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00:00:00Ladies and gentlemen, this next match is 1-4.
00:00:21Wrestling is athletic performance meets bodybuilding meets a melodrama.
00:00:26The glitz and the glamour, the theme music, the pomp and circumstance was created by the Von Eriks.
00:00:38They were important to the industry because they are just the blueprint of what wrestling should be.
00:00:45Fritz Von Eriks was the patriarch of the family who eventually had six sons, five of whom wrestled.
00:00:56These boys are going to be world heavyweight champions.
00:01:08When they became wrestlers, they became very good at it and very big.
00:01:13But with that came tragedy, so I almost wish that it never happened.
00:01:24This is one family, a single generation of six brothers, five of whom end up dead.
00:01:30These guys were kids. They're just kids, man.
00:01:36Sheriff's deputies found Carrie's body with a single gunshot wound to the chest.
00:01:40I'm sorry.
00:01:41He's still very, very sick.
00:01:44Located a white male victim laying in some brush.
00:01:47If there were ever a circumstance that looked like a curse, it's this one.
00:01:50I'm the only one left now.
00:01:53Do you feel like you've ever sat down and told the full story before?
00:02:01Um...
00:02:05And I want to thank everyone out there for your prayers and keep it up.
00:02:22Part of my education of working with athletes came from a gentleman who's now my friend,
00:02:35by the name of Dennis Rodman.
00:02:37I was working with him and he said, you've got to understand one thing.
00:02:41Here's God, moved his hand down about an inch and he goes, and here's professional athletes.
00:02:46And if you understand that, we're going to be okay.
00:02:48In 2023, A24 released a movie called The Iron Claw, which is about this famous wrestling family,
00:02:57this wrestling dynasty with an incredibly tragic story, the Von Erics.
00:03:01Ever since I was a child, people said my family was cursed. We never talked about it.
00:03:06I've just finished watching The Iron Claw and this was truly an all-star cast in this movie,
00:03:10including Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Mara Turney. They're great actors and actresses.
00:03:15Fritz Von Erich was the patriarch of this family.
00:03:19Tonight you saw the strength and resilience of my family.
00:03:24In the movie, Fritz is very rigid, cold, harsh. He was an athlete, a wrestler, alpha male,
00:03:35who eventually had six sons, five of whom end up dead at a very young age.
00:03:41The movie says it's inspired by a true story, but it is not the full story.
00:03:47Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pundit who's entering the ring from Denton, Texas,
00:03:54one of the world's famous Von Erich, Kevin Von Erich.
00:03:59My name is Kevin Von Erich. The movie The Iron Claw has been out and Zac Efron plays me.
00:04:11What do you like to do with your brothers?
00:04:13I don't know. Just being together.
00:04:16He was great at it. I've been a big brother my whole life.
00:04:20I had so many little brothers and I loved them so much, and I'm the only one left now.
00:04:27I endorse the movie, but I have to correct the record.
00:04:38Their lives are worth more than just pretend this happened because it didn't.
00:04:44In Iron Claw, Holt McCallany plays the father of the Von Erich brothers. His name is Fritz Von Erich.
00:04:54But the movie portrayed him as more of a villain.
00:04:57Fritz Von Erich's real name was Jack Atkinson.
00:05:00Fritz grew up in Jewett, Texas. He was raised in a poor family around the time of the Great Depression.
00:05:07According to legend, Fritz, when he was born, was very large, 15 pounds.
00:05:12He was a really big kid.
00:05:15My granddad's childhood is something he rarely talked about.
00:05:22His father was the sheriff of their town, and some of the boys in the town would,
00:05:27it was almost like chicken fighting. The dads would take their boys out and let them fight,
00:05:31and they'd bet on their sons.
00:05:32And they'd go bare knuckles, and people would bet money, kind of like fighting roosters or fighting,
00:05:39you know, dog, you hear that. But back then, they did it.
00:05:42And now you've got to realize this is a different time. Boys, they would fight each other for money.
00:05:46Money was hard to come by, you know.
00:05:48Granddad definitely didn't have an example of like a loving father in his own father.
00:05:55And Granddad told me one time his father didn't speak a word to him, and they never had a conversation
00:06:02until he was about 10 years old. And he said, get in the truck, we're going to go hunt. And so,
00:06:07he wanted to prove that he could do something worthwhile to show his dad that he was worth loving,
00:06:16worth talking to. He wanted to be successful.
00:06:19He played football at Southern Methodist University.
00:06:22He was just good at everything he did. He was fast, too.
00:06:26He ended up playing football for the Dallas Texans, which was an NFL team.
00:06:31My mom and dad met in Dallas when my dad was a football player there.
00:06:35She knew that he was going to do well for himself. This is a guy who
00:06:39is going to do something important. They were so in love, too.
00:06:45A couple of months later, Granddad was cut from the Dallas Texans.
00:06:50I felt disappointed. Fritz wasn't somebody who gave up easily. And so, as he tries to work for
00:06:58a different league, he ends up meeting a wrestling promoter who's looking for his next big star.
00:07:04And he said, wow, you would be a great wrestler. You've got the physique and the character for it.
00:07:08After his football career, he hit the wrestling circuit in the 1950s.
00:07:14Wrestling's pretty big all over the place. Like, you can find local wrestling heroes kind of anywhere.
00:07:20Ladies and gentlemen, just in case you are deaf, dumb, blind or stupid. My name is Maxwell Jacob
00:07:24Friedman. I am the greatest wrestler on God's green earth. I'm definitely a historian of the
00:07:28industry. I'm a genius when it comes to professional wrestling. Back then, professional wrestling was
00:07:35not like it is now, where there's two major promotions. You have WWE, you have all lead wrestling.
00:07:40Back then, the wrestling leagues weren't centralized like they kind of are now. Then they were a little
00:07:45more regional. You had your local, regional television stations, and we call those territories.
00:07:52Basically, you had the territories because that's where the TV would reach.
00:07:57Territories in those days have hometown baby faces and traveling heels.
00:08:02I'm Chris Jericho, the Ocho eight-time world champion and pro wrestler for 33 years. So,
00:08:10baby face is a good guy. He's the protagonist of your story. And the heel is the bad guy. If you don't
00:08:17have a great story and great characters, then it's just two half-naked guys rolling around in their underwear.
00:08:22Fritz, when he hit the wrestling circuit, he originally was a character of a villain,
00:08:30and the perfect villain at that time, post-World War II, would be a Nazi.
00:08:34From Berlin, Germany, Fritz, the name.
00:08:38People were furious, hated him, and he had a fan staged in a wheelchair, and the guy booed him,
00:08:46and Grandad turned the wheelchair over, and the crowd just lost their minds.
00:08:50You don't like the way I wrestle, Blanchard? Get yourself another life.
00:08:54Fritz was the embodiment of hatred. When he walked into a room, he walked into a room with disgust.
00:09:04Fritz Von Erich supplying the Iron Claw to him right now.
00:09:07Fritz's signature move was the Iron Claw. No one could sell it better than Fritz.
00:09:11The monster of the Iron Claw.
00:09:13Oh, my God. It's famed with this really strong grip, this iron grip.
00:09:17Right into the temples at the pressure points of the person's head, and you just squeeze and crush.
00:09:24He's alleged to have drawn blood, but my understanding of wrestling is they would
00:09:30hide sharp objects in order to be able to draw blood and make it look like more traumatic than it was.
00:09:35Blood oozing from Joe Blanchard's head.
00:09:38People saw Fritz in the ring. They thought it was real, period.
00:09:40His firstborn son was Jack Jr.
00:09:46And then Kevin. After that, it was David.
00:09:50As little boys, we thought my father was just the greatest thing in the world.
00:09:55His kids were everything to him. We had such love in our family.
00:09:59I remember Jackie protecting me, you know, like thinking something's going to get me.
00:10:04He'd be right there, you know, a bee or whatever, you know, and he was loved my dad.
00:10:09Boy, they were close. Life was good.
00:10:13My granddad was out wrestling.
00:10:27My grandmother was home at the time with the kids. Jackie was six.
00:10:34Mimi was cleaning up the house. Jackie kept, you know, asking if he could go play outside or if he
00:10:41could do this or that. And she said, you know, why don't you go play at your friend's house?
