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00:02When 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.
00:13The Von Erick family could have been the equivalent of the Kennedys.
00:17It was a dynasty. It was a family dynasty.
00:19They 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.
00:40The 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 found dead.
00:55Von Erick was seriously injured.
00:57He just couldn't take it anymore.
00:58I 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?
01:15During 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.
01:43You know, I wanted to get away from wrestling.
01:45I wanted to get out.
01:46I wanted to be anonymous.
01:49And they say the Pacific Ocean has no memory.
01:52Well, here I am in the smack dab in the middle of it.
01:57Is there any other place in the world you'd rather be than here?
01:59No.
02:01No.
02:01This is it.
02:03It's the love and the peace and the harmony.
02:07That's...
02:07You couldn't put a price on that, you know.
02:12I think I'm the richest man in the world.
02:16My childhood?
02:18Well, I was an older brother, and so it was a lot of fighting.
02:21I could overdo that power of being a big brother, but...
02:24So I learned not to.
02:26But, man, they adored me, and I adored them.
02:29There was this us against the world kind of thing.
02:32Please, don't think I'm in a bad way, that I've suffered and 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 are 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, whatever 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.
03:30Chris Von Erich 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
03:39beat 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.
03:51If 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.
03:59So Fritz had gotten the reputation as the toughest guy in Texas.
04:05As 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.
04:20And so one brother would have to watch while other brothers would cover our ears and eyes and, you know,
04:26wouldn't look.
04:27And the other brother would say, Dad's winning.
04:30So we'd start watching again, you know.
04:32We were so into it.
04:35Fritz also developed the iron claw.
04:38The master of the iron claw applies it as only he can.
04:41The claw is a hole that my dad invented.
04:44The crazy thing about it is that after years and years of doing the claw,
04:50you get scary, crazy good at it.
04:54You 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.
05:09Fritz Von Erich was actually wanting to get out of wrestling and raise his family and do a lot less
05:14traveling.
05:15It was always the goal of wrestlers in those days to buy a territory, become a promoter.
05:20That's where the real money was.
05:21Fritz 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,
05:33so they can be the stars of the next generation.
05:36I don't know that even if he realized how big of stars they were going to be.
05:39We 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.
06:48There's no telling what magazine you would see them in.
06:50They were teenage hot throbs.
06:52They were teen idols.
06:53Kevin, Carrie, Dave.
06:56Going to the ring would be like a madhouse.
06:58The girls would cry about us you know.
07:00And 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 would rain 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.
07:19Carrie 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, et cetera, athletically.
07:36David used to go to the ring with the big yellow rose and he was considered the yellow rose of
07:39Texas.
07:40Dave was a technician.
07:42There wasn't 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.
07:55Mike didn't have the size as the other brothers.
07:58He was real close with his little brother, Chris.
08:01Chris, funny, funny guy.
08:03Just loved life.
08:05The Von Ericks 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
08:20on 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, but I think people realized we were human.
08:40But 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.
08:54And so to their fans, they were more members of the family in some cases.
08:58There's something about those boys, every one 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.
09:07And they had watched these kids grow up.
09:09They 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.
09:19The talks were already out there that David could be one of the top prospects to be the next World
09:24NWA Champion.
09:25David was the worker.
09:27Everybody universally said that.
09:28He would have been the guy the NWA picked.
09:32Even 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 was in there looking at him and 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.
09:53This voice says, David Manning, Joe Higuchi, All Japan Pro Wrestling.
10:00David Von Eric dead.
10:11And here is after my first knee surgery.
10:14On 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.
10:27And Dave comes and said, so I heard you're a quitter.
10:31When 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 once 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, he touched
11:02it.
11:03Somehow it electrocuted him.
11:05And he fell in the snow face first and drowned.
11:08I was looking for him, you know, a little three-year-old kid looking for him.
11:13And I knew something was bad and I was like watching it.
11:17My parents, they were all crying and 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.
11:31He was still an honorable man to the outside, but I think inside he wanted to die.
11:37He was suffering.
11:38He 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.
11:51When 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 were cell phones.
12:14And so I got in my car and I'll never forget, it was just coming daylight.
12:19And 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
12:27motor coach.
12:28And he looked at me and he said, which one?
