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00:00When we talk about wrestling in the 80s,
00:05it's hard to imagine how popular the Von Erick brothers were.
00:09Those guys were ready-made.
00:14The Von Erick family could have been the equivalent of the Kennedys.
00:17It was a dynasty. It was a family dynasty.
00:20They were the all-American boys from Texas.
00:22They are real-life Texas heroes in the flesh.
00:25They didn't have to put them in a funny outfit.
00:27They didn't have to give them a different name.
00:29They had the look. They had the physiques.
00:32They had the athletic ability.
00:34They were superheroes in the ring.
00:36But then there was constant bad news.
00:39The Von Ericks could have two legacies.
00:42They could have the legacy of being one of the biggest attractions,
00:46wrestling families in history.
00:48Or they could have the legacy as a cautionary tale.
00:52Von Erick was dead.
00:54Von Erick was seriously injured.
00:57He just couldn't take it anymore.
00:59I've loved the wrestling business all my life, but it's not that important.
01:02Some people say, well, it's just the pressure of the spotlight.
01:05Other celebrities have been unable to cope.
01:10Who knew we were gonna have, you know, four major deaths over the next three years?
01:14During their brief reign, the Von Erick family ascended to wrestling superstardom,
01:21but just as quickly suffered relentless personal tragedy.
01:25In this episode, The Last Surviving Brother reflects on his unimaginable journey.
01:31You know, I wanted to get away from wrestling.
01:45I wanted to get out.
01:46I wanted to be anonymous.
01:48And they say the Pacific Ocean has no memory.
01:52Well, here I am in the smack dab in the middle of it.
01:55Is there any other place in the world you'd rather be than here?
02:00No, this is it.
02:03It's the love and the peace and the harmony.
02:07You couldn't put a price on that, you know?
02:13I think I'm the richest man in the world.
02:17My childhood?
02:18Well, I was an older brother, and so it was a lot of fighting.
02:22I could overdo that power of being a big brother, but...
02:25So I learned not to.
02:27But, man, they adored me, and I adored them.
02:30There was this us against the world kind of thing.
02:32Please don't think I'm in a bad way that I've suffered at all.
02:36I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.
02:39These are some hunting pictures.
02:41We always hunted with our dad.
02:42These were when we were real young.
02:44We lived in 16 acres in this little shack.
02:48That's how we lived out in the country when dad was wrestling.
02:51And then here's a shot just about two miles from this spot is this farm.
02:57And this is where I raised my voice.
03:01My dad always said,
03:02whatever you put into something is what you get out of it.
03:04He was a really good wrestler, a solid wrestler.
03:07There's no way I can be objective.
03:09I think he was the best of all time.
03:11But he was a vicious wrestler.
03:16My father, you know, wanted something different.
03:19If you want to be a bad guy, you'll be the best.
03:22And so as far as my dad was concerned, a Nazi was about the most despised creature could be.
03:29And he became, he was a Nazi.
03:31Let's find Eric from Berlin, Germany.
03:33Here we go.
03:34He could create a lot of heat just coming across as the German hit the ring and was going to beat up all the Americans.
03:41My connection with the Von Erich family is I was Rich's right hand man.
03:45Rich was the main event.
03:47He was a huge star in the 50s and 60s all over the country.
03:52If you're wondering what qualifies me to be a pro wrestling expert, it's simple.
03:55Almost 50 years of obsessive collecting, hoarding and research.
04:00So Fritz had gotten the reputation as the toughest guy in Texas.
04:04As little kids, our dad being the bad guy, we didn't see it that way.
04:10So watching wrestling to us was torment.
04:13You know, when the crowd was cheering, we knew that was bad.
04:16Because without a doubt, he was the most hated villain of all wrestling.
04:21And so one brother would have to watch while other brothers would cover our ears and eyes and, you know, wouldn't look.
04:27And the other brother would say, Dad's winning.
04:30So we'd start watching again, you know, we were so into it.
04:36Fritz also developed the iron claw.
04:38The master of the iron claw applies it as only he can.
04:42The claw is a hole that my dad invented.
04:44The crazy thing about it is that after years and years of doing the claw, you get scary, crazy good at it.
04:55You just grab and you do this, you know, squeeze the guy in the temples with your big hands.
04:59You just, that's it.
05:01My name is Dave Meltzer and I've been writing the Wrestling Observer Newsletter since 1982.
05:06So it's been pretty much my entire life.
05:08Fritz Von Erich was actually wanting to get out of wrestling and raise his family and do a lot less traveling.
05:14It was always the goal of wrestlers in those days to buy a territory, become a promoter.
05:19That's where the real money was.
05:20Fritz had a big office and he's the boss and he's the promoter with world-class championship wrestling.
05:25But he was also a very strong business person.
05:28Almost every wrestler that became a promoter, you wanted your sons to be great wrestlers so they can be the stars of the next generation.
05:35I don't know that even if he realized how big of stars they were going to be.