00:10:46And he got dressed and Mimi remembers him at the door right before he left. He returned and he said,
00:10:53so long. And it just stuck with her.
00:10:59She finished cleaning up and then called her friend just a few houses over and said,
00:11:05you can send Jackie home now. I'm done cleaning up. And her friend was like, what do you mean?
00:11:11He's not over here. She ran outside yelling his name, screaming his name, came back inside,
00:11:18called the police. A police officer came to the door and we found him. But his face looked like
00:11:30sorrowful.
00:11:33Jackie was walking to his friends. He was touching a metal fence. There was a wire,
00:11:40an exposed wire that was touching the fence.
00:11:46He is electrocuted. He's tossed into a puddle and either dies of the electrocution or actually
00:11:51drowns in that puddle. Poor little guy. I had a brother, a big brother, and I thought he was great.
00:12:01That's all I remember, except when my dad pulled up, he'd heard what happened. He'd have broke that window
00:12:06with his fist. And my mother was devastated. And I mean, there was a baby, but I knew something was big.
00:12:15I remember telling her, like, I'll fix it. I'll get him. I'll find him. I can't imagine losing one of my children.
00:12:23But they did.
00:12:33After that, my dad was really when he became a different man.
00:12:42Actors talk about having some kind of pain to draw on. My dad was, like, furious at everyone.
00:12:47It was like, my son died because I was on the road, and I was on the road because of you.
00:12:55Fritz was lost. And he took it out on his opponents. It was payback time.
00:13:05After Jack's death, Fritz pushed Doris to have more kids.
00:13:09I think granddad, rather than really deeply grieve, he thought, what can I fix, you know,
00:13:16in this situation? I can just, I can have another baby.
00:13:19This is something that sometimes parents will do to try to put the grief away, have more kids,
00:13:26paper it over. Whenever the ghosts of the past enter into the child rearing,
00:13:30it tends to not go well for the child.
00:13:32After Jack's death, Kevin was the oldest brother. And then Dave, and then Carrie came along soon
00:13:39thereafter. I'm Holly. I'm Carrie Von Erich's oldest daughter.
00:13:44I'm Lacey Von Erich, and Carrie Von Erich is my father. Granddad really seemed to just love
00:13:52daddy. They did have a special bond. After Carrie came Mike, and then lastly was Chris,
00:13:58and he was the baby of the family. Fritz would bring the boys up with him in the ring when they
00:14:05were little. People watched those boys grow up. Fritz perhaps was non-consciously exposing
00:14:11his boys to the idea of a career in wrestling because of the fame and notoriety he got.
00:14:18I was the big brother, and I was the first. I always thought God made a mistake because I'm
00:14:22not meant to be the big brother, but I had to grow up really fast.
00:14:31The kids at school, everybody believed wrestling. So everybody thinks my dad's bad.
00:14:38These people don't know the dad that we know. We thought dad was great, and if you don't like him,
00:14:42we don't like you. I was in first grade, and Kevin was in fourth grade. I just remember Kevin being
00:14:49the type of big brother that if somebody was bothering his brothers, he would step in and not
00:14:54allow it. It's real easy to get this mentality like it's us versus them, and so I had to fight a lot,
00:15:02you know, and my dad trained me to be strong. I never thought of it before. This is our youth. You don't
00:15:08quit. You don't give up. You don't take the weak way you fight. My dad bought 96 acres way out in the
00:15:16middle of nowhere. We had an old barn we used for a gym, and dad built weights for us, and everything
00:15:24was athletics. We had a routine that we'd follow every week. Mondays, we'd run 10 110-meter sprints.
00:15:32Tuesdays and Thursdays, we'd run 500-400 meters for time, and in the summer, we'd swim a lot,
00:15:39and we'd wrestle each other a lot. These guys were like Greek gods. They were gorgeous and all-American.
00:15:47They had long flowing hair, and they were massive. They ranged from Dave at 6'7 and 230 pounds to Mike
00:15:55at 6'1 and 200 pounds. Kevin was the second oldest son, and after Jack died, the eldest son,
00:16:03and he was the first to get into wrestling. I loved football, and I thought that was it for me. I was
00:16:08a punter and a running back, but I got hurt in college. I didn't want to be a wrestler. So why did
00:16:14you? Because he did. We thought he was great. Everything he did, I think there was a sense of
00:16:20duty. It was a family business. It really was, and I'm the big brother. I'm the muscle part of the arm.
00:16:26Wrestling dynasties is like a, it's a thing, where it's kind of like, this is your crown to inherit.
00:16:33It's your birthright.
00:16:37I looked at it as work. Bring home a check, the mom and the kids. But it was just amazing,
00:16:43though, to get in the ring and do that, and the people to respond the way they did, and
00:16:48it would have been foolish not to continue doing it.
00:16:51This really is me now. It wasn't when I was in college. Maybe a little kooky, but that's it.
00:16:58That's how I am. Kevin was interesting to me because he wrestled with bare feet.
00:17:02He just had his own style. Just this high-flying, acrobatic, super athlete.
00:17:09He was incredible at making you invest in what was going on bell to bell.
00:17:12One, two, three.
00:17:18At this time, Dave and Carrie joined the family business as well.
00:17:26At that point, it would have been weird to not pursue it. Your dad's done it. Your big brother's
00:17:31doing it. You're going to be like, yeah, I want to do what everybody thinks is cool.
00:17:34It wasn't exactly their dream, but when they became wrestlers, they became very good at it and very big.
00:17:48And then after wrestling for about 30 years in 1982, Fritz decides to retire from wrestling and
00:17:53he's going to go into promoting. A wrestling promoter is responsible for all the logistics,
00:17:58booking and promoting and making sure everybody gets paid.
00:18:01When Fritz became a promoter, he changed wrestling forever.
00:18:07Fritz was a visionary. He said, you know guys, I'm doing this thing coming out. It's called cable TV.
00:18:13We're getting ready to go bigger than Dallas-Fort Worth and we're going to do filming that's going
00:18:20to be all over the United States. And so Fritz starts an organization called the WCCW,
00:18:25which is world-class championship wrestling. Fritz Von Erich was the first one to venture out
00:18:31of the local regional market and that blows up.
00:18:37All of a sudden, instead of using two cameras, we're filming with probably six different guys.
00:18:41And then we added the microphones to the ring. And then we would do instant replay,
00:18:48vignettes of the wrestlers. We started the music coming to the ring and that was really the Von
00:18:52Erich Boise. And here comes the Von Erichs, David, Kevin and Kerry.
00:18:58Before the Von Erichs, nobody came out to theme music. It wasn't a thing. The pomp and circumstance
00:19:05was created by Fritz, by the Von Erichs coming out to that epic song.
00:19:15Fritz created what you watch now. Bottom line, today it's got pyro and lasers and bombs and loud music
00:19:23because of the Von Erichs. Then the ratings came out. All of a sudden we saw everyone was watching
00:19:29wrestling. The WCC broadcast their fights across the country on about 80 stations and in 23 international
00:19:36countries. In 1982, the WCCW brought in 11 million dollars, which would be over 36 million today.
00:19:43Kevin Von Erich, David Von Erich, and Kerry Von Erich were the rock stars of world-class wrestling,
00:19:50period. The Von Erichs were gods. Here you had three hot young babyfaces and they were all related
00:19:57and they were all good-looking guys. It's a promoter's dream. It's Fritz's dream. It was like
00:20:02Texas Beatlemania with the three Von Erichs in the center of that. When the Von Erichs walked into an
00:20:09arena, your ears bled because they were Texas boys in front of a Texas crowd. We were so hot arenas. It was
00:20:18thrilling, you know. The girls were great and wild. The girls would say, nice ass. It would be like
00:20:25embarrassing, kind of like, you know, because I was married. So I considered it almost an imposition
00:20:31that the girls were behaving like that, you know. I know why they're screaming. He was so handsome.
00:20:35And they would come, oh, I love him. He's so handsome. He's so sexy. I know. I know he is.