12:31So 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.
12:43My 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.
12:58And 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 ahold 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
13:16get to the phone.
13:17I knew Brody always to be so tough and such a strong, good man.
13:21But when he was telling me, he was like, he couldn't talk, you know.
13:27He's crying inside. I never saw Brody cry.
13:29He goes, I said, Frank, don't think about it. Don't think about it, Frank.
13:34And he goes, he, he's dead, Kevin.
13:38Frank.
13:38God, it was terrible.
13:41The next day after David died, you know, going to the mall in which I was Texas,
13:45and you see like these like teenage girls and they're all crying and the guys are consulting them.
13:51It was a big freaking deal in that part of the country.
13:53It 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
14:01that when a big name foreign wrestler dies on their soil, I mean, there was memorials and the guys were
14:07broken up.
14:09I remember that airplane coming in with Dave's coffin on it.
14:12Well, no one would look us in the eye because they knew we all hurt. We hurt so bad.
14:18And people hurt for us too.
14:19The funeral was just insane. It was like one of those old funerals of the silent movie stars.
14:25There was a lot of wrestlers right here in this area. When they went to the funeral, the tears flowed.
14:29It was, it was hard to take.
14:31And so we estimated probably four to five thousand people showed up for this service.
14:37It was just beautiful. An expression of love. The schools let out.
14:41The Texas legislature convened. It was like Texas got hurt that day.
14:46You couldn't get anybody else in. They literally had to put a screen outside and speakers outside for the thousands
14:55of people that were there.
14:57I didn't know that we were that big, I guess.
15:02Inside the business, we heard that he'd passed away in his hotel room in Japan. That generally only means one
15:09thing.
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.
15:30And it came back, acute enteritis.
15:32His intestines, basically from an infection, swole up to the point that he 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.
15:45Fritz was very stern about, you make the shows you're booked at.
15:47So 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
15:55documents.
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.
16:17Every 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.
16:34And God brought David Von Erich there to be the star.
16:37You wore the family name of pride.
16:40David 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.
16:49After David's funeral, Fritz would hold the Parade of Champions event in his son's honor.
16:55Which at the time attracted the largest crowd ever to watch a wrestling event in the United States.
17:01There 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
17:15that had always eluded the Von Erich family.
17:18And this time he said, I'm going to win it for David.
17:20We 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.
17:38But all of a sudden you got 42 plus thousand people at Texas Stadium and they're there to see one
17:46thing.
17:46That 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.
18:00It was incredible.
18:02And it's an iron claw.
18:04You can feel the tension.
18:06And whenever that one, two, three.
18:14The whole place just went nuts.
18:17And then you got Kevin hitting the ring. You got Fritz hitting the ring.
18:21You can see Doris in the background.
18:23I'm presenting the belt. The media's going crazy. We had all the radio stations there.
18:27The Yellow Rose in honor of Brother David.
18:31It was a great night. Bittersweet at all. Sweet, sweet.
18:35That was probably a bigger deal to the Von Erich boys than it was to Fritz himself and to the
18:41fans.
18:42With Kerry's championship win and a strong emotional bond with fans, world-class championship wrestling was now on fire.
18:50But 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
19:07Erich.
19:07It was a terrible idea. We had never lied to our people.
19:11It 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.
19:22Lance.
19:29Growing up, of course, we wanted to be just like him. He's like real-life Tarzan, you know, climbing trees.
19:33Any river he sees, he gets out of the car, he'll dive in it, didn't care what's in it.
19:38We saw that fearlessness in every situation, not only in the ring, but in life.
19:42And, you know, that's what we wanted to be like.
19:44And it's, it's, we're just grateful to God that we can, that we can follow in the footsteps.
19:50And doors are opening in wrestling and, you know, and we get to, you know, pick up where the Von
19:54Erichs left off.
19:56Kevin and I talk, you know, I go to Hawaii and see him.
19:58He's got two great boys now, Marshall and Ross.
20:01Uh, gosh, they're so talented. And when I look at them, I see the brothers.
20:06You're just kind of crazy.
20:08Thanks, son.
20:09Can you tell us the story about Lance Von Erich?
20:11Yeah, 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
20:22worst.
20:23They needed another Von Erich.