05:40We got into wrestling because we wanted to be like our dad.
05:44I was born into wrestling.
05:47One good thing about being brothers, we knew exactly what was going on was beautiful.
05:52Almost should be illegal what an upper hand we had on other teams.
05:56Because you know exactly what they're thinking.
05:58It was a perfect storm.
05:59The young Von Erich boys had debuted, had gotten a couple years experience.
06:03They looked great.
06:04People knew them and all of a sudden now they're on this new looking program.
06:07They were household names.
06:09Everybody knew who they were.
06:10All of a sudden we're the number one show at 9 o'clock in the morning on Sunday mornings.
06:14They said well let's cover this like a sporting event.
06:17They would have the cameraman and they would have the sound guy like actually in the ring.
06:21You know during the tapings and you look at it and go like what's he doing in the ring?
06:25Because no other company would ever do that.
06:27We literally set the stage of where wrestling would go.
06:30They came up with a comic book where there's some bad guys that are trying to take over the universe.
06:35And they need the Von Erichs because our hearts are so good.
06:38So that was just we just cleaned up space a little bit.
06:40You know just the riff-raff.
06:42The girls just went nuts.
06:49There's no telling what magazine you would see them in.
06:51They were teenage hot throbs.
06:52They were teen idols.
06:53There's Kevin, Carrie, Dave.
06:57Going to the ring would be like a madhouse.
06:59The girls would cry about us you know and of course you got to keep going.
07:02And so pretty soon your shoulders are just you know scratched all up and bleeding you know.
07:07And the place would just go electric.
07:09I mean your ears ring when you go home from that shrill scream.
07:13That was what we shot for.
07:14We wanted that feeling, that intensity to stay that way until it was over.
07:18Carrie was the star. Carrie had the movie star looks, had the physique.
07:22He had great personality, just charisma.
07:27I've never seen anybody that had his strength.
07:30David was the best performer in the ring all around.
07:33Psychology, movement, etc. Athletically.
07:35David used to go to the ring with the big yellow rose and he was considered the yellow rose of Texas.
07:39Dave was a technician. There was no other holes you could surprise him with.
07:46Kevin I think was the athlete.
07:48He was just insane the things he could do.
07:51He was probably by far the best raw athlete of the bunch.
07:54Then Mike, Mike didn't have the size as the other brothers.
07:58He was real close with his little brother Chris.
08:00Chris, funny, funny guy. Just loved life.
08:04The Von Eriks epitomized God, family and country.
08:09They're heroes.
08:10Completely more popular than movie stars and more accessible.
08:14From the time the kids were young, if they won an award in school, athletic award, it was talked about on the television show.
08:21And they were in wrestling magazines with pictures out hunting or fishing out in Lake Dallas with their famous father.
08:28They grew up in the public eye.
08:30They grew up on television.
08:32That's a lot of pressure.
08:33I'd like to say that it was, you know, clean cut guys.
08:37But I think people realized we were human.
08:39But you could guarantee us that we had pure hearts and we had good motives.
08:44And maybe that was something real about us, that we were a family.
08:47And we did love each other and care and regard our fans as so many people and not tickets.
08:53And so to their fans, they were more members of the family in some cases.
08:58There's something about those boys, everyone of them, that everyone loves them and I love them.
09:03So literally it was almost like I think everyone felt like they were the parents.
09:06And they had watched these kids grow up.
09:08They were busy on the road because you've got to realize it's a 365 day job.
09:12In other words, these guys were wrestling everywhere, sometimes two times a day.
09:16The talks were already out there that David could be one of the top prospects to be the next World NWA Champion.
09:25David was the worker.
09:27Everybody universally said that.
09:29He would have been the guy of the NWA pick.
09:31Even before Dave went to Japan, he was sitting with my mother at the table and I said,
09:36Dave, I just had that really bad feeling.
09:38I said, they're looking at him and it was looking more and more pale to me.
09:43I got a phone call and was asleep.
09:47To this day, I can't stand a phone call before daylight.
09:51It just tears me up.
09:54This voice says, David Manning, Joe Higuchi, All Japan Pro Wrestling, David Von Eric dead.
10:02And here is after my first knee surgery.
10:14After my third knee surgery, my knees were shot and then I'd have to give up football.
10:19I guess Dave was in his comic relief.
10:21My parents, they knew how much I loved football.
10:23And so I said, Dave, be careful what you say to him.
10:25He just got the worst news of his life.
10:27He can't play football.
10:28And Dave comes and said, so I heard you're a quitter.
10:32When Dave died, I never got up from that all the way.
10:36It hit me like no other one did.
10:39I say I was the oldest brother, but I was the second son.
10:44Our oldest brother was Jackie.
10:46They lived in a trailer park because since they were always on the road,
10:49they had a house trailer that they could move from place to place.
10:52You know, Jack was actually coming home from school and it had snowed.
10:56I think he was six years old.
10:58And as he was trying to step over the tongue or go around the tongue of a trailer,
11:02he touched it.