00:20:42I feel the same way. I first met Kevin, I was in eighth grade and I think I loved him from that
00:20:49moment. I knew I was going to marry Pam really young. I never felt like, don't say that about
00:20:55my husband. I own him because, you know, that was his job. They were world-famous wrestling brothers.
00:21:03David Von Erichs was really the best wrestler of all three of the brothers. From a technical
00:21:12standpoint, David was the best. Dave was the tallest and he was five inches taller than
00:21:18all the other boys. In those days, height meant everything. He's also the one that kind of looked
00:21:25the most like Fritz. Not movie star looks like Kevin and Carrie had. He looked more like someone that
00:21:31would beat the out of you in a bar and not even care.
00:21:39The Von Erichs became internationally famous. So now they would tour locally in the U.S.
00:21:45They would also go to international places to wrestle there as well.
00:21:49It's really grueling. Each one of us, we'd wrestle like seven days a week. But man,
00:21:54we wanted to die off bad.
00:21:56The Von Erichs would go to Japan about every six months. And they would wrestle over there for
00:22:06about two weeks, three weeks and then come back. And they're big, big stars, big names.
00:22:12This particular time, Dave was going on his own. And he was only going to be over there two weeks.
00:22:16He's 25 years old. And I thought Dave didn't look well. His color wasn't right.
00:22:27Dave said, you know, maybe I should go get it checked out. And Fritz made the comment,
00:22:32you can do that when you get back home. We can't be late to get over there.
00:22:36I said, don't go over there and die on me, Dave. Now that I've said it, it can't happen.
00:22:44I saw David right before he left. He was acting strange. He kind of got in front of me and
00:22:49straightened my hat and my coat. He said, I'll be leaving in a couple of days. He said,
00:22:55I won't see you for a while. And it was almost like he felt like he wasn't coming back.
00:22:59He'd only been there one day. My phone rings about two o'clock in the morning.
00:23:07I said, hello. And I'm like, what?
00:23:16After arriving in Japan, Dave and all the other American wrestlers were taken out for dinner.
00:23:22They were drinking heavily, eating tremendous amounts, and then drinking more alcohol.
00:23:27Before he goes to bed, he is observed to be sitting on the edge of his bed by another wrestler.
00:23:36The next day, he didn't show up on the wrestler's bus. So one of the Japanese referees went to go look
00:23:41for him. Dave had only been in Japan one day. And then all of a sudden, my phone rings about two
00:23:51o'clock in the morning. I said, hello. They go, David Manning. And I said, yes.
00:23:56Joe Higuchi, all Japan pro wrestling. And I'm like, what?
00:24:02The phone rang about 3.30. It was a crying girl's voice. And I recognized it as Dave's wife,
00:24:11Trisha. And she said, Dave's the tub.
00:24:18And so I just like, hit me like a truck. But no one knew how he died. And I just said,
00:24:34I got to go. Trish hung the phone up. Went out to the field.
00:24:40I had to go tell Fritz. He needed to hear this face to face.
00:24:51And so, I'll never forget, when I pulled in, it was just coming daylight. And I could see Fritz in
00:24:58the front window. He's making coffee. He opened the door before I could even knock. And he looked at me
00:25:03and he said, which one? And I said, I literally told him, I said, Fritz.
00:25:07Doris. I said, David's dead.
00:25:16And the look on his face.
00:25:17Doris. Doris was outside.
00:25:26Excuse me.
00:25:29And she said,
00:25:34she said, she said it was a mistake, wasn't it?
00:25:40Carrie, Mike and Chris,
00:25:42I just, they sobbed, but they didn't want anybody to see them weeping.
00:25:51My senses were really dull. I just, uh, didn't have any thoughts that were hardly comprehensible,
00:25:57because I wanted to just think about Dave all the time. Yeah. Missed him so bad.
00:26:05Oh. Okay, I need to take a break.
00:26:18It really didn't hit me probably until the funeral.
00:26:21Close to me, it was like I lost a brother.
00:26:24Well, I was one of the pallbearers, and the police had the highway blocked off for, for us,
00:26:31all the way until we pulled into the funeral home.
00:26:35And then when we got there, every police officer were lined up on the side,
00:26:38and they were standing side by side saluting as the hearse went by.
00:26:43It was incredible. I mean, you would have thought it was the death of a president.
00:26:48There was two, three thousand inside and outside. There was between five and ten thousand people.
00:26:54And the people were, God, they were just crying. We really saw how much love,
00:27:02true love, the fans had for Yvonne Eric.
00:27:11I remember Fritz said, call Japan, and you find out what happened to my son.
00:27:16We were waiting on the autopsy. He said, you know, whatever the autopsy says,
00:27:20we have to go with it because Japan's already seen it. And it's going to leak out what that autopsy
00:27:25says. But when we did get the autopsy from Japan, it said acute enteritis, which caused heart failure.
00:27:34Gastroenteritis is a viral illness of the intestines and stomach, causes vomiting and diarrhea. While
00:27:39adults can develop gastroenteritis, the mortality rate is exceedingly low. It's a little more serious
00:27:45in kids, but it can happen at any age. Now, in the case of David, the medical examiner reported that
00:27:52gastroenteritis contributed to his death. I take issue with that. I doubt that's the case.
00:28:00Now, remember, this was 1984. I cannot tell you how often medical examiners misdiagnose
00:28:06substance-related death. There has to be something more than gastroenteritis that took David.
00:28:11Drugs. Sometimes you have no choice but to take a painkiller because what else are you going to do?
00:28:17Now, am I saying it's a good thing? No. But back then, there were real consequences if you didn't
00:28:24get in the ring. You had to feed your family and your loved ones. So, pop that pill and get in there.
00:28:31We knew Dave was taking some pain pills. It can become an addiction. He also liked Quaaludes,
00:28:36which is kind of a painkiller. It's a calm down. Now, in wrestling, when there's substance use,
00:28:42it's always opiates. It's always painkillers. My suspicion is this was opiate-induced where the
00:28:48colon just stops moving and fills with stool, and he ruptured his colon in Japan and became septic.
00:28:56That is a very common thing. Now, it's reported that there were no drugs or alcohol found in his
00:29:01room after his death. However, A, we know for sure he was drinking heavily before he went to bed.
00:29:08B, he was known to use substances, so it doesn't have to be in the room.
00:29:12And C, somebody may have cleaned it up. But we'll never know.
00:29:22It was crazy that even though we're dealing with what we're dealing with,
00:29:26business had to go on. There was no time to mourn.
00:29:31In front of the fans, they tried to stay strong.
00:29:33And Kevin tried to stay stronger than anybody for the other boys, the brothers.
00:29:38Yeah, that's a rough spot, really. You know, because Cary and I sure did not feel like wrestling.
00:29:46Boy, we didn't want to do that. It was so bad. So bad.
00:29:58When Cary lost Uncle David, it hit him really, really hard.
00:30:03Like, he was really struggling with this just guilt that he was gone and that daddy was still here.
00:30:09My mom was having to constantly, like, coach him and encourage him to just, like, keep going.
00:30:17Shortly after David had passed, Cary called me and said, sit down.
00:30:21He said, you and David were like brothers.
00:30:24He said, I want to be brothers. And I said, well, Cary, we are brothers.
00:30:27He said, no, I want to be brothers like you and David were. And we both got watery eyes. And I hugged
00:30:33him. And I said, Cary, you're my brother. You always will be my brother.
00:30:37Boy, we didn't want to get back in the ring. It got a little too soon. But dad kind of pushed us on that one.
00:30:44I think that was hard on my dad. Their brother dies and they're still wrestling the next day.
00:30:50He wanted them to hurry up and wrestle after Uncle Dave died, which is the same reason that he
00:30:54wanted to hurry up and have Uncle Cary after Uncle Jackie died.
00:30:58He doesn't want to think about his son being dead. Let's just focus on the show. The show must go on,
00:31:04right?
00:31:07With David gone, we brought Mike in.
00:31:10It is my pleasure to welcome for his first professional wrestling bout, Mike Von Erick.
00:31:16He was 19 years old. He just graduated high school.
00:31:20Mike was having to fill in a spot that was empty.
00:31:23The Von Ericks were a wrestling family. And Mike had to step up and take a place.
