and reputation. She wanted a perfect family that didn’t fail. The boys were on call 24 hours a day to meet with fans or the news.

-They would get free cars from dealerships. Mike and Chris always looked up to them. Mike wanted to be part of what his brothers were doing. He makes his debut in November of 1983. He was treated as he was in the business up to that point but Mike wanted to get in the ring. We see footage of the brothers training Mike and hyping his debut. Mike was excited to be on the road with his brothers.

-The feud with The Birds was still rolling and they decided to take it to a stadium show. Hayes notes it was unheard of at that time to do a Stadium Show. The undercard was a six man with The Birds vs. Mike, Kerry, and Chris. The Main Event was to be Ric Flair defending the NWA World Title against David. Hayes says Flair is the greatest of all time, but it was decided it was time to drop the strap to David.

-Five weeks before the show, David was on his way to Japan. Kevin knew something bad was going to happen. He could see David’s skin being ashen and the look in his eyes. He keeps noting it was the stomach.

-We go back to the ranch with Kevin watching home videos with the kids. One video shows the family praying together before Christmas Dinner in 1983. Kevin says that was the last Christmas things were the same. Hayes says everyone thought Kevin had the flu as it was the dead of winter. Kevin tells the story of telling Dave not to go over to Japan and die. Sigh!

-Japan: Irwin says Japan was always the same as you would eat and then drinks beers. Kevin was told that Dave ate three large steaks and went upstairs to his room and Bill thinks he puked. Dave came back and continued to eat and drink. He and Bill left the bar last and went to Dave’s room for one more beer. That was the end of the night as Dave said he was going to call his wife. The morning comes and David isn’t on the bus. They could hear sirens and everyone jumped off the bus and ran to David’s room. Bill says David was in the same spot, wearing the same clothes that he left him the previous night.

-Kevin says to this day he can not stand a phone call before day light. That’s when he got the call from Trish. It was dark and he picked up the phone and heard Trish crying. “He’s dead Kev.” He just hung up, went outside, put his head in the dirt and yelled for God to let him die.

-He says the worst was seeing his dad after he already lost a son and grandson. That was as bad as grief gets. Fritz told everyone whatever the autopsy said, they had to go with it. Irwin says it was not an overdose. Manning says the same as David may have had pills, but not enough to OD. The autopsy said acute enteritis leading to heart failure. He bleed enough from his intestines rupturing that it stopped his heart. I am fully aware, there are people out there that don’t and won’t believe that answer.

-We see video from the crowds gathering during the funeral. They expected 500-800 people and there were nearly 10,000. The church held 1800, so crowds were outside the church trying to hear what they could. Schools let out early so people could attend. Manning mentions the streets were closed and it seemed like a President had died. Kevin says they didn’t realize how much they were loved until they saw that.

-Kerry took it very hard and would often say he wanted to go be with David. Kevin was the oldest and was the protector so he didn’t have that thought as much as the other three brothers. Kevin: “you don’t ever get over it, but you have to keep fighting.”

-The Stadium Show was already booked and had to go through with it. The business had to keep going and the brothers and Fritz understood that. The idea was that neither of the other two boys were ready to be World Champion, but Fritz shot that down. Kevin talks about the famous coin flip, but it was more like Kerry was getting it no matter what because Kevin had a family and didn’t want to do the travel the World Champion had to do.

-Kerry gets the World Title shot against Ric Flair at The Cowboy Stadium Show and the announcer says it is the largest crowd anywhere in the world ever, to see a wrestling show. The official attendance on document was just a bit over 32,000 but others report up to 50,000. If you are counting the world, there were many shows with Londos in Greece and shows in Japan and Mexico that drew a larger crowd before this show, but still a massive success for World Class. I found an AWA Show in Boston at Braves Stadium that drew 40,000 in 1935. All the other big stadium shows in the US seemed to come later with the WWF first and some WCW and AWA sprinkled in.

-Cathy says she was pregnant with Holly at the time and it was a great day. Kerry wanted to make his dad proud. Mark Henry watched at his Papa Jody’s house and says it was like a Mike Tyson fight. They had 40,000 grieving people and had to have the pop. Kerry wins with a backslide and that place EXPLODES. Fantastic visual with the crowd losing their minds. Taker has The Rock’s patented goosebumps talking about it. JBL says having “our Kerry Von Erich win in that stadium with the hole in the roof so God can watch.” Shawn calls Kerry a “god” in the state of Texas after that match.

-Kerry then had the responsibility of being Champion and Manning notes it is not fun. He went from David dying to being the Main Event and doing promos. He could not take a week off. Cathy saw the drugs start to come in a little more. Before David’s death she thinks the drugs were under control and after his death, they became more of a necessity.

-Prichard says Kerry winning that night was the right call. Eighteen days later he loses the title on May 24, 1984 to Flair in Japan. Shoemaker says the NWA did Dallas a favor to help with the tragedy and it was never meant to be long term. Cathy says Kerry was okay with the short reign as the goal was to get to the top.

-The Von Erichs continued to draw huge crowds in Texas. WCCW continued to roll along and produce big ratings. The replay of WCCW at 6 PM would do double the ratings of 60 Minutes in Texas. They were so hot, Vince McMahon took notice. They was a meeting in Dallas where Vince told them to join forces with WWF. Vince offered to let them keep 60% to his 40, but Fritz told Vince they didn’t need him. Sounds smart!

-We are told that Kerry auditioned for Rocky IV, but they went with Dolph Lundgren. Smart move! Sorry Kerry, but Dolph was perfect for Drago. The women loved Kerry and he continued to buy into the Von Erich image. Cathy knew she was losing her husband because Kerry Von Erich belongs to everybody.

-Kerry was getting heavier into drugs and they weren’t sure if he was going to be 70% or 80%. Manning says it was hard to tell someone their son has a problem. He says he got heat for it and it wasn’t from Fritz, so he will leave it at that. We are told it wasn’t always Fritz and Hayes says there was a deep love between Fritz and the boys. He wanted the best for his boys and for his business. He was consumed with making sure the train was rolling down the track. Hayes: “Life was great and everyone thought it would last forever. Wrong!”

-We get a tease of what’s to come in Part II.

-This was very good and touched on things we have heard over the years. This being a WWE authorized documentary helps because of the talking heads they can provide and the footage they can provide. Let’s see what they can do with Part II and I will give my overall thoughts.

-Thanks for reading!