11:03Somehow it electrocuted him.
11:05And he fell in the snow face first and drowned.
11:07I was looking for him, you know, a little three-year-old kid looking for him.
11:13And I knew something was bad.
11:16And I was like watching it.
11:17My parents, they were all crying.
11:20And Jackie had been electrocuted.
11:25Came in and saw my dad punch a car window and just shattered it.
11:28He came out of that different.
11:30He was still an honorable man to the outside.
11:34But I think inside he wanted to die.
11:36He was suffering.
11:37He think, what have I done to deserve this?
11:40He was at war with the world.
11:42He wanted to make everyone suffer like him.
11:45It was the first of unimaginable tragedy that that one family had to go through.
11:50When it came to David Von Erich, you know, getting the news that he passed away,
11:55it was about 2 in the morning.
11:58And the phone rang and picked up the phone.
12:01And this voice says, David Von Erich dead.
12:05And I said, so what happened?
12:08We find in room dead.
12:10It's 2.30 in the morning and I'm trying to decide how do I get this news.
12:13Back then there weren't cell phones.
12:15And so I got in my car and I'll never forget, it was just coming daylight.
12:18And as I pulled in, I could see Fritz in front of the motor coach in the window.
12:23And I got out of the car and I walked to the door and he opened the door to the motor coach
12:28and he looked at me and he said, which one?
12:32So I think he knew for me to go all the way down there, it's something very, very serious.
12:37I said, Fritz, they just called me from Japan. David's dead.
12:44My mother, she'd been told and she just had went running off into the woods.
12:48It was barely daybreak.
12:49My dad just walked outside and stared in the sky.
12:53I went a little bit crazy.
12:55I didn't want to see anybody.
12:56I had to be in the woods and I stayed in the woods too.
13:01Fritz said, you go to town, you make the phone calls, you find out what happened to my boy.
13:05I managed to get a hold of Brody, who was also a, you know, legendary wrestler, popular in Japan.
13:11Brody said that when they opened the door, the way he was laying, it looked like he was trying to get to the phone.
13:17I knew Brody always to be so tough and such a strong, good man, but when he was telling me, he was like, he couldn't talk, you know.
13:27He's crying inside. I never saw Brody cry.
13:30He goes, I said, Frank, don't think about it. Don't think about it, Frank.
13:34And he goes, he's dead, Kevin, Frank. God, it was terrible.
13:41The next day after David died, you know, going to the mall in Wichita Falls, Texas, and you see like these like teenage girls and they're all crying and the guys are consoling them.
13:51It was a big frickin' deal in that part of the country.
13:54It was almost like the fans had lost a son.
13:57I mean, it was emotional on two continents because the Japanese fans were so hung up in wrestling that when a big name foreign wrestler dies on their soil, I mean, there was memorials and the guys were broken up.
14:09I remember that airplane coming in with Dave's coffin on it.
14:13Well, no one would look us in the eye because they knew we all hurt. We hurt so bad. And people hurt for us, too.
14:20The funeral was just insane. It was like one of those old funerals of the silent movie stars.
14:26There was a lot of wrestlers right here in this area. When they went to the funeral, the tears flowed. It was hard to take.
14:32And so we estimated probably four to five thousand people showed up for this service.
14:38It was just beautiful, an expression of love. The schools let out. The Texas legislature convened. It was like Texas got hurt that day.
14:47You couldn't get anybody else in. They literally had to put a screen outside and speakers outside for the thousands of people that were there.
14:57I didn't know that we were that big, I guess.
15:01Inside the business, we heard that he passed away in his hotel room in Japan. That generally only means one thing.
15:10There's all this word out that he overdosed, but there's no doubt that he didn't.
15:15One of the biggest rumors out there was that when Brody found him, Brody threw away all the pills.
15:20And we waited to hear that autopsy report. Prince was adamant. I want to know what the autopsy says.
15:26And whatever it says, that's what we're going to have to put out.
15:29And it came back, acute enteritis. His intestines basically from an infection swole up to the point they ruptured.
15:37His body filled up with blood and heart failure.
15:39About two days or a day before he was going to leave to go to Japan, he was throwing up.
15:44Fritz was very stern about, you make the shows you're booked at. So he left and went over there.
15:49I'm telling you what really happened. We're not big shots that told us the country of Japan to falsify those documents.
15:56You know, I'm a wrestler. You're not going to listen to me for that.
16:00It was gastroenteritis. A terrible way to die. And we lost him.
16:05Every man's going to die. But we do our best. We do our best until that day comes.
16:25We had a guy named Glenn Goza, and he had wrote Heaven Needs a Champion.
16:30And he literally put a song of, there's a main event taking place in Heaven, and God brought David Von Erich there to be the star.
16:37You wore the family name of pride.
16:41David Von Erich, as a person and as a wrestler, was a true champion.
16:45He had a great gift, and he knew how to take it to its fullest.
