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00:30They didn't have to put them in a funny outfit.
00:32They didn't have to give them a different name.
00:34They had the look.
00:35They had the physiques.
00:37They had the athletic ability.
00:39They were superheroes in the ring.
00:41But then there was constant bad news.
00:45The Von Erichs could have two legacies.
00:47They could have the legacy of being one of the biggest attractions, wrestling families in history.
00:53Or they could have the legacy as a cautionary tale.
00:57Von Erich is definitely a parent.
00:59Von Erich was found dead and Erich was seriously injured at him.
01:02He just couldn't take it anymore.
01:03I've loved the wrestling business all my life, but it's not that important.
01:07Some people say, well, it's just the pressure of the spotlight.
01:10Other celebrities have been unable to cope.
01:12Who knew we were going to have, you know, four major deaths over the next three years?
01:20During their brief reign, the Von Erich family ascended to wrestling superstardom.
01:26But just as quickly suffered a relentless personal tragedy.
01:29In this episode, The Last Surviving Brother reflects on his unimaginable journey.
01:36You know, I wanted to get away from wrestling.
01:50I wanted to get out.
01:50I wanted to be anonymous.
01:52And they say the Pacific Ocean has no memory.
01:57Well, here I am in the smack dab in the middle of it.
02:02Is there any other place in the world you'd rather be than here?
02:05No, this is it.
02:06It's the love and the peace and the harmony.
02:12That's, you couldn't put a price on that, you know.
02:17I think I'm the richest man in the world.
02:21My childhood, well, I was an older brother, and so it was a lot of fighting.
02:26I could overdo that power of being a big brother, but, so I learned not to.
02:31But, man, they adored me, and I adored them.
02:34There was this us against the world kind of thing.
02:37Please, don't think I'm in a bad way that I've suffered at all.
02:41I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.
02:44These are some hunting pictures.
02:45We always hunted with our dad.
02:47These are when we were real young.
02:49We lived in little, it's 16 acres in this little shack.
02:53That's how we lived out in the country when dad was wrestling.
02:56And then here's a shot just about two miles from this spot is this farm.
03:02And this is where I raised my voice.
03:04My dad always said, whatever you put into something is what you get out of it.
03:09He was a really good wrestler, a solid wrestler.
03:12There's no way I can be objective.
03:14I think he was the best of all time.
03:16But he was a vicious wrestler.
03:18My father, you know, wanted something different.
03:24If you want to be a bad guy, you'll be the best.
03:27And so, as far as my dad was concerned, a Nazi was about the most despised creature could be.
03:33And he became, he was a Nazi.
03:35He could create a lot of heat just coming across as the German hit the ring and was going to beat up all the Americans.
03:46My connection with the Von Erich family is I was Rich's right-hand man.
03:50Rich was the main event.
03:51He was a huge star in the 50s and 60s all over the country.
03:56If you're wondering what qualifies me to be a pro wrestling expert, it's simple.
04:00Almost 50 years of obsessive collecting, hoarding, and research.
04:04So Fritz had gotten the reputation as the toughest guy in Texas.
04:08As little kids, our dad being the bad guy, we didn't see it that way.
04:15So watching wrestling to us was torment.
04:17You know, when the crowd was cheering, we knew that was bad.
04:21Because without a doubt, he was the most hated villain of all wrestling.
04:25And so one brother would have to watch while other brothers would cover our ears and eyes and, you know, wouldn't look.
04:32And the other brothers would say, Dad's winning.
04:34And so we'd start watching again, you know, we were so into it.
04:40Fritz also developed the Iron Claw.
04:43The master of the Iron Claw applies it as only he can.
04:46The claw is a hole that my dad invented.
04:48The crazy thing about it is that after years and years of doing the claw, you get scary, crazy good at it.
04:59You just grab and you do this, you know, squeeze the guy in the temples with your big hands.
05:03You just, that's it.
05:06My name is Dave Meltzer, and I've been writing the Wrestling Observer Newsletter since 1982.
05:11So it's been pretty much my entire life.
05:13Fritz Von Erich was actually wanting to get out of wrestling and raise his family and do a lot less traveling.
05:20It was always the goal of wrestlers in those days to buy a territory, become a promoter.
05:24That's where the real money was.
05:25Fritz had a big office, and he's the boss, and he's the promoter with world-class championship wrestling.
05:30But he was also a very strong business person.
05:32Almost every wrestler that became a promoter, he wanted your sons to be great wrestlers so they can be the stars of the next generation.
05:40I don't know that even if he realized how big of stars they were going to be.
05:44We got into wrestling because we wanted to be like our dad.
05:49I was born into wrestling.
05:50One good thing about being brothers, we knew exactly what was going on was beautiful.
05:56Almost should be illegal what an upper hand we had on other teams.
06:01Because you know exactly what they're thinking.
06:03It was a perfect storm.
06:04The young Von Erich boys had debuted, had gotten a couple years' experience.
06:08They looked great.
06:09People knew them, and all of a sudden now they're on this new-looking program.
06:12They were household names.