00:31:32Mike was like the darling of the family.
00:31:35Mike was my treasure. He was so funny. You know, he was a really funny guy. He cracked me off all the time.
00:31:43Mike wanted to be a musician. To me, in his heart and soul, he did not want to be a professional
00:31:48wrestler. I think Mike wrestled because he thought that was his role as being a brother. And wrestling
00:31:55maybe got in the way of him being who he wanted to be.
00:31:57This is a family business. And where family businesses can become problematic is when the
00:32:07psychological dynamic is such that you're either all in or all out. And the threat of being out
00:32:13keeps you in and doing things you might not really want to do.
00:32:18Mike needed to get ready for the biggest crowd yet.
00:32:26After David's death, the next big event was the Von Erick Memorial Parade of Champions.
00:32:31And it was dedicated to David's honor.
00:32:33We had people coming from all over the world. Texas Stadium, 42,000 people.
00:32:37It was the biggest crowd to ever see a wrestling match.
00:32:43Harry was set to wrestle at the main event.
00:32:46Fritz came out of retirement to fight alongside Kevin and Mike against their all-time rivals,
00:32:51the Freebirds. It was a classic matchup. The American good old boys from Texas against the
00:32:57bad boys, the villains, tag team. Family against family.
00:33:02That time frame, if you're talking early to mid-80s, Von Erick's versus Freebirds
00:33:07was probably the hottest program in the entire world.
00:33:11There's the bell, and it's Kevin against Roberts.
00:33:14They were cheaters.
00:33:17Yeah, they were cheaters, those dirty rascals. They needed correcting.
00:33:22It was just perfect because you have the Von Ericks who are meant to stand for everything that's good.
00:33:27And then you have the Freebirds, who are these loud, obnoxious a**holes.
00:33:32We were all kids, and we wanted to make a splash. We just about killed each other in that ring.
00:33:42That was the precursor to the main event, which was the title fight.
00:33:45So obviously the big match, the big build-up, the 42,000 people, they were there to see
00:33:50Cary Von Erick versus Ric Flair.
00:33:55Ric Flair was an incredibly popular wrestler who had been the crown champion for years.
00:33:59When David passed away, it was obviously a huge blow to the Von Erick family, a huge blow to pro
00:34:03wrestling in general. So now Cary's doing it for the family, and more importantly, for the fans.
00:34:10I was refereeing the match. This was a major production, but the crowd went...
00:34:15Man, when Cary hit the ring, he wore a robe that had a yellow flower in Texas from David,
00:34:20and the people were just crying.
00:34:23Oh my God, he's so young. I've never watched this.
00:34:29Off the rope. Whoa, clothesline.
00:34:31The eruption of the crowd, it was crazy. It's a sea of people standing and cheering,
00:34:51and then there's us in the little ring.
00:34:52Oh, you win. Good job, Daddy.
00:35:01Daddy was a champion. He was the best.
00:35:05It's kind of crazy to see this amazing moment happening between my dad and all of my uncles,
00:35:13like, winning this big championship. And they were all there except Uncle David.
00:35:17This is what Granddad was going for, right? You're the champion. Everyone's rooting for your family.
00:35:28But in reality, do you feel like you're winning? Your son is dead. Are your kids happy? I don't
00:35:37understand the goal. And if the goal was to be the champion, then you did it. Why did we keep going?
00:35:48Mike initially did not want to be a wrestler. Then he participated in this stadium event,
00:35:54and the intensity, the crowd, the glitz, the glamour, the women, the adulation, the success.
00:36:04He enjoyed it, and it, in fact, was the beginning of his downfall.
00:36:08And Mike Viner, trying to get the team early. One, two, the top three.
00:36:13Mike wrestles sometimes twice or three times a day. Sometimes you get a few days off,
00:36:17but it's not very often.
00:36:21At one point, Mike had 200 matches in a row, and you can imagine how punishing that is on the body.
00:36:27Mike, he made it in professional wrestling without all the tools to do it with.
00:36:32He couldn't talk on the mic like the three older brothers. He wasn't built like them.
00:36:36This is rare footage of Mike Van Eric taking on Gino Hernandez during WCCW's 1985 tour of Israel.
00:36:48There's a lot of aggression. He was thrown on the cement flooring outside the ring.
00:36:53He was thrown into the metal fencing. And then right after that...
00:37:10Mike had a shoulder dislocated in Israel.
00:37:12Right after Mike wins, he's holding the belt with his right hand only. And when he's running around
00:37:21the ring with both hands up, you'll notice it's more like this than with both hands fully extended.
00:37:27So something has already happened.
00:37:27He had to have a surgery. We took him home to Texas to be operating on.
00:37:34But it wasn't the shoulder surgery that was the problem. It was the complications that followed.
00:37:39I went to pick him up because his wife said,
00:37:43Mike is acting kooky, like he doesn't know me.
00:37:48We raced over and Mike just looked out of it, just eyes rolling around. Kevin threw him over his
00:37:56shoulder and put him in the car. And we drove to the hospital.
00:38:01And of course, what fans want to know is when will Mike be in the ring again?
00:38:05He's still very, very sick. There's no question about that.
00:38:09His fever was 107 for several hours.
00:38:13The doctor came out and said, we've done everything we can do.
00:38:18It's just a matter of time. Mike's not going to make it.
00:38:20There's an issue after Mike's surgery and he ends up getting toxic shock syndrome in his shoulder.
00:38:30Toxic shock is a syndrome typically associated with certain bacteria where the toxin from the
00:38:36bacteria breaks out into the bloodstream and causes kidney failure.
00:38:44People were literally blowing up the phone at the hospital.
00:38:47It is in serious, just critical condition.
00:38:49There were people that were calling to donate their kidneys.
00:38:53It's a sad situation. Everyone loves them and I love them.
00:38:56It was beautiful. It was such love.
00:38:59And I want to thank everyone out there, all my good neighbors for their prayers.
00:39:04The doctors told us he's not going to make it. Say goodbye now.
00:39:08Kevin and I were standing there and we said, let's pray. And we all grabbed hands.
00:39:17The preacher was there with us and he was praying for us for this miracle.
00:39:22We're asking you, God, to stand on your word. You said it, so do it.
00:39:26And he slammed the Bible down on the table and he said, there's your word, deliver. These doctors
00:39:35have said they know not what to do, but there's something that can be done. Deliver.
00:39:40And it was not 30, 45 seconds. The doors opened. The doctor came back out. He said, well, I'm not
00:39:48sure what happened. Mike's made a turn for the better. It was a miracle. There have been no focal
00:39:54neurologic problems and nothing that I anticipate will be a problem in the future. Mike was never
00:40:01the same after he left the hospital. He just had a lost look when you would look at him. It was almost
00:40:07like, how do I function? How do I walk? This happened in 1985. Doctors were calling a lot of things
00:40:13toxic shock, but this was probably septic shock, which happens after a surgery like this. If
00:40:18their surgical site gets infected and it gets through the body, they go into shock and they
00:40:24can easily die. Toxic shock does not really have a lot of good treatment while septic shock responds
00:40:31to antibiotics. If they had treated him right away for septic shock, he may have responded. He may have
00:40:37done well, much less impact on his body. Whenever they say it's okay to start working out, well, I'm going to
00:40:42be in there working hard. And the problem was he wanted to get back in the damn ring.
00:40:48I'm pleased to present to you a living miracle. Welcome to the Cotton Bowl, Mike Bonnery.
00:40:54I also feel there was pressure from Fritz to not lose this steam that they had built up with
00:41:03Uncle Mike before he had hurt his shoulder. I mean, you're saying this about Mike. He is a champion.
00:41:09He goes back to the ring in six months.
00:41:18That just was not enough time.
00:41:22Athletes generally will put performance and winning above everything. They will sacrifice
00:41:28themselves to their sport. And in this case, we're adding to it the family dynamics. They may not
00:41:35have understood the full impact of exposing him even to minor head injury.
00:41:41When he finally got back in the ring, he just wasn't there.
00:41:44His moves that would normally be like, click, click, click, click, click, were maybe five clicks
00:41:53after when it should have taken place.
00:41:55During that time, he also had several car accidents where he lost control of the vehicle.