16:50After David's funeral, Fritz would hold the Parade of Champions event in his son's honor,
16:56which at the time attracted the largest crowd ever to watch a wrestling event in the United States.
17:02There will be a new World Heavyweight Champion crowd on that afternoon.
17:08The brother of David Von Erich, Kerry, was going to challenge Nature Boy Ric Flair for the NWA World Championship that had always eluded the Von Erich family.
17:18And this time he said, I'm going to win it for David.
17:21We were adamant. With the NWA, National Wrestling Alliance, we had to switch that title.
17:27I think that's where we saw Fritz had some clout.
17:30The dream of my brother is now my reality.
17:33Leading up to that match, we knew it was going to be big. We didn't know how big.
17:37But all of a sudden, you got 42-plus thousand people at Texas Stadium, and they're there to see one thing, that title change.
17:48Your referee is David Manning.
17:50Here I knew I was going to go down in the record books. The title was changing that night.
17:54I was super happy for Kerry. I thought he'd make a great champion.
17:58Here we go.
17:59It was incredible.
18:01And it's an Iron Claw! You can feel the tension.
18:07And whenever that one, two, three...
18:15The whole place just went nuts.
18:18And then you got Kevin hitting the ring. You got Fritz hitting the ring.
18:22You can see Doris in the background. I'm presenting the belt. The media's going crazy.
18:26We had all the radio stations there.
18:28The other rose in honor of Brother David.
18:31It was a great night. You know, bitter, sweet and all. Sweet, sweet.
18:35That was probably a bigger deal to the Von Erich boys than it was to Fritz himself and to the fans.
18:42With Kerry's championship win and a strong emotional bond with fans, world-class championship wrestling was now on fire.
18:51But with David gone, there was a void to fill.
18:54Fritz wanted to replace David because we were missing a piece of the puzzle.
18:59And we decided to look for another Von Erich.
19:03Whenever I saw Lance, he was the perfect guy. He was chiseled. He looked like he could be a Von Erich.
19:08It was a terrible idea. We had never lied to our people.
19:12It really hurt their image and it started the downward spiral going a little bit quicker.
19:17They knew he wasn't a real Von Erich. They're lying to us.
19:22To the Lance.
19:25Growing up, of course, we wanted to be just like him. He's like real-life Tarzan, you know, climbing trees.
19:34Any river he sees, he gets out of the car, he'll dive in it, doesn't care what's in it.
19:38We saw that fearlessness in every situation, not only in the ring, but in life.
19:43And that's what we wanted to be like. And we're just grateful to God that we can follow in the footsteps.
19:50And doors are opening in wrestling. And we get to pick up where the Von Erichs left off.
19:56Kevin and I talk. I go to Hawaii and see him. He's got two great boys now, Marshall and Ross.
20:02Gosh, they're so talented. And when I look at them, I see the brothers.
20:06You're just kind of crazy.
20:08Thanks, sir.
20:09Can you tell us the story about Lance Von Erich?
20:12Yeah, uh, Kerry and I were dead set against that.
20:16Of all of the angles that happened in the final years of world-class wrestling, Lance Von Erich was the worst.
20:23They needed another Von Erich. Overall, it did a lot more damage than it did good.
20:28And then when they got on the outs with Lance and tried to disown him, the fans just said,
20:33well, you're the ones that brought him and sold him to us.
20:36That's where I think people lost a lot of faith.
20:38I have to say, Kevin was dead set against it.
20:40He felt it could get exposed and that Mike would be able to step up and take the role.
20:46People shouldn't say that Mike was an athlete because he sure was.
20:49Mike was an incredible athlete.
20:52The fourth Von Erich is getting ready to start wrestling.
20:57Mike got involved in wrestling and he wanted to have the size as the other brothers.
21:01And he worked out hard.
21:03You know, he had the drive, he had the stamina, so it was hard for Mike.
21:07Mike was a great guy, but he wasn't cut out to be a wrestler.
21:11Mike had to walk in there and be David Von Erich and be a main event wrestler at 19, 20 years old.
21:16And he wasn't a great athlete.
21:18The only thing he had going for him is that he was called Mike Von Erich.
21:22I mean, he just didn't look like a wrestler at all.
21:25And he's in there with like Ric Flair and these big, great wrestlers who are just carrying him in these matches that are just painful in a sense to watch.
21:32The injuries did bother him, you know.
21:35He was wrestling in Tel Aviv and against Gino Hernandez.
21:39Gino pulled just when he wasn't ready and out it came and this time it tore a lot of ligaments.
21:46Only a year after David's death, Mike dislocates his shoulder in the ring and is rushed to an Israeli hospital.
21:53They perform emergency surgery and soon after, Mike is flown back to Texas.
21:59They literally took him home and all of a sudden his temperature is sky high.
22:04The fever hitting went over 105 is what did the damage, I think.
22:08I put him over my shoulder and walked down the steps with him and put him in the car and took off.