06:13Everybody knew who they were.
06:15All of a sudden we're the number one show at 9 o'clock in the morning on Sunday mornings.
06:19They said, well let's cover this like a sporting event.
06:21They would have the cameraman and they would have the sound of the guy like actually in the ring.
06:26You know, during the tapings, you look at it and go like, what's he doing in the ring?
06:30Because no other company would ever do that.
06:31We literally set the stage of where wrestling would go.
06:34They came up with a comic book where there's some bad guys that are trying to take over the universe
06:40and they need the Von Erichs because our hearts are so good.
06:43So that was just, we just cleaned up space a little bit.
06:45You know, it's just a riff-raff.
06:47The girls just went nuts.
06:53There's no telling what magazine you would see them in.
06:55They were teenage hot throbs.
06:56They were teen idols.
06:57Kevin, Carrie, Dave.
07:01Going to the ring would be like a madhouse.
07:03The girls would cry about us, you know, and of course you've got to keep going.
07:07And so pretty soon your shoulders are just, you know, scratched all up and bleeding, you know.
07:11And the place would just go electric.
07:14I mean, your ears ring when you go home from that shrill scream.
07:18That was what we shot for.
07:19We wanted that feeling, that intensity to stay that way until it was over.
07:23Carrie was the star.
07:24Carrie had the movie star looks, had the physique.
07:27He had great personality, just charisma.
07:29I've never seen anybody that had his strength.
07:35David was the best performer in the ring all around, psychology, movement, etc., athletically.
07:41David used to go to the ring with the big yellow rose, and he was considered the yellow rose of Texas.
07:45Dave was a technician.
07:47There was not a hold you could surprise him with.
07:50Kevin, I think, was the athlete.
07:53He was just insane, the things he could do.
07:55He was probably by far the best raw athlete of the bunch.
07:59Then Mike, Mike didn't have the size as the other brothers.
08:03He was real close with his little brother, Chris.
08:05Chris, funny, funny guy.
08:08Just loved life.
08:09The Von Erichs epitomized God, family, and country.
08:14They're heroes.
08:15Completely more popular than movie stars, and more accessible.
08:19From the time the kids were young, if they won an award in school, athletic award, it was talked about on the television show.
08:26And they were in wrestling magazines with pictures out hunting or fishing out in Lake Dallas with their famous father.
08:33They grew up in the public eye.
08:35They grew up on television.
08:37That's a lot of pressure.
08:38I'd like to say that it was, you know, clean-cut guys, but I think people realized we were human.
08:44But you could guarantee us that we had pure hearts, and we had good motives, and maybe that was something real about us, that we were a family.
08:52And we did love each other and care and regard our fans as so many people and not tickets.
08:58And so to their fans, they were more members of the family in some cases.
09:03There's something about those boys, every one of them, that everyone loves them, and I love them.
09:08So literally, it was almost like I think everyone felt like they were the parents.
09:12And they had watched these kids grow up.
09:13They were busy on the road, because you've got to realize, it's a 365-day job.
09:17In other words, these guys were wrestling everywhere, sometimes two times a day.
09:20The talks were already out there that David could be one of the top prospects to be the next World NWA champion.
09:30David was the worker.
09:31Everybody universally said that.
09:33He would have been the guy the NWA picked.
09:35Even before Dave went to Japan, he was sitting with my mother at the table, and I said, Dave, I just had that really bad feeling.
09:43I said, they're looking at him, and it was looking more and more pale to me.
09:48I got a phone call and was asleep.
09:51To this day, I can't stand a phone call before daylight.
09:56It just tears me up.
09:59This voice says, David Manning, Joe Higuchi, All Japan Pro Wrestling.
10:05David Von Erich dead.
10:06And here is after my first knee surgery.
10:19On my third knee surgery, my knees were shot, and then I had to give up football.
10:24I guess Dave was in his comic relief.
10:26My parents, they knew how much I loved football, and so I said, Dave, be careful what you say to him.
10:30He's just got the worst news of his life.
10:31He can't play football.
10:32And Dave comes and said, so I heard you're a quitter.
10:35When Dave died, I never got up from that all the way.
10:41It hit me like no other one did.
10:44I say I was the oldest brother, but I was the second son.
10:49Our oldest brother was Jackie.
10:51They lived in a trailer park because since they were always on the road, they had a house trailer that they could move from place to place.
10:57You know, Jack was actually coming home from school, and it had snowed.
11:00I think he was six years old, and as he was trying to step over the tongue or go around the tongue of a trailer, he touched it.
11:08Somehow it electrocuted him, and he fell in the snow face first and drowned.
11:12I was looking for him, you know, a little three-year-old kid, looking for him, and I knew something was bad, and I was like watching it.
11:22My parents, they were all crying, and Jackie had been electrocuted.
11:27He came in and saw my dad punch the car window and just shattered it.
11:33He came out of that different.
11:36He was still an honorable man to the outside, but I think inside he wanted to die.
11:41He was suffering.
11:42He think, what have I done to deserve this?
11:45He was at war with the world.