00:42:05One in 1986 where he turned the vehicle over and had a clear head injury.
00:42:10Mike would go through like these fists of rage. One time he had attacked a traffic light and just
00:42:17smashed it. And when he heard what he did, he was so sorry and felt so embarrassed.
00:42:24The fact that he lost control of multiple vehicles and he was having outbursts of anger,
00:42:29typically associated with concussions. The question is, did he get these brain injuries from
00:42:33wrestling? Or is it strictly because of that episode of septic shock?
00:42:37My suspicion? Both. It's both. Mike was taking every medication you could get down somewhat.
00:42:47And I think deep down, Mike knew that he was never going to be Mike Von Eric again.
00:42:54One time, Mike was driving home through this little town and he had half a joint and
00:43:01the officer pulled him over and said, oh, what do we have here?
00:43:05He was going to throw the book at him. And Mike was so scared. Just please don't do that. Please,
00:43:11please don't do this. I mean, give me a ticket or something. No, he knew who Mike was.
00:43:18You know, your little punk, you and your brothers.
00:43:21In early Saturday morning, Von Eric was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving
00:43:25in possession of marijuana.
00:43:29He really felt like life was over. I've shamed everyone.
00:43:33A single rumor, drug possession or arrest can ruin a reputation in those days,
00:43:40especially when you are portrayed as the clean cut Christian good guy from Texas.
00:43:45When he got busted, it was like he let us all down. I think Mike thought, I'm doomed.
00:43:52It was a rainy night. And I remember my parents saying, we can't find Mike. I have a bad feeling about this.
00:44:06When we heard Mike was missing, they were searching everywhere. Where could he be? Where could he be? Where could he be?
00:44:11So we searched, searched, we all drove and searched and got home, I think about four or five o'clock. And then we heard on the news, they found Mike.
00:44:23His mother watched his men and their dogs trudged out of deep woods to report their discovery.
00:44:32Located a white male land and some brush. He was in a sleeping blanket out at the lake.
00:44:40They found him at a reservoir, having overdosed on alcohol and placidil, an old fashioned sleeping medication.
00:44:50He was 23 years old at the time.
00:44:53You know, of course, everybody was devastated. I mean, it was just another one, another one's gone, you know.
00:45:07To lose Dave and then lose Mike, it was so bad.
00:45:16When Mike died, Kevin and Carrie just sobbed. And I put my arms around them, but they didn't want anybody to see them weeping.
00:45:27Is there a right way to grieve? You don't really know.
00:45:29Dad wanted us to get right in the ring, you know, and it was just too much. We had to say, no, we need more time.
00:45:39People sold out that first show to come back and we used to do a thing where we would ring the bell 10 times in silence as, you know, a final bell.
00:45:56At that point, I think a lot of the fans had a lot of questions.
00:45:59So I think a lot of the fans, they blame for it.
00:46:03Oh, he shouldn't have made him go back in the ring.
00:46:07You know, with the deaths, the way they are, the way they were, surely, somebody wants to find a bad guy.
00:46:14Where's the bad guy in this?
00:46:16I had so many little brothers and I loved them so much and we were so many.
00:46:30But after Mike died, it was just me, Carrie and Chris.
00:46:37Going through all of this with Mike was also probably hardest on Chris. They were best buddies.
00:46:42My little brother Chris was 12 years younger than me and he was the baby.
00:46:48Chris was in the woods all the time. He loved nature. Chris had seen us grow up endlessly.
00:46:54He wanted to be a giant like Carrie, you know, and agile and all that, but it was just not going to happen.
00:47:03Chris had a really bad asthma and so he had to take a different kind of steroid, not the fun kind that gets you big.
00:47:09Asthma can be life-threatening in some cases. And in those days, they used a lot of prednisone, an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid.
00:47:18And those corticosteroids in youth can diminish bone growth, diminish muscle mass, and Chris was exposed to a lot of corticosteroid in his youth.
00:47:30And as a result, when he was grown, he was only 5'5 and 170 pounds.
00:47:36All of his brothers are enormous. Chris was little. He was a little guy.
00:47:43But Uncle Chris was by far the most passionate about wrestling.
00:47:49But he couldn't play the same. He couldn't wrestle the same. He just wasn't the same as his brothers.
00:47:53I would go down to the gym and watch them work out. Uncle Chris would want me to go so I could like,
00:47:58he would be, he'd have to tell me if my lats look bigger today. I was so like, oh, they look huge today.
00:48:03I just wanted to like, tell him how strong he was and like, how great he was.
00:48:08But Chris had seen us grow up and we have this attitude that never quit and you'll succeed.
00:48:15So Chris was thinking, I'll just never quit. I'll just work harder than anybody. But his body was
00:48:20tainted with that poison in him. He couldn't build up really. His lungs were weak from that asthma too.
00:48:27And Kerry and I knew he was a great little artist. The way he could draw things, you know,
00:48:33with such personality in him. So Kerry and I tried to encourage that, but it only made Chris mad.
00:48:40He thought, well, we were getting in the way of his dream. I'm going to be the best and you'll see.
00:48:45At 18 years of age, Chris left high school and announced that he wanted to train for wrestling.
00:48:53Fritz took on the training under the supervision of Kerry and Kevin, his brothers.
00:48:59When Mike came in, we put them through the course, definitely needed to put on some weight. So they
00:49:04were really pumping him hard, working out, hitting the weights, eat everything you can eat.
00:49:09Athletes have differing relationships with reality. They want to achieve something,
00:49:14and some of them are willing to cheat to get there.
00:49:19Chris was doing drugs to bulk up and he would have done anything to have been one of the brothers
00:49:26in the business. And it didn't matter to him what he was going to take.
00:49:31In 1990, at the age of 21, Chris was finally given the opportunity to wrestle and he made his big debut.
00:49:38I was at the ring at night and they said, Chris wants you up in the dressing room.
00:49:46I came back and he said, would you take me to the ring?
00:49:51I was Devon Eric's bodyguard and I always brought them into the ring for their first match.
00:49:56I guess he didn't think he was the same level with his brothers. And I said, Chris,
00:50:02that's a stupid question to ask. You're never going to the ring without me ever. And he hugged me and he
00:50:09said, I just wanted to make sure.
00:50:10Fritz had the ring announcer build up Chris a little bit by announcing his height at 5'7",
00:50:16rather than the actuality of 5'5". Look, it's wrestling. You get to build things up in many ways.
00:50:21While Kevin and Kerry were already at the top of their game, Chris won his first match.
00:50:29But throughout Chris's life, he watched his older brothers getting a lot of attention
00:50:34and being treated like rock stars. And yet some of the fans referred to him as poor little Chris.
00:50:40Chris, not great for your self-esteem. We thought, okay, he's a little small,
00:50:45but you can work around that. We worked with him for six months. He had finally, in his mind,
00:50:52reached a spot to where he was wrestling. The fans were liking him. He was getting a push
00:50:57and everything was going to be great and just get better and better and better. And boom.
00:51:04In one match, Chris threw a dropkick and his arm broke.
00:51:10He said, get your butt out of that ring right now. And he just wouldn't quit. He just,
00:51:17pain was just, shut it out. He suffered a severe arm injury that was followed by a
00:51:23asthma attack that resulted in hospitalization. Now he can't work out.
00:51:28Can you imagine being that one brother that doesn't make it? It probably made him so
00:51:33sad and said, no, I'll never be Yvonne Eric.
00:51:42I never told anybody this, but we were all scuba divers. You know, we all loved to scuba dive.
00:51:47When Mike died, he left a note. I want Chris and only Chris to have my dive gear. And Mike's dive bag
00:51:56were about five or six pills that he took. Mike knew Chris relied on him for everything.
00:52:02So when Mike said, I want Chris to have my dive gear. And those pills were in there.
00:52:07I knew what he meant. Uncle Chris was 21 years old. I was 10. At the time, we lived in another
00:52:17house on the property. And my grandparents were in the main house. Uncle Chris had an apartment
00:52:25in the main house. My dad was on the phone with Uncle Chris.
00:52:28And Chris says, I need my tape recorder. I said, okay, Chris, I'll bring it to you in the morning.