22:13Mike Von Erich, hospitalized for routine shoulder surgery, sustained a staph infection that escalated into toxic shock syndrome.
22:21It was toxic shock syndrome, what they called it.
22:26And the doctor comes out and he said his blood pressure has plummeted and his organs are starting to shut down.
22:31He said, we've done everything we can do.
22:34He said, I don't think Mike's going to make it through the night.
22:37They told us to say goodbye to him.
22:40The hospital was getting like 250 calls an hour where they had to hire one extra staff.
22:46People had been offering to donate their liver and their kidneys.
22:51We were in the room and Gary Holder, who was considered the chaplain of world class, was there in the room.
22:57Gary Holder said, God, you stand on your word.
23:01You said anything we ask in Jesus name, I will do it.
23:06That's when I didn't even look up.
23:08I thought, that's disrespectful. You went too far.
23:11He took the Bible and he slammed it down on the table.
23:14And he said, God, there is your word.
23:16So keep your word, God.
23:18And it was less than 30 seconds after Gary finished praying.
23:22The doors opened.
23:23Bill Sutker came in the room with this other doctor.
23:26And his exact words were, I'm not sure what happened, but everything's functioning.
23:32His temperature has dropped.
23:34So let's see where we're at.
23:36They couldn't believe it, but he's a fighter.
23:39And I want to thank everyone out there, all my good neighbors, for your prayers.
23:44One week later, we rolled Mike out of the hospital.
23:46He might have rushed it a little bit.
23:48He was so anxious to get back.
23:49And so we did a big press conference.
23:52I know I'll be back.
23:55I can't wait till the carnival show. I'm going to be there.
23:59Do you have a message for your fans?
24:02Yeah, be at that carnival show if they want to see me back for the very first time.
24:07I saw on TV, well, Mike's going to come back.
24:10And they were milking to it and trying to get people interested in it.
24:13I just didn't see how it was going to work.
24:16And when he first came back, I was like, God, I don't know if he should come back and wrestle.
24:19He probably shouldn't have wrestled to begin with.
24:21He looked really gaunt and hollow.
24:25I wondered if there was brain damage.
24:27And that's when he attacked a stoplight, attacked a parked car one time.
24:32Just rages, you know, nobody in the parked car.
24:35But they always wanted a feel good story at the end.
24:39And it always worked when it was stuff that they could write.
24:42But when it was real life and they couldn't control it, it didn't work.
24:47You got to realize when Mike came on the scene, the brothers were superstars.
24:52So all of a sudden you had big shoes to fill.
24:54And I think that was a lot of pressure that went on Mike.
24:57And early Saturday morning, Von Erick was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and possession of marijuana.
25:03The Von Erick family attorney assisted Mike during his release from jail.
25:07He would be the last person to see him alive.
25:10Mike missed an event. If you were Von Erick, you didn't miss an event.
25:13I remember that night. I wondered where Mike was, what he was thinking.
25:18They had a bulletin out everywhere, had all the police looking.
25:22And it was, I want to say, two days, maybe three, before they found Mike.
25:27The news of another tragic death in the Von Erick family has hit hard.
25:30Mike had not been seen since Saturday and reportedly was depressed about being arrested the night before.
25:35As his mother and brother looked on, the family's worst fears were confirmed.
25:39Professional wrestler Mike Von Erick is dead, the apparent victim of suicide.
25:44He overdosed. So sad. Everybody was just so sad. Dave and now Mike.
25:54Yo, I didn't know this thing was going to get so emotional. Maybe I got... I died.
25:59These are three big things, I guess.
26:02So you guys, could I take another break for just about ten minutes?
26:07Oh, yeah, of course.
26:09That was taxing.
26:12And once again, another Von Erick brother is called upon to step into the ring.
26:17Chris Von Erick was the worst part of the whole thing because he had had health problems.
26:22I'm sure he wanted to be like his brothers because his brothers were his heroes.
26:26Kevin was actually helping Chris work out. He had to work ten times harder than everybody else.
26:30His body wasn't built like his brother's.
26:33He wanted to be a wrestler so bad. It's just not going to happen.
26:37The Von Ericks were believable heroes to thousands of fans.
26:42But continual misfortune chipped away at their image.
26:46And they would have one last desperate attempt to revive it.
26:51My brothers taught me about wrestling, but I taught them about eating.
26:58Mike was really something special.
27:00I thought you were full. These are for dad.
27:03We did a few TV commercials. Shot it all night for a joke.
27:07Kerry puts all these foot products over in my thing. I didn't even notice it.
27:10This is a gift from a fan out here. Really old picture.
27:14We loved our fans and to this day the most loyal people in the world.
27:19We wanted to be like good and be good examples to kids.
27:23And, you know, after Dave's death and Mike's death, you feel like you're letting everybody down.
27:29It's really hard.
27:31With this being the third death in the family and being such a strong Christian family,
27:35I think the first thing everybody wants to do is question.
27:37Well, if they're such strong Christians, why is all this happening to them?