11:47He wanted to make everyone suffer like him.
11:50It was the first of unimaginable tragedy that that one family had to go through.
11:55When it came to David Von Erich, you know, getting the news that he passed away, it was about 2 in the morning, and the phone rang, and I picked up the phone, and this voice says, David Von Erich dead.
12:10And I said, so what happened?
12:13We find in room dead.
12:15It's 2.30 in the morning, and I'm trying to decide how do I get this news.
12:18Back then, there weren't cell phones, and so I got in my car, and I'll never forget.
12:22It was just coming daylight, and as I pulled in, I could see Fritz in front of the motor coach in the window, and I got out of the car, and I walked to the door, and he opened the door to the motor coach, and he looked at me, and he said, which one?
12:36So I think he knew for me to go all the way down there, it's something very, very serious.
12:42I said, Fritz, they just called me from Japan.
12:44David's dead.
12:48My mother, she'd been told, and she just had went running off into the woods.
12:52It was barely daybreak.
12:54My dad just walked outside and stared in the sky.
12:58I went a little bit crazy.
12:59I didn't want to see anybody.
13:01I had to be in the woods, and I stayed in the woods, too.
13:04Fritz said, you go to town, you make the phone calls, you find out what happened to my boy.
13:10I managed to get a hold of Brody, who was also a legendary wrestler, popular in Japan.
13:16Brody said that when they opened the door, the way he was laying, it looked like he was trying to get to the phone.
13:21I 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.
13:32He's crying inside.
13:33I never saw Brody cry.
13:35He goes, I said, Frank, don't think about it.
13:37Don't think about it, Frank.
13:38And he goes, he's dead, Kevin, Frank.
13:43God, it was terrible.
13:46The next day after David died, you know, going to the mall in which I was, Texas, and you see, like, these, like, teenage girls, and they're all crying, and the guys are consoling them.
13:55It was a big freaking deal in that part of the country.
13:58It was almost like the fans had lost a son.
14:00I 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.
14:14I remember that airplane coming in with Dave's coffin on it.
14:17Well, no one would look us in the eye, because they knew we all hurt.
14:21We hurt so bad.
14:23And people hurt for us, too.
14:24The funeral was just insane.
14:27It was like one of those old funerals of the silent movie stars.
14:30There was a lot of wrestlers right here in this area.
14:32When they went to the funeral, the tears flowed.
14:34It was hard to take.
14:36And so we estimated probably 4,000 to 5,000 people showed up for this service.
14:42It was just beautiful.
14:43An expression of love.
14:45The schools let out.
14:46The Texas legislature convened.
14:48It was like Texas got hurt that day.
14:52You couldn't get anybody else in.
14:53And they literally had to put a screen outside and speakers outside for the thousands of people that were there.
15:02I didn't know that we were that big, I guess.
15:06Inside the business, we heard that he'd passed away in his hotel room in Japan.
15:11And that generally only means one thing.
15:15There's all this word out that he overdosed, but there's no doubt that he didn't.
15:20One of the biggest rumors out there was that when Brody found him, Brody threw away all the pills.
15:25And we waited to hear that autopsy report.
15:28Fritz was adamant.
15:29I want to know what the autopsy says.
15:31And whatever it says, that's what we're going to have to put out.
15:34And it came back, acute enteritis.
15:37His intestines, basically from an infection, swole up to the point they ruptured.
15:42His body filled up with blood and heart failure.
15:44About two days or a day before he was going to leave to go to Japan, he was throwing up.
15:49Fritz was very stern about, you make the shows you're booked at.
15:52So he left and went over there.
15:54Now I'm telling you what really happened.
15:56We're not big shots that told us the country of Japan to falsify those documents.
16:01You know, I'm a wrestler.
16:02You're not going to listen to me for that.
16:05It was gastroenteritis.
16:06A terrible way to die.
16:08And we lost him.
16:22Every man's going to die.
16:24But we do our best.
16:28We do our best until the day comes.
16:30We had a guy named Glenn Goza.
16:32And he had wrote Heaven Needs a Champion.
16:35And he literally put a song of, there's a main event taking place in heaven.
16:38And God brought David Von Erich there to be the star.
16:41You wore the family name of pride.
16:45David Von Erich as a person and as a wrestler was a true champion.
16:50He had a great gift and he knew how to take it to its fullest.
16:53After David's funeral, Fritz would hold the Parade of Champions event in his son's honor, which at the time attracted the largest crowd ever to watch a wrestling event in the United States.
17:06There will be a new World's Heavyweight Champion crowd on that afternoon.
17:12The 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.
17:22And this time he said, I'm going to win it for David.
17:25We were adamant.
17:27With the NWA, National Wrestling Alliance, we had to switch that title.
17:32I think that's where we saw Fritz had some clout.
17:34The dream of my brother is now my reality.
17:38Leading up to that match, we knew it was going to be big.
17:41We didn't know how big.
17:43But all of a sudden you got 42,000 plus people at Texas Stadium.
17:49And they're there to see one thing.
17:51That title change.