00:52:34He goes, no, I need it now. I said, Chris, it's midnight. The kids are asleep. Let me bring it in
00:52:38the morning. And he hung up on me. Later that night, I answered and it was Uncle Chris. And he said,
00:52:46I just want to tell you that I love you. And I want you to tell everybody I love them.
00:52:51So the first thing that flashed in my mind was suicide. And yeah, I was panicked.
00:52:58After I hung up, I remember looking around for my mom and dad. And I said, Uncle Chris said he's sorry.
00:53:13And so then I hear his motorcycle went around my house like three times and then took off into the
00:53:19woods. And I went up there to this hill. And he was up in the spot. It was dark, you know,
00:53:26and he had his shirt off and just sitting there staring at the ground. I said, Chris,
00:53:31come on, man. What's the matter? He said, Kev, just leave me alone. I just want to be left alone.
00:53:39And Chris, he said, go read my note. And so my dad left and went to Uncle Chris's apartment in the
00:53:47main house. And my dad found the note and he ran downstairs.
00:53:54I told my parents when my dad said, get up on that hill quick.
00:53:58I got my bike and I took off up there.
00:54:00I'm at my house on the property. And I heard.
00:54:10He was laying on the, on his back going,
00:54:23help, help, help, help. And so I hooked his arm and put my hand under his head to set him up.
00:54:30And my thumb went in the, where the bullet went in. So hot the blood was. And, uh, and so we called
00:54:37the ambulance and they came out, but they couldn't, you know, save him. He died like an hour later,
00:54:44but he was, he was terrible.
00:54:55I just remember crying so, so, so hard. And I remember thinking like,
00:55:02when you wake up in the morning, there's going to be a split second where you don't remember this.
00:55:06You don't remember it happened. So just, let's just look forward to that second. So
00:55:13I just look forward to that. I sure loved him.
00:55:20The note said, please tell the kids, which was me and my cousins, tell them a different story
00:55:27about how it happened. And it had one of his drawings. And it says that he doesn't want people
00:55:34to blame the family for what happened. Well, that's not the first place we would all look, right?
00:55:38At that point, I think the fans had a lot of questions.
00:55:42In the span of seven years, three brothers have died, four altogether. What happens to the Von
00:55:47Erich family is uncanny. And if there were ever a circumstance that looked like a curse,
00:55:52it's this one. But is this family cursed or is this something more explainable?
00:55:57The toxicology report says that what they found in Chris's system was cocaine and Valium. Valium is
00:56:06an anxiety medication. It's not something that should be used long term at all. And if he had an
00:56:11issue with substances, that is not something he should have had his hands on. Of the six boys,
00:56:17only two are left. 34-year-old Kevin and 31-year-old Carrie.
00:56:24I met Carrie Von Erich at the start of first grade in September of 1966. And we started a lifelong
00:56:30friendship from them. Basically our whole life, we've been like two peas in a pod.
00:56:36Carrie was just a big, happy, lovable puppy that just couldn't get enough fun.
00:56:43But he was smart and a gifted athlete. When he was a senior,
00:56:48he was number one in the nation in the discus. And then he went to the University of Houston and was
00:56:54concentrating on the 1980 Olympics. He was really training hard. He really wanted to qualify because
00:57:00he had such a passion for the discus. Carried through 197 right at 200 feet, which is a monster
00:57:07throw for a 19-year-old kid. Enough to go to the Olympic trials as a freshman in college. And he was
00:57:14really pumped up. But the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics. We were not sending our people there.
00:57:23So that dream was taken away. It almost probably gave Fritz validity to keep going with wrestling.
00:57:32Carrie had this utmost amount of respect for his dad. And there was a bond between them.
00:57:39And I think Carrie always wanted to please Fritz. From the beginning, when we look at who was Fritz's
00:57:45favorite, there was no doubt Carrie was the favorite. But it wasn't Fritz that would say it. It was the boys.
00:57:51Fritz explained to Carrie the perfect scenario of becoming a wrestler in his footsteps.
00:58:01By the late 70s, Kevin and David had already started wrestling. And they were telling him,
00:58:06of course, hey, it's great. You're coming in. Your dad's Fritz Von Erich. You've got this name.
00:58:10The notoriety and everything. So that's when Carrie started wrestling full time.
00:58:15Carrie obviously like one of the best looking humans that maybe ever lived in the wrestling
00:58:20business and elsewhere. Literally built like a Greek god. Carrie was massive and he just looked
00:58:26like a movie star. Brad Pitt's face on Schwarzenegger's body circa 1988. And you might
00:58:33have an idea of what Carrie Von Erich looked like. I remember seeing behind the scenes a vignette of
00:58:39Carrie riding a horse. Just looking like the knight in shining armor type of guy.
00:58:43I would hear that entrance music and I would get pumped up with him. And I was just like ready for him to go beat the bad guy.
00:58:58Carrie was a great wrestler. Carrie was probably better than me too, to tell the truth. He was a natural showman.
00:59:06Carrie encouraged the girls to freak out.
00:59:10What's crazy is even the parents. Like, get out there. You know, maybe you'll get a kiss.
00:59:14The uncomfortable part of this is that Carrie was already in a committed relationship. And they got
00:59:19married in 1983. When you're in the spotlight, there is a certain image that you have to project.
00:59:24Fritz wouldn't let them announce on TV they got married. Because he was like, there's tens of thousands
00:59:29of girls out there thinking they're going to be the lucky one. We don't want to tell them it's not an option
00:59:32anymore. The boys loved the attention of the girls. I'd say Carrie the most by far.
00:59:38Carrie'd grab them and kiss them. As a wife, it would be hard to watch that every night.
00:59:43But daddy had this fame and they had all the fancy sports cars. My mom and dad had this beautiful
00:59:50Victorian blue house just down the street from Aunt Pam and Uncle Kevin. And Aunt Pam and Mommy were
00:59:55best friends.
00:59:55And then Holly came along right after that. And then Lacey. He loved those girls so much.
01:00:02He adored them. He really did.
01:00:04My dad was my hero. He was so loving. And he made everything the game.
01:00:09I remember losing my tooth once. So my dad got little fairy wings and jumped on the beds and
01:00:15pretended he was the tooth fairy. He was just like a giant playmate. He was very generous with his time.
01:00:21Carrie would call me on a semi-regular basis. And he would just say, it's time. And we would head
01:00:28to a children's hospital and go in and spend the afternoon with the kids that are in the hospital
01:00:34and do fun things with them. There's no doubt that Carrie just loved his family. But you have
01:00:40to wonder if some of that wasn't filling the void from the loss of his brothers.
01:00:44After David's death, there was a championship match for the title.
01:00:49Carrie was now king of the world. He was the king of the Von Eriks.
01:00:53A world title is essentially, this guy is the star. This guy is the new hot thing. You need to watch Carrie.
01:01:00The fame and attention that Carrie was experiencing is very similar to what movie stars would experience.
01:01:08Daddy was very much friends with, like, the biggest names. This actually does follow me to this day,
01:01:14because I just saw Steve and Tyler. And I was like, I'm Carrie Von Eriks' daughter. He was like,
01:01:19Carrie's daughter? Give me the biggest hug.
01:01:21But when we were traveling, you get into this routine where you get there, you wrestle,
01:01:28and you might party. And it was fun until it became not fun.
01:01:35I don't think that he enjoyed traveling and leaving us. I know that it was hard on him.
01:01:40Carrie was really wild, and he partied with the best of them.
01:01:44The culture was different in the 80s. All the coke and drinking and debauchery, and that's just how it was.
01:01:49Carrie was adventurous. He loved that thrill.
01:01:55When you're Von Eriks and you're the rock star, you know, king of Dallas, you can do anything you want.
01:02:03Some guys got through it. Some guys didn't.
01:02:10Carrie was on his motorcycle,
01:02:14coming back from an outing on his boat at Lake Dallas.
01:02:18He loved to drive fast.
01:02:21He was barefoot and wearing gym shorts, like no helmet, just, you know, having fun.
01:02:27Like, nothing can kill me.
01:02:36Fritz called me and he said, Carrie's been in an accident.