27:40I'm not saying that the boys didn't believe in God and weren't religious.
27:43They just sometimes didn't do things outside the ring that way.
27:46And I don't mean they were terrorizing the population.
27:48They were damaging themselves more than anybody else.
27:51But because they were so closely identified as not only being Texas All-Americans,
27:55but God-fearing Texas All-Americans when things came out about car wrecks or suicides
28:01or is there drugs involved in these things or whatever.
28:04Every move was covered by the newspapers.
28:07The Dallas Times, Herald, the local television stations.
28:10And you could tell when you watch the television show.
28:12You're seeing more empty seats.
28:14You know, like, look, they were huge in 86 and by 88, 89, they were pretty bad off.
28:20After so much tragedy and with a family legacy in jeopardy,
28:25Fritz's youngest son, Chris, steps into the ring attempting to pick up
28:30where his brothers left off.
28:32I think Chris felt bad.
28:33He wanted to try to fulfill the shoes.
28:36It was almost impossible to fill based on his size.
28:39The first I remember of Chris was, you know, just being like a little celebrity.
28:43The goal was to hopefully find a way to get Chris involved into the matches.
28:47If he was going to wrestle, I wanted to have him a really good ground game,
28:50know all the escapes and counters and to be a technician.
28:54Physically, in no way should he have been involved in wrestling.
28:57Because of his size, I think he had asthma.
29:00He had brittle bones because of the asthma medication that he took.
29:03It was really hard for him.
29:05I wanted to have the big muscles and all that, but muscles are just looks.
29:10You've got to have agility, explosive, balance, the snap,
29:14all these things that just didn't happen for him.
29:18And then all of a sudden, Chris broke his arm.
29:23He couldn't work out.
29:24It was a big, big setback.
29:26Kevin was down there.
29:28They were down at the house in Edom.
29:30And Chris was just all upset and depressed and this and that.
29:34He'd loaned me his VCR.
29:36And so he'd call me at like 1230 at night.
29:39I want my VCR back right now.
29:41I said, Chris, come on, wait for the morning, okay?
29:43I'll give it to you in the morning.
29:45And I hear his four-wheeler drive around my house a couple of times and took off.
29:50I knew he had a spot up on the hill he used to go to.
29:54So I drove up there, you know, and he was sitting there by himself.
29:57I said, Chris, what are you doing up here by yourself like this?
30:00He said, what, did you read my note?
30:02And I said, oh, what are you going to do, kill yourself or something, Chris?
30:05Come on now, bud.
30:06I said, Chris, don't do anything crazy, okay?
30:08He said, I won't, Kev, I promise him.
30:10I believed it, you know.
30:13Went back to my parents' house to check his bedroom.
30:17And I said, does Chris ever write suicide notes?
30:20And Dad said, I think you better get up there.
30:23So I did get back up there.
30:25I wish I'd never left.
30:27Because I got there right after it must have happened.
30:31I saw him laying there on the ground, kind of choking.
30:35I said, Chris, what did you do?
30:38I thought he might have took some pills.
30:40Reached, hooked his arm and put my hand under his head to lift him up.
30:44And my thumb, you know, found the hole.
30:47Once I'd realized that he'd shot himself in the head.
30:50Well, yeah, it's tough.
30:57With the last vestiges of the Von Erick family torn apart,
31:01Kerry accepts an offer to go mainstream with the WWL.
31:06It's another chance in the spotlight.
31:09You know what?
31:10When the crowd started dropping here, Kerry was getting big offers.
31:12Would he come up and work for Vince?
31:14Would he make some appearances up there?
31:16Kerry, he took a good offer from Vince and he went up there.
31:20After enduring several tragedies and the decline of his family's wrestling promotion,
31:27Kerry takes the Von Erick legacy to wrestling's biggest stage.
31:31However, no one knew he was wrestling with an unthinkable secret.
31:36This is a school picture.
31:48What a cute little kid.
31:50Were you guys, like, really curious kids?
31:52Like, were you really, like, active?
31:54Kerry and I just showed off for each other all day long, I think.
31:57We just, like, took a chance a day.
32:00It was like, yeah.
32:03A lucrative offer made to Kerry by the WWF was an opportunity to revive the Von Erick name.
32:10However, a secret from his past was slowly catching up with him.
32:14Kerry was supposed to be wrestling that night.
32:17I want to say Austin or somewhere.
32:18I get the phone call.
32:19Kerry's been in an accident.
32:21It's not life-threatening, but he really busted up his leg.
32:25Kerry was riding his motorcycle and ran into the back of a parked police car.
32:29I remember Rick Hazard.
32:30I saw him.
32:31And he said, holy cow.
32:32He said, his ankle looks like an alligator chewed on it.
32:34When they made the decision to amputate, I would have never, ever thought it could be kept secret.
32:41I guess, for its thought, they didn't want to make Kerry look weak, especially after the other tragedies.
32:46So they tried to hide the fact of his foot situation.