17:53Your referee is David Manning.
17:55Here I knew I was going to go down in the record books.
17:57The title was changing that night.
17:59I was super happy for Kerry.
18:01I thought he'd make a great champion.
18:03Here we go.
18:04It was incredible.
18:07That's an iron claw.
18:09You can feel the tension.
18:11And whenever that one, two, three.
18:19The whole place just went nuts.
18:21And then you got Kevin hitting the ring.
18:25You got Fritz hitting the ring.
18:26You can see Doris in the background.
18:28I'm presenting the belt.
18:29The media's going crazy.
18:30We had all the radio stations there.
18:32The yellow rose in honor of Brother David.
18:36It was a great night.
18:37Bittersweet at all.
18:39Sweet, sweet.
18:39That was probably a bigger deal to the Von Erich boys than it was to Fritz himself and to the fans.
18:47With Kerry's championship win and a strong emotional bond with fans, world-class championship wrestling was now on fire.
18:55But with David gone, there was a void to fill.
18:59Fritz wanted to replace David because we were missing a piece of the puzzle.
19:03And we decided to look for another Von Erich.
19:07Whenever I saw Lance, he was the perfect guy.
19:10He was chiseled.
19:10He looked like he could be a Von Erich.
19:12It was a terrible idea.
19:14We had never lied to our people.
19:16It really hurt their image and it started the downward spiral going a little bit quicker.
19:22They knew he wasn't a real Von Erich.
19:24They're lying to us.
19:27Lance.
19:34Growing up, of course, we wanted to be just like him.
19:36He's like real-life Tarzan, you know, climbing trees.
19:38Any river he sees, he gets out of the car.
19:40He'll dive in it.
19:41Didn't care what's in it.
19:43We saw that fearlessness in every situation, not only in the ring, but in life.
19:47And, you know, that's what we wanted to be like.
19:49And it's, it's, we're just grateful to God that we can, that we can follow in the footsteps.
19:54And doors are opening in wrestling and, you know, and we get to, you know, pick up where the, the Von Erichs left off.
20:00Kevin and I talk, you know, I go to Hawaii and see him.
20:03He's got two great boys now, Marshall and Ross.
20:07Gosh, they're so talented.
20:08And when I look at them, I see the brothers.
20:11You're just kind of crazy.
20:13Thanks, sir.
20:14Can you tell us the story about Lance Von Erich?
20:16Yeah.
20:18Kerry and I were dead set against that.
20:20Of all of the angles that happened in the final years of world-class wrestling, Lance Von Erich was the worst.
20:27They needed another Von Erich.
20:30Overall, it did a lot more damage than, than it did good.
20:33And then when they got on the outs with Lance and tried to disown him, the fans just said, well, you're the ones that brought him and sold him to us.
20:40That's where I think people lost a lot of faith.
20:43I have to say, Kevin was dead set against it.
20:45He felt it could get exposed and, and, uh, that Mike would be able to step up and take the role.
20:51People shouldn't say that Mike was an athlete because he sure was.
20:54Mike was an incredible athlete.
20:56The fourth Von Erich is getting ready to start wrestling.
21:02Mike got involved in wrestling and he wanted to have the size as the other brothers.
21:06And he worked out hard.
21:07You know, he had the drive, he had the, he had the stamina.
21:10So it was hard for Mike.
21:11Mike was a great guy, but he wasn't cut out to be a wrestler.
21:15Mike had to walk in there and be David Von Erich and be a main event wrestler at 19, 20 years old.
21:20And he wasn't a great athlete.
21:22The only thing he had going for him is that he was called Mike Von Erich.
21:27I mean, he just didn't look like a wrestler at all.
21:29And 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.
21:37The injuries did bother him, you know.
21:39He was wrestling in Tel Aviv and against Gino Hernandez.
21:44Gino pulled just when he wasn't ready and out it came.
21:47And then this time it tore a lot of ligaments.
21:51Only a year after David's death, Mike dislocates his shoulder in the ring and is rushed to an Israeli hospital.
21:57They performed emergency surgery and soon after, Mike is flown back to Texas.
22:04They literally took him home and all of a sudden his temperature is sky high.
22:08The fever hitting went over 105 is what did the damage, I think.
22:12I put him over my shoulder and walked down the steps with him and put him in the car and took off.
22:18Mike Von Erich, hospitalized for routine shoulder surgery, sustained a staph infection that escalated into toxic shock syndrome.
22:25It was toxic shock syndrome, what they called it.
22:29And the doctor comes out and he said his blood pressure has plummeted, his organs are starting to shut down.
22:36He said, we've done everything we can do.
22:39He said, I don't think Mike's going to make it through the night.
22:42You know, they told us to say goodbye to him.
22:44The hospital was getting like 250 calls an hour where they had to hire our own extra staff.
22:51People had been offering to donate their liver and their kidneys.
22:55We were in the room and Gary Holder, who was considered the chaplain of world class, was there in the room.
23:02Gary Holder said, God, you stand on your word.
23:05You said anything we ask in Jesus' name, I will do it.