01:02:39I'm on the way to the hospital. You got to get someone else in the show tonight.
01:02:44He was going about 55 or 60 and ran into the back of a police car.
01:02:50I think maybe he was intoxicated when it happened. I didn't really ask and he didn't really tell me.
01:03:01I think it was kind of a given. You don't just run into a cop car parked at a red light when you're straight.
01:03:06He almost cleared the police car, but the end of his foot went underneath the lights and it just tore it off from the heel down.
01:03:14I swear his foot looks like an alligator chewed on it. And then he was in major pain.
01:03:21I don't think Carrie really ever got over that addiction. And then Carrie, especially giving him all the pain pills,
01:03:28they were giving him so much, but he was adamant about coming back to wrestle.
01:03:34When you're getting ready, there's 20,000 people in this auditorium.
01:03:37You get used to hearing people cheering for you. It's an addictive feeling.
01:03:44A lot of people don't know. He actually came back and had done a couple of matches,
01:03:48but he's at this auditorium and he would come running down the steps and all of a sudden it just broke his foot.
01:03:54And we had to sit him back at the hospital. What in fact happened was he injured the end of the foot
01:04:01very severely, probably a crush injury, re-injures multiple times and requires an amputation of the
01:04:07front half of his foot. His foot was cut off from the heel on, so he had his heel, but none of the toes,
01:04:14no spring at all. They ended up putting a prosthesis on that went all the way up to his knee.
01:04:20That's a career-ending injury. It's a whirlwind. It's a dark whirlwind.
01:04:27Now you're looking at yourself in the mirror on one leg. You used to be a god amongst men,
01:04:34and now you can barely walk? One second you're the most loved guy on planet Earth,
01:04:41and the next second nobody wants anything to do with you. I don't know how I would do with that.
01:04:46I think that's when Kerry dug down real deep within himself, and I think he had something to prove.
01:04:55To say, you know, I've had this horrible thing happen to me, but I'm super strong,
01:05:05and I can get back, you know, and he did.
01:05:10He started training, you know, his upper body and even his legs. He was huge when he came back.
01:05:16He came back, basically, what, 15, uh, 16 months, maybe? If I hadn't known what was wrong with him,
01:05:25I wouldn't have guessed it.
01:05:30So Kerry then went back into the ring.
01:05:32Come out of the way, Warrior.
01:05:34Hey, morning!
01:05:37He was devastated that his foot was gone, and we all swore to him that we would keep his secret.
01:05:43Kerry never revealed that he was using a prosthetic or fighting with one foot. You don't want to be
01:05:51other than perfect physically. I thought it would be good to announce it. Think of all the people
01:05:56that's lost a leg, and here's a guy wrestling with a prosthesis. I even tried to tell Kerry,
01:06:02but he wouldn't have it. Fritz and Kerry, they didn't tell anybody about his amputation. They
01:06:07didn't tell other promoters. They did not tell the audience.
01:06:10I think Kerry's foot injury is the ultimate in kayfabe because I never noticed it.
01:06:16Kayfabe is the agreement that wrestlers have that they won't talk about how everything is fake.
01:06:24So the first rule of wrestling is you don't break kayfabe. And a lot of wrestlers really,
01:06:29really, really, really follow that rule. I think that the Von Eriks were concerned about
01:06:35being perceived as weak in any way. The reality is the accident is embarrassing.
01:06:42He was drunk on his bike, and he hit a cop car, and he hurt his foot,
01:06:47and then he made it worse because he wouldn't stay off of his feet.
01:06:50I don't think it was even widely known in the business. You know, I don't even know if Vince
01:06:57McMahon even knew. In 1990, Kerry signed with Vince McMahon, who ran the WWF, which was the world's
01:07:04largest wrestling promotion. Concerned, particularly Michael Hayes.
01:07:08So the crowds were dwindling. We weren't having crowds anymore. Vince had started to make his move,
01:07:13and the crowds were huge. Kerry thought, Kayf, I'm gonna go up there, and I'm gonna go to the top.
01:07:20He made a good contract. We signed with Vince for several million dollars.
01:07:26If you made it to the WWF, you had made it.
01:07:29It's incredibly hard to cross over to the WWF. Obviously, the man had success. He won the
01:07:34international title. That's no easy feat. That's very, very, very, very impressive.
01:07:41Every time he was in town, I'd come over there, and man, I remember one time he had
01:07:46three checks laying on the counter, and they were all these huge checks that he hadn't had a chance
01:07:51to go put him in the bank yet. So there was three of them laying there for like, I think, 200 grand.
01:07:57But he seemed like he was happy then. I thought he was gonna go to the top,
01:08:03and I just remember thinking, like, this is it. He's gonna, you know, he's gonna be the next Hulk Hogan.
01:08:06In wrestling, we deal with a lot of pain, and so you can really put your mind somewhere else and
01:08:15endure a lot of pain. But Kerry had that other kind of pain.
01:08:19Well, after Kerry lost the leg, he was never the same. I mean, mentally, he just felt like he wasn't
01:08:27a whole person. In many ways, he felt like a fraud. Everyone thinking you're so great,
01:08:32yet you're not being your true self. That would be lonely. He got into drugs really bad,
01:08:38a lot of painkillers, and then he got into some of the hard stuff, the coke and stuff.
01:08:43He probably was using cocaine to bring himself up out of whatever depressed states he was in.
01:08:51But after a while, it becomes, it becomes such a problem where you can't, you can't function.
01:08:57It gets really difficult for mommy. So she was like, if we're gonna make this work,
01:09:02you have to make yourself better. So he went into Betty Ford, he checked himself in,
01:09:07and he just didn't stick it out. And then finally, she's like, we have to divorce because it's
01:09:14dangerous for me. It's dangerous for the children. I can't keep them in this environment. So they
01:09:18divorced, and then it goes downhill. 1992 is not a good year for Kerry. His marriage falls apart,
01:09:26and after some not very good matches, he leaves the WWF.
01:09:33One time we were at his friend Chris Adams' house, another wrestler, and I think he was getting drugs.
01:09:41And Lacey and I are playing outside while daddy is inside Chris Adams' house. And then all of a sudden,
01:09:48the police show up, and they start raiding. And then they start searching daddy's car. And then
01:09:59he's being taken out in handcuffs, put in a police car. And then they're putting Lacey and I into a
01:10:05separate police car. And we're crying and carrying on. And then we get to the police station, and then they
01:10:13put us into a, like, a juvie cell. Daddy had a bunch of drugs on him. And so daddy just was, like, sure
01:10:23that he was going to be put away.
01:10:24In his mind, it was going to be, like, the biggest shame for the family and for Lacey and I. And
01:10:37somewhere within him, he felt like we would be better off without him.
01:10:43After he was let out of jail, I was having dinner with daddy at Macaroni Grill. And I kind of knew
01:10:55that things were, things were rougher. Daddy at dinner that night, for whatever reason, said to me,
01:11:04I'm going to kill myself. And I'm sorry. But I remember saying, no, daddy, when you die, I die.
01:11:19When you die, I die. And I was crying. And daddy's, daddy was like, no, no, no, calm down, babe.
01:11:27And he said, if you ever tell anyone what I told you, I'll know immediately and I'll die.
01:11:34And so I never told anybody. I'm sorry.
01:11:41This was the day that Carrie was to be indicted on drug charges.
01:11:47I came home from school. My dad was on the phone.
01:11:50Carrie said, I'm going to kill myself, Cub. I said, Carrie, don't you dare think like that.
01:11:58Don't you leave me alone here, you know?
01:12:00I said, Carrie, what? Why? And why would you, don't do this to me, Carrie. I'll be the last one here.
01:12:09And he said, yeah, Cub, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Don't worry about it, Cub. I got it.
01:12:15But I went to call my dad and say, watch out. Carrie is in a terrible way, a bad way, Dad.
01:12:23I couldn't get through to him because my dad was, he was getting old.
01:12:27And he liked to have his drink at five o'clock, you know, and it was about 5.30 or six, you know,
01:12:33and he said, I'm busy, can't talk. I was living out on the Texas-Lusiana border.
01:12:39And so I started driving to Dallas.
01:12:40We were about three and a half hours from where he was by car.