32:50He wanted me to promise to hide that.
32:52And we all promised.
32:54Anything we said to each other, if we gave her a word, that's an oath.
32:57We weren't going to let Kerry down because he was ashamed of it.
33:00In Kerry's mind, I'm a fake.
33:04You know, the injury done on this leg before, it was almost to the point where I almost had to have my leg amputated.
33:15Now my leg is back. It's coming on strong.
33:17Everyone was sworn to secrecy over about a five-year period there.
33:21He would do everything that a person with both limbs would do.
33:25I think that would have just been such a testimonial.
33:28And I was proud of Kerry to come back like that and not only just compete, but to impress people.
33:35They could have presented it like that, and maybe he would have been a little bit more inspirational.
33:39Maybe it would have made him feel better.
33:40But instead, it was another thing he had to hide, and it was another thing that was probably weighing on him mentally.
33:46Now I'll never be as good as I could be. I'll never make my dad proud, whatever the case may be.
33:52With his transition to wrestling's grandest stage, Kerry found himself a small fish in a big pond.
33:58But with a new identity, it was a chance to reboot his career.
34:02Vince brings in Kerry Von Erich, the modern day warrior.
34:05You know, it was one of the biggest superstars of that period.
34:08I mean, it was like he still had the physique, but introducing him at that stage of the game to a national audience when he was physically limited, it just wasn't the same.
34:17And he quickly drops the Von Erich name, tells him you can't do the claw, his name is the Texas Tornado.
34:22And they just call him the Texas Tornado. They didn't even call him Kerry Von Erich.
34:26All he had going for him was that he was Kerry Von Erich.
34:33When he was there, things were going down. I mean, it was not a secret, things were going down.
34:37He had, you know, a series of drug-related issues. He was not happy at all.
34:42Kerry didn't handle the fame while you've seen, but, you know, he's always out with rock and roll people and all.
34:48And I was more of a family man, you know. It's probably just what saved me. I know it saved me.
34:52Kerry was doing drugs. You just knew it.
34:56Once he went through the accident, they immediately fill him up with all these drugs.
35:00They got the painkillers in you, they got the pills they're giving him.
35:04That was not a good path for him.
35:07Because of the drugs, he was on probation at the time, and then he got arrested again.
35:12And, you know, he was afraid because of the probation violation that he was going to go to jail this time.
35:17I remember he went to his wife and said, I'll go to jail if you promise that when I come out of jail you'll take me back.
35:23And she wouldn't promise him that.
35:25He talked about what Chris did in glowing terms.
35:28It's like, can you imagine the guts it took to do what Chris did?
35:31You know, I was like, that's pretty scary when you hear people saying that.
35:34He told me he was going to kill himself.
35:36I said, Kerry, you couldn't do that to me.
35:39He said, what are we going to do then?
35:41I said, we'll do something, but we sure as hell ain't going to die.
35:44He said, I'll tell you what, Kerry, let's, you and me, let's go to Alaska.
35:48Let's take our .44s and let's just get charged by a polar bear.
35:52We got six tries.
35:53But I thought it'll be good for me to get along with Kerry, and there's no drug dealers up there, so it'll be great.
35:59I wish we'd have gone up there with our .44s.
36:02On the morning of February the 17th, 1993, the same day Kerry was scheduled to be indicted on drug charges, he took a drive out to his father's ranch.
36:14Called Dad, and he said, can't talk, busy.
36:16Well, he was pouring a driveway, and I was going to tell him, Kerry's in a bad way.
36:20He's going to head it out to your place and hold him for me until I get there.
36:23I called, tried to call Dad a couple of times and could not get through.
36:28Fritz was continuing on pouring concrete.
36:31Kerry came, walked up, gave him a big hug and said, Dad, I love you.
36:36I really, really love you.
36:38Kerry got in the Jeep and took off in the Jeep.
36:42And so Dad's sitting in the house, wondering why Kerry's been out in the field so long.
36:47He said he went and looked and his pistol was gone.
36:50The .44 he'd given died for Father's Day.
36:53And when he went down, there was a clear out area down there and he saw the Jeep part.
36:58With one glove laying on the seat.
37:01So he knew then what was happening. He had taken the glove.
37:04The shooting hand.
37:06Fritz said he walked back, there was a little row of trees.
37:09And there Kerry was.
37:11He, he was dead.
37:15Shot himself in the heart.
37:17Problems began to pile up.
37:19He just couldn't take it anymore.
37:22Dad found him and he said he'd never seen such a peaceful look on Kerry's face.
37:26Must have hit him just right.
37:28Kevin said the one thing one time almost made me cry.
37:30He said, I used to have five brothers and now I'm not even a brother.
37:35Over all of that, Fritz and Doris had split up.
37:39I thought my dad was taking it like a soldier, you know.
37:42My mom was really getting hit though and she blamed him. It was bad.
37:49The last ten years of his life was not a picture of what I would call hell.