23:10That's when I didn't even look up, I thought, that's disrespectful, you went too far.
23:15He took the Bible and he slammed it down on the table and he said, God, there is your word.
23:21So keep your word, God.
23:23And it was less than 30 seconds after Gary finished praying.
23:27The doors opened, Bill Sutker came in the room with this other doctor and his exact words were,
23:33I'm not sure what happened, but everything's functioning.
23:37His temperature has dropped.
23:39So let's see where we're at.
23:40They couldn't believe it, but he's a fighter.
23:43And I want to thank everyone out there, all my good neighbors for your prayers.
23:48One week later, we rolled Mike out of the hospital.
23:51He might have rushed it a little bit.
23:52He was so anxious to get back.
23:54And so we did a big press conference.
23:56I know I'll be back.
24:00I can't wait till the carnival show.
24:03I'm going to be there.
24:04Do you have a message for your fans?
24:07Yeah, I'll be at that carnival show if they want to see me back for the very first time.
24:12I saw on TV, well, Mike's going to come back.
24:15And they were milking to it and trying to get people interested in it.
24:18I just didn't see how it was going to work.
24:20And when he first came back, I was like, God, I don't know if he should come back and wrestle.
24:24He probably shouldn't have wrestled to begin with.
24:25He looked really gaunt and hollow.
24:29I wonder if there was brain damage.
24:32And that's when he attacked a stoplight, attacked a parked car one time.
24:36Just outrageous, you know, nobody in the parked car.
24:40But they always wanted a feel-good story at the end.
24:43And it always worked when it was stuff that they could write.
24:46But when it was real life and they couldn't control it, it didn't work.
24:51You've got to realize when Mike came on the scene, the brothers were superstars.
24:56So all of a sudden you had big shoes to fill.
24:59And I think that was a lot of pressure that went on Mike.
25:01And early Saturday morning, Von Erick was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and possession of marijuana.
25:07The Von Erick family attorney assisted Mike during his release from jail.
25:12He would be the last person to see him alive.
25:15Mike missed an event.
25:16If you were Von Erick, you didn't miss an event.
25:18I remember that night.
25:20Wondering where Mike was, what he was thinking.
25:22They had a bulletin out everywhere, had all the police looking.
25:26And it was, I want to say, two days, maybe three, before they found Mike.
25:31The news of another tragic death in the Von Erick family has hit hard.
25:35Mike had not been seen since Saturday and reportedly was depressed about being arrested the night before.
25:39As his mother and brother looked on, the family's worst fears were confirmed.
25:43Professional wrestler Mike Von Erick is dead, the apparent victim of suicide.
25:47He overdosed, so sad.
25:52Everybody was just so sad.
25:54Dave and now Mike.
25:58Yo, I didn't know this thing was going to get so emotional.
26:01Maybe I got not done.
26:03These are three big things, I guess.
26:06So you guys, could I take another break for just about ten minutes?
26:11Oh yeah, of course.
26:13That was taxing.
26:14And once again, another Von Erick brother is called upon to step into the ring.
26:22Chris Von Erick was the worst part of the whole thing because he had had health problems.
26:27I'm sure he wanted to be like his brothers because his brothers were his heroes.
26:31Kevin was actually helping Chris work out.
26:33He had to work ten times harder than everybody else.
26:35His body wasn't built like his brothers.
26:37He wanted to be a wrestler so bad.
26:39It just, it's not going to happen.
26:41The Von Ericks were believable heroes to thousands of fans.
26:47But continual misfortune chipped away at their image.
26:51And they would have one last desperate attempt to revive it.
26:54My brothers taught me about wrestling, but I taught them about eating.
27:03Mike was really something special.
27:05I thought you were full.
27:07These are for dad.
27:08We did a few TV commercials.
27:09Shot it all night.
27:11For a joke, Kerry puts all these foot products over in my thing.
27:14I didn't even notice it.
27:15This is a gift from a fan right here.
27:18Really old picture.
27:19We loved our fans and to this day, the most loyal people in the world.
27:24We wanted to be like good and be good examples to kids.
27:28And, you know, after Dave's death and Mike's death, you feel like you're letting everybody down.
27:34It's really hard.
27:35With this being the third death in the family and being such a strong Christian family,
27:39I think the first thing everybody wants to do is question.
27:42Well, if they're such strong Christians, why is all this happening to them?
27:44I'm not saying that the boys didn't believe in God and weren't religious.
27:47They just sometimes didn't do things outside the ring that way.
27:51And I don't mean they were terrorizing the population.
27:53They were damaging themselves more than anybody else.
27:55But because they were so closely identified as not only being Texas All-Americans,
28:00but God-fearing Texas All-Americans,
28:02when things came out about car wrecks or suicides or is there drugs involved in these things or whatever,
28:09every move was covered by the newspapers, the Dallas Times-Herald, the local television stations.
28:15And you could tell when you watch the television show, you're seeing more empty seats.
28:18You know, like, look, they were huge in 86 and by 88, 89, they were pretty bad off.