01:12:47And so I was driving hard. And, uh, tell my daughter, it had happened.
01:13:00Fritz see some bushes and he went back behind him and Carrie was laying there. He shot himself in the heart.
01:13:05It had happened.
01:13:08Daddy was supposed to pick us up.
01:13:11We were...
01:13:12Sorry, dang it.
01:13:17I remember he was late, and so...
01:13:22Sorry.
01:13:22My aunt picked us up from school, and I was like, why is Daddy not picking us up?
01:13:32And my mom said, your daddy passed away, your daddy's gone.
01:13:40That was a huge loss for my dad.
01:13:43He was very impacted by that and really struggled with, you know, is the world good or evil?
01:13:51I was really mad at my dad, not taking my call, but by the time I got there, Carrie had died, and so I swallowed that, you know, because now my dad's suffering.
01:14:05After Carrie died, Fritz wasn't the same.
01:14:09He was broke.
01:14:12The fact that he shot himself in the chest stands out to me because that's something my patients do, my addict patients do.
01:14:19I don't know if it's because they feel a deep hole in their chest, which they all complain of.
01:14:24They really wanted was some way to kill the addiction or the addict within them.
01:14:29Knowing what I know as an adult, I know that it wasn't his fault.
01:14:33There was concussions and there was his foot and his addictions and everything else that caused this awful thing.
01:14:41So, these are the postcards that my dad sent me while he was on the road.
01:14:53He had everything.
01:14:54He had a lot to live for, but the demons, the illness was just so strong.
01:15:01I just love that I have a piece of my dad.
01:15:05I'm sorry.
01:15:07I'm sorry.
01:15:09I can feel my dad's love anytime I want to.
01:15:13Pretty soon after my brother Carrie died, I had a dream.
01:15:23I was feeding the animals real late at night and I heard, Kev, Kev, over here.
01:15:29And my brothers were standing outside my fence.
01:15:32I said, Dave, Carrie, hey.
01:15:34And as I started to walk towards them, I heard one of them say, he's coming.
01:15:38He's coming.
01:15:39I thought, what?
01:15:40It's almost like they weren't really my brothers.
01:15:42And something wasn't right.
01:15:45I said, Kev, come with us, Kev.
01:15:47Come with us.
01:15:49You know, like cross the fence with us and be dead like us, you know?
01:15:55And I said, no, you guys are wrong.
01:15:59If there had been a hole to crawl in, I'd have probably done it.
01:16:02But there was a God holding onto me.
01:16:10That was an epiphany for me.
01:16:12And it saved me too, because I knew this was all part of the plan.
01:16:22Two years after Carrie died, Kevin had his last match.
01:16:25We had a following for a long time in wrestling.
01:16:28And then I kind of got out.
01:16:30And I just left the business.
01:16:36One day, Kristin came out and said, Daddy, they're making a movie about y'all.
01:16:40And I said, what?
01:16:41In 2023, A24 released a movie called The Iron Claw.
01:16:45And the family was not consulted.
01:16:47We heard about the movie through social media.
01:16:50We're like, wow, we knew nothing about this.
01:16:53So we just start rolling with it.
01:16:55Because what else are you going to do?
01:16:56The train's already moving.
01:16:57You just have to jump on or just be left behind.
01:17:00And you are here.
01:17:05When I saw Zach Guffling in the movie, I felt like I had a responsibility to tell the truth.
01:17:11Carrie in the movie was not a family man.
01:17:14But in real life, Carrie was.
01:17:17My sister and I were not in the movie as my dad's children.
01:17:21And he didn't have a wife or anything.
01:17:23And that was a really big part of my dad.
01:17:26So how he was portrayed in the movie is so inaccurate that it was heart-wrenching.
01:17:33There's a scene in the movie where Carrie gets in this accident.
01:17:39And the next time you see him, he does not have a foot.
01:17:42That is not, in fact, what happened.
01:17:44He had a very severe crush injury on the foot.
01:17:47But he goes back into the wrestling ring with the painful foot and damages it further.
01:17:53And ultimately decides to get half his foot amputated.
01:17:56In real life, Fritz had six kids.
01:17:59But in the movie, they only ever named five.
01:18:02They left my little brother Chris out of the movie.
01:18:06And the director combined Mike and Chris' life.
01:18:09In the movie, there's a scene.
01:18:10Zac Efron is telling his soon-to-be movie wife about the Von Erich curse.
01:18:15So when my brother died, people started saying that it was his curse.
01:18:20In the movie, they tried to say it was a curse, a curse, a curse.
01:18:22There was never a Von Erich curse.
01:18:24There were some bad choices and just some unfortunate deaths.
01:18:28So in the movie, Fritz was definitely the villain.
01:18:34I can understand why he was portrayed that way.
01:18:37I feel like people want to point at someone and blame someone.
01:18:42Like, why would three people in the same family commit suicide?
01:18:45I think Fritz gets a bit of an unfair deal in the movie.
01:18:50You have to remember, Fritz was an athlete who was trying to survive an economy where there were not a lot of options.
01:18:57And he found his way to a sport he loved and he knew what it took to succeed.
01:19:05To be supportive for this family and these boys, Fritz doesn't have to be explicit in pressuring the boys into the ring.
01:19:13All they thought about, talked about, dreamed about, ate about was performance and athletics and wrestling and their careers.
01:19:22It was an all-consuming love, and then dad was always there driving it forward.
01:19:28If it would have worked out, if everybody was still alive, then everybody would be like, well, it's because of his dad.
01:19:35His dad really pushed him, you know.
01:19:37But when it doesn't work out, that's the first place to look for blame.
01:19:44Did you ever blame your dad for what happened?
01:19:46Blame my dad?
01:19:47Well, probably, in a way, I did.
01:19:53I'm so mad that he didn't take my call, you know.
01:19:56But he's lost his sons, you know, and that outweighs anything else, you know.
01:20:04In truth, the real bad guy was us.
01:20:10Our weaknesses and our hearts and our personality.
01:20:16Never quitting, never giving up, no matter what it was, it was a challenge to be overcome.
01:20:21And that mindset maybe did get kind of dangerous toward the end, but that was the way we were raised, and that was the way we think, you know.
01:20:29So, the movie is The Iron Claw, which was this signature move of Fritz von Erich.
01:20:36But in a metaphorical sense, The Iron Claw was this substance addiction, depression, and all these overlying conditions that come for the human being.
01:20:46The tragedy is that they weren't treated, because they could be.
01:20:50Fritz never came out and said he blamed himself, but he acted like he did.
01:20:56He probably wished he'd done something else with the kids and not brought them into the business, not done this, not done that.
01:21:03My dad was so miserable, he would just sit back in his chair and go, oh, God.
01:21:16He wanted to die, and I wanted Dad to die.
01:21:19I wanted it to be over.
01:21:21And Dad one time said, you want me to die?
01:21:24I said, Dad, I want you to quit suffering.
01:21:26I want you to quit suffering.
01:21:28This was not the end of the legend of the Von Erich family.
01:21:36My sons love wrestling.
01:21:41They want to be a wrestler just like I wanted to be like my dad.
01:21:44I can't stop it.
01:21:49I feel like my family taught me how to be one of the guys, which is why I became a pro wrestler.
01:21:54So, becoming a pro wrestler, everyone always being like, God, you're just like your dad.
01:22:01Oh, wow, that's like your dad.
01:22:03That's what healed me, is stepping into those shoes, and that's how I can now talk about it.
01:22:11In 2009, our whole family was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and it was a great time.
01:22:18But when you look at the story, and with the deaths like that, there was a time I didn't like a wrestle,
01:22:26but I would have never thought of giving it up.
01:22:29No matter how uncomfortable it was, it was a family business.
01:22:35The love of the brothers, that's what's important to me.
01:22:39I know that I'll see my brothers again.
01:22:46You wanted to marry Miley Cyrus.
01:23:05He was gonna castrate Justin Bieber.
01:23:07My brother wrote letters to try to push Taylor to kill herself.
01:23:12He started sending pictures of my car.
01:23:15Someone banging on the door.
01:23:17What's your name, ma'am?
01:23:18Amanda Bullock.