37:53He would have never thought that he would have outlived five of his six sons.
37:57Dad, could you tell the story though of that day when Granddad pointed that gun at you?
38:03Now when he got older he had brain cancer.
38:05You know, it was not making sense.
38:06Some things he said.
38:07He was questioning God.
38:09Well he got that gun out and he pointed the gun at me and he said,
38:12you'd kill yourself too if you had the guts.
38:14I said, Dad, it takes guts to live, not guts to die.
38:19And he pointed the gun at me.
38:20He said, you're afraid, aren't you?
38:21And I said, no, sir.
38:23Got to remember, there's brain cancer involved and I didn't know if he was going to shoot me or not.
38:27I said, Dad, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:30I said, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:33And I jumped out the door because I, I could see his thinking.
38:37I'm not going to let cancer decide if I live or die.
38:40You know what?
38:41I was glad he died.
38:43I want him to quit suffering.
38:45He had seen him suffer too much.
38:47What a good man he was.
38:49Way deserved better than that.
38:52What a good man.
38:55The immortal Fritz von Ares.
39:02Not only have I lost a brother, I lost all of them.
39:06And there was talk about there being a curse on the family.
39:10You know, it was so ridiculous.
39:12You know, curse.
39:13What happened?
39:14It was just terrible.
39:15Just a terrible thing.
39:16But no curse.
39:19So what happened with you after this?
39:21I mean, obviously you went through a really difficult period yourself.
39:24I thought I was doing my best, and I was, but I was mad.
39:29And there was a time I thought that I wanted to die.
39:34You know, I wanted to be dead.
39:35And I knew I wasn't going to kill myself, but I just wanted to fight anyway.
39:40And prison felt like the perfect thing for me.
39:42I was going to steal a gun because I knew how much people hate guns.
39:46If I stole one, that's prison.
39:48Lo and behold, I tried it in a Lubbock gun store with a bunch of good old Texas men in there.
39:55I went to steal that gun, and that old man on the start was looking right at me.
39:59Put it down my pants, and I stiff-legged walked out of there.
40:02Where I stopped and looked at him like, you got something to say?
40:06That's when he just looked at me like an old man.
40:09Didn't say anything for a long time.
40:11Just looked at me, and I looked right into his eyes.
40:15He said, I love you, Kev.
40:18Oh, man.
40:20I said, thank you, sir.
40:23And I went out into my car, and I just thought about the magnitude of what just happened.
40:29And I came back in that store, gave him his rifle and hugged him.
40:34I said, I love you too, sir.
40:36And all those other men were in there.
40:38Man, it was a great day for Texas.
40:40Great day for Von Erich.
40:42I needed that so bad.
40:44I wanted life to get as bad as it could be.
40:50Anyway, I'm so glad it's over.
40:52Save me.
40:56You want to see the story I was telling you about?
40:58Yeah.
41:04This is my desk, my office.
41:19That's here.
41:20Yeah.
41:21My lazy boy lounger here.
41:23How often are you here?
41:25Every day?
41:26Every day?
41:27Uh, I try to.
41:30No, it doesn't.
41:31If I can, I get here every day.
41:33That's right.
41:34I do try to do that.
41:36I wouldn't try it for anything in the world.
41:38The peace I've ever had before.
41:43The more alone you get, the more close you feel to God, it seems like to me.
41:49If I'm scuba diving at night on the bottom of the ocean, I love to turn my light off and just lay on the bottom.
41:56I feel like you think you're far away.
41:59No, you're never.
42:00Oh, God, it's right with me.
42:02I feel it.
42:03I just, I do love it.
42:08Hey, baby.
42:09Hey, you.
42:13Kevin's kids, I've met them all, and they have beautiful kids now.
42:16What I sought for all my life was to be peaceful, and here I am.
42:21Thank you, Lord.
42:22I've never been so happy and peaceful.
42:25There's always kids playing here.
42:27It's, it's the highest and best use for the land, for sure.
42:32He's been through so much chaos and stuff, and so, for him to end up in this kind of, just peaceful environment, you know, with, you know, the animals and everything, he's just like, so at home and just so, you know, he loves it.
42:46I'm lucky in a way that I've found that the only thing that lasts is family.
42:55You see Ross, and you see a little bit of Kerry, and you see Marshall, and you see the athleticism of Kevin, and you see that big body of Dave.
43:05And then in both of them, you see the Von Eric.
43:10And so, um, hey, who knows?
43:13Maybe the story will continue.
43:14Kevin officially retired on July the 17th, 2017.
43:20Wrestling his last match alongside his two sons in Israel, where the Von Eric family name is celebrated to this day.
43:32You know, I've seen the huge crowds.
43:35I've been the guest of honor.
43:37I've been, you know, a celebrity.
43:38I've been what everybody thinks they want.
43:40I've had all that.
43:42I mean, it's not satisfying.
43:44This is all there is.
43:46What is satisfying is dinner with the family, children laughing, real joy.
43:53That's the truth.