28:24After so much tragedy and with a family legacy in jeopardy,
28:30Fritz's youngest son, Chris, steps into the ring attempting to pick up where his brothers left off.
28:36I think Chris felt bad.
28:38He wanted to try to fulfill the shoes that it was almost impossible to fill based on his size.
28:43The first I remember of Chris was, you know, just being like a little celebrity.
28:47The goal was to hopefully find a way to get Chris involved into the matches.
28:51If he was going to wrestle, I wanted to have him a really good ground game,
28:54know all the scapes and counters and to be a technician.
28:58Physically, in no way should he have been involved in wrestling.
29:02Because of his size, I think he had asthma.
29:04He had brittle bones because of the asthma medication that he took.
29:07It was really hard for him.
29:10I wanted to have the big muscles and all that, but the muscles are just looks.
29:14You've got to have agility, explosive, balance, the snap,
29:19all these things that just didn't happen for him.
29:21And then all of a sudden, Chris broke his arm.
29:27He couldn't work out.
29:29It was a big, big setback.
29:31Kevin was down there.
29:33They were down at the house in Edom.
29:35And Chris was just all upset and depressed and this and that.
29:38He loaned me his VCR.
29:40And so he called me at like 1230 at night.
29:43I want my VCR back right now.
29:45I said, Chris, come on, wait for the morning, okay?
29:47I'll give it to you in the morning.
29:48And I hear his four-wheeler drive around my house a couple of times and took off.
29:55I knew he had a spot up on the hill he used to go to.
29:59So I drove up there, you know, and he was sitting there by himself.
30:02I said, Chris, what are you doing up here by yourself like this?
30:05He said, what, did you read my note?
30:07And I said, what are you going to do, kill yourself or something, Chris?
30:09Come on now, bud.
30:10I said, Chris, don't do anything crazy, okay?
30:13He said, I won't, Kev, I promise.
30:14And I'll leave it, you know.
30:18Went back to my parents' house to check his bedroom.
30:22And I said, does Chris ever write suicide notes?
30:25And Dad said, I think you better get up there.
30:28So I did get back up there.
30:30Wish I'd never left.
30:32Because I got there right after it must have happened.
30:36I saw him laying there on the ground, choking.
30:40I said, Chris, what did you do?
30:43I thought he might have took some pills.
30:45Reached, hooked his arm and put my hand under his head to lift him up.
30:48And my thumb, you know, found the hole.
30:52Went so I'd realized that he'd shot himself in the head.
30:55Well, yeah, it was tough.
31:02With the last vestiges of the Von Erich family torn apart,
31:06Gary accepts an offer to go mainstream with the WWF.
31:11It's another chance in the spotlight.
31:14You know what?
31:14When the crowd started dropping here,
31:16Kerry was getting big offers.
31:17Would he come up and work for Vince?
31:18Would he make some appearances up there?
31:21Kerry, he took a good offer from Vince and he went up there.
31:26After enduring several tragedies
31:28and the decline of his family's wrestling promotion,
31:31Kerry takes the Von Erich legacy to wrestling's biggest stage.
31:37However, no one knew he was wrestling with an unthinkable secret.
31:41This is a school picture.
31:53What a cute little kid.
31:55Were you guys, like, really curious kids?
31:57Like, were you really, like, active?
31:59Kerry and I just showed off for each other all day long, I think.
32:02We just, like, took a chance a day.
32:05It was like, eh.
32:08A lucrative offer made to Kerry by the WWF
32:11was an opportunity to revive the Von Erich name.
32:15However, a secret from his past was slowly catching up with him.
32:20Kerry was supposed to be wrestling that night.
32:22I want to say Austin or somewhere.
32:23I get the phone call.
32:24Kerry's been in an accident.
32:25It's not life-threatening, but he really busted up his leg.
32:29Kerry was riding his motorcycle
32:31and ran into the back of a parked police car.
32:33I remember Rick Hazard.
32:34I saw him, and he said,
32:36Holy cow, he said his ankle looks like an alligator chewed on it.
32:39When they made the decision to amputate,
32:41I would have never, ever thought it could be kept secret.
32:46I guess Fritz thought they didn't want to make Kerry look weak,
32:48especially after the other tragedies,
32:50so they tried to hide the fact of his foot situation.
32:54He wanted me to promise to hide that, and we all promised.
32:58Anything we said to each other,
32:59if we gave her a word, that's an oath.
33:02We weren't going to let Kerry down because he was ashamed of it.
33:05In Kerry's mind, I'm a fake.
33:09You know, the injury done on this leg,
33:11what about a knife?
33:12Before, it was almost to the point where I almost had to have my leg amputated.
33:19Now my leg is back.
33:21It's coming on strong.
33:22Everyone was sworn to secrecy over about a five-year period there.
33:26He would do everything that a person with both limbs would do.
33:30I think that would have just been such a testimonial.
33:33And I was proud of Kerry to do,
33:35to come back like that and not only just compete, but to impress people.
33:39They could have presented it like that,
33:42and maybe he would have been a little bit more inspirational.
33:44Maybe it would have made him feel better.
33:45But instead, it was another thing he had to hide.
33:47And it was another thing that was probably weighing on him mentally.
33:51I'll never be as good as I could be.
33:53I'll never make my dad proud.
33:55Whatever the case may be.
33:56With his transition to wrestling's grandest stage,
34:00Kerry found himself a small fish in a big pond.
34:03But with a new identity, it was a chance to reboot his career.
34:06Vince brings in Kerry Von Erich, the modern-day warrior.
34:10You know, he was one of the biggest superstars of that period.
34:13I mean, it was like he still had the physique,
34:15but introducing him at that stage of the game to a national audience
34:18when he was physically limited, it just wasn't the same.
34:22And he quickly drops the Von Erich name,
34:24tells him you can't do the claw.
34:25His name is the Texas Tornado.
34:27And they just call him the Texas Tornado.
34:29They didn't even call him Kerry Von Erich.
34:31All he had going for him was that he was Kerry Von Erich.
34:33When he was there, things were going down.
34:39I mean, it was not a secret things were going down.
34:42He had, you know, a series of drug-related issues.
34:45He was not happy at all.
34:46Kerry didn't handle the fame, all you've seen.
34:49You know, he's always out with rock and roll people and all.
34:52And I was more of a family man, you know.
34:54It's probably just what saved me.
34:56I know it saved me.
34:57Kerry was doing drugs.
35:00You just knew it.
35:01Once he went through the accident,
35:03they immediately fill him up with all these drugs.
35:05They got the painkillers in you.
35:07They got the pills they're giving him.
35:09That was not a good path for him.
35:12Because of the drugs.
35:13He was on probation at the time.
35:15And then he got arrested again.
35:17And, you know, he was afraid because of the probation violation
35:20that he was going to go to jail this time.
35:21I remember he went to his wife and said,
35:25I'll go to jail if you promise that when I come out of jail,
35:27you'll take me back.
35:28And she wouldn't promise him that.
35:30He talked about what Chris did in glowing terms.
35:33It's like, can you imagine the guts it took to do what Chris did?
35:36You know, I was like, that's pretty scary when you hear people saying that.
35:39He told me he was going to kill himself.
35:41I said, Kerry, you couldn't do that to me.
35:44He said, what are we going to do then?
35:46I said, we'll do something.
35:47But we sure as hell ain't going to die.
35:49He said, I'll tell you what, Kerry.
35:50Let's, you and me, let's go to Alaska.
35:53Let's take our 44s and let's just get charged by a polar bear.
35:56We got six tries.
35:58But I thought it would be good for me to get along with Kerry.
36:00And there's no drug dealers up there, so it would be great.
36:03I wish we'd have gone up there with our 44s.
36:06On the morning of February the 17th, 1993, the same day Kerry was scheduled to be indicted
36:13on drug charges, he took a drive out to his father's ranch.
36:18Called dad and he said, can't talk, busy.
36:21Well, he was pouring a driveway.
36:23And I was going to tell him, Kerry's in a bad way.
36:25He's going to head it out to your place and hold him for me until I get there.
36:29I called, tried to call down a couple of times and could not get through.
36:32Fritz was continuing on pouring concrete.
36:36Kerry came, walked up, gave him a big hug and said, Dad, I love you.
36:41I really, really love you.
36:44Kerry got in the Jeep and took off in the Jeep.
36:47And so dad's sitting in the house, wondering why Kerry's been out in the field so long.
36:52He said he went and looked and his pistol was gone.
36:56The 44 he'd given died for Father's Day.
36:58And when he went down, there was a clear out area down there
37:01and he saw the Jeep part.
37:03With one glove laying on the seat.
37:06So he knew then what was happening.
37:07He had taken the glove.
37:09The shooting hand.
37:11Fritz said he walked back.
37:12There was a little row of trees.
37:13And there Kerry was.
37:16He had seen his dead.
37:20Shot himself in the heart.
37:22Problems began to pile up.
37:24He just couldn't take it anymore.
37:25Dad found him.
37:27He said he'd never seen such a peaceful look on Kerry's face.
37:30Must have hit him just right.
37:32Kevin said the one thing one time almost made me cry.
37:35He said, I used to have five brothers.
37:38And now I'm not even a brother.
37:40Over all of that, Fritz and Doris had split up.
37:44I thought my dad was taking it like a soldier.
37:46You know, my mom was really getting hit, though.
37:48And when she blamed him, it was bad.
37:54The last ten years of his life was not a picture of what I would call hell.
37:58He would have never thought that he would have outlived five of his six sons.
38:03Dad, could you tell the story, though, of that day when Granddad pointed that gun at you?
38:08Now, when he got older, he had brain cancer.
38:10You know, it was not making sense.
38:11Some things he said, he was questioning God.
38:13Well, he got that gun out, and he pointed the gun at me, and he said,
38:17you'd kill yourself, too, if you had the guts.
38:19I said, Dad, it takes guts to live, not guts to die.
38:24And he pointed the gun at me.
38:25He said, you're afraid, aren't you?
38:26And I said, no, sir.
38:28Got to remember, there's brain cancer involved, and I didn't know if he was going to shoot me or not.
38:32I said, Dad, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:35I said, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:38And I jumped out the door, because I could see he's thinking.
38:41I'm not going to let cancer decide if I'll live or die.
38:45You know what?
38:46I was glad he died.
38:48I wanted him to quit suffering.
38:50He had seen him suffer too much.
38:52What a good man he was.
38:54Way deserved better than that.
38:57What a good man.
39:00The immortal Prince von Ares.
39:02Not only have I lost a brother, I lost all of them.
39:11And there was talk about there being a curse on the family, you know.
39:15You know, it's so ridiculous, you know, a curse.
39:18What happened?
39:18It's just terrible.
39:19Just a terrible thing.
39:21But no curse.
39:22So what happened with you after this?
39:26I mean, obviously you went through a really difficult period yourself.
39:29I thought I was doing my best, and I was.
39:31But I was mad.
39:33And there was a time I thought that I wanted to die.
39:38You know, I wanted to be dead.
39:40And I knew I wasn't going to kill myself.
39:42But I just wanted to fight anyway.
39:44And prison felt like the perfect thing for me.
39:47I was going to steal a gun.
39:49Because I knew how much people hate guns.
39:51If I stole one, that's prison.
39:53Lo and behold, I tried it in a Lubbock gun store with a bunch of good old Texas men in there.
40:00I went to steal that gun, and that old man at the own stop was looking right at me.
40:04Put it down my pants, and I stiff-legged walked out of there.
40:07Where I stopped and looked at him like, you got something to say?
40:12That's when he just looked at me like an old man.
40:14Didn't say anything for a long time.
40:15Just looked at me.
40:17And I looked right into his eyes.
40:20He said, love you, Kev.
40:23Oh, man.
40:25I said, thank you, sir.
40:28And I went out to my car.
40:31And I just thought about the magnitude of what just happened.
40:33When I came back in that store, gave him his rival and hugged him, I said, I love you, too, sir.
40:41And all those other men were in there.
40:42Man, it was a great day for Texas.
40:45Great day for Von Erich.
40:47I needed that so bad.
40:49I wanted life to get as bad as it could be.
40:51Anyway, I'm so glad it's over.
40:56Save me.
41:00You want to see the story I was telling you about?
41:02Yeah.
41:02This is my desk, my office.
41:24That's here.
41:25Yeah.
41:26My Lazy Boy lounger here.
41:28How often are you here?
41:30Every day?
41:31Uh, I try to.
41:35No, it doesn't.
41:35If I can, I get here every day.
41:37That's right.
41:37I'll bet I do try to do that.
41:40I wouldn't try it for anything in the world.
41:43The peace I've ever had before.
41:47The more alone you get, the more close you feel to God, it seems like to me.
41:54If 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.
42:01I feel like, you think you're far away.
42:04No, you're never.
42:05Oh, God is right with me.
42:06I feel it.
42:07I just, I do love it.
42:12Hey, baby.
42:13Hey, you.
42:17Kevin's kids, I've met them all.
42:19And they have beautiful kids now.
42:21What I sought for all my life was to be peaceful.
42:24And here I am.
42:25And I thank you, Lord.
42:27I've never been so happy and peaceful.
42:30There's always kids playing here.
42:32It's the highest and best use for the land, for sure.
42:35He's been through so much chaos and stuff.
42:39And 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.
42:53I'm lucky in a way that I've found that the only thing that lasts is family.
42:59You see Ross and you see a little bit of Carrie.
43:01And you see Marshall, and you see the athleticism of Kevin, and you see that big body of Dave.
43:11And then in both of them, you see the Von Erick.
43:15And so, hey, who knows?
43:18Maybe the story will continue.
43:21Kevin officially retired on July the 17th, 2017.
43:25Wrestling his last match alongside his two sons in Israel, where the Von Erick family name is celebrated to this day.
43:35You know, I've seen the huge crowds.
43:39I've been the guest of honor.
43:41I've been, you know, a celebrity.
43:43I've been what everybody thinks they want.
43:46I've had all that.
43:47And he's not satisfying.
43:49This is all there is.
43:51What is satisfying is dinner with the family, children laughing, real joy.
43:58That's the truth.
43:59That's the truth.
44:00That's the truth.
44:01That's the truth.
44:02That's the truth.
44:03That's the truth.
44:04That's the truth.
44:05That's the truth.
44:06That's the truth.
44:07That's the truth.
44:08That's the truth.
44:09That's the truth.
44:10That's the truth.
44:11That's the truth.
44:12That's the truth.
44:13That's the truth.
44:14That's the truth.
44:15That's the truth.
44:16That's the truth.
44:17That's the truth.
44:18That's the truth.
44:19That's the truth.
44:20That's the truth.
44:22That's the truth.
44:23That's the truth.
44:24That's the truth.
44:25That's the truth.
44:26That's the truth.
44:27That's the truth.
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