20:25Overall, it did a lot more damage than, than it did good.
20:28And then when they got on the outs with Lance and tried to disown him,
20:32the fans just said, well, you're the ones that brought him and sold him to us.
20:35That'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, and, uh, that Mike would be able to step up and take the
20:45role.
20:46People shouldn't say that Mike was an athlete because he sure was.
20:49Mike was an incredible athlete.
20:51The 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, he had the stamina, so it was hard for Mike.
21:06Mike 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
21:15years old.
21:16And he wasn't a great athlete.
21:17The 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.
21:24And he's in there with like Ric Flair and these big, great wrestlers who are just carrying him in these
21:29matches that are just painful in a sense to watch.
21:32Uh, the injuries did bother him, you know.
21:34He was wrestling in Tel Aviv and, uh, against Gino Hernandez.
21:39Gino pulled just when he wasn't ready and out it came.
21:42And 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.
22:03The fever hitting 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
22:12took 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, 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.
22:37You know, they told us, 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
22:56room.
22:56Gary Holder said, God, you stand on your word.
23:01You said, anything we ask in Jesus' name, I will do it.
23:05That's when I didn't even look up.
23:07I thought, that's disrespectful.
23:09You went too far.
23:10He 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.
23:35They 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.
23:43One 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 until the carnival show.
23:58I'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.
24:38And it always worked when it was stuff that they could write.
24:41But 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.
24:51So 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.
25:02The 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.
25:11If you were Von Erick, you didn't miss an event.
25:13I remember that night, wondering where Mike was, what he was thinking.
25:18They had a bulletin out everywhere, had all the police looking.
25:21And it was, I want to say, two days, maybe three, before they found Mike.
25:26The 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.
25:46So sad.
25:48Everybody was just so sad.
25:49And Dave, and now Mike.
25:53You know, I didn't know this thing was going to get so emotional.
25:56Maybe I got not done.
25:58These are three big things, I guess.
26:01So you guys, could I take another break for just about ten minutes?
26:06Oh yeah, of course.
26:08That 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.
26:28He had to work ten times harder than everybody else.
26:30His body wasn't built like his brothers.
26:32He wanted to be a wrestler so bad.
26:34He just, it's 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.
26:55My brothers taught me about wrestling, but I taught them about eating.
26:58Mike was really something special.
27:00I thought you were full.
27:02This is for dad.
27:03We did a few TV commercials.
27:05Shot it all night.
27:06For a joke, Carrie puts all these foot products over in my thing.
27:10I didn't even notice it.
27:11This is a gift from a fan out here.
27:13Really old picture.
27:15We 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.
27:30With this being the third death in the family and being such a strong Christian family, I think the first
27:35thing 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.
27:42They 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.
27:50But because they were so closely identified as not only being Texas All-Americans, but God-fearing Texas All-Americans,
27:57when things came out about car wrecks or suicides or is there drugs involved in these things or whatever, every
28:05move was covered by the newspapers.
28:07The Dallas Times Herald, the local television stations.
28:10And you can tell when you watch the television show, you're seeing more empty seats.
28:14You know, like, look, they were huge in 86.
28:16And by 88, 89, they were pretty bad off.
28:20After so much tragedy and with a family legacy in jeopardy, Fritz's youngest son, Chris, steps into the ring attempting
28:29to pick up where his brothers left off.
28:31I think Chris felt bad. He wanted to try to fulfill the shoes that it was almost impossible to fill
28:37based on his size.
28:38The first I remember of Chris was, you know, and just being like a little celebrity.
28:42The goal was to hopefully find a way to get Chris involved into the matches.
28:46If he was going to wrestle, I want to have a really good ground game, know all the scapes and
28:51counters, and to be a technician.
28:54Physically, in no way should he have been involved in wrestling. Because of his size, I think he had asthma.
28:59He had brittle bones because of the asthma medication that he took.
29:02It was really hard for him.
29:05He wanted to have the big muscles and all that, but the muscles are just looks.
29:09You've got to have agility, explosive, balance, the snap, all these things that just didn't happen for him.
29:18And then all of a sudden, Chris broke his arm.
29:22He couldn't work out. It was a big, big setback.
29:26Kevin was down there. They 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. And so he'd call me at like 1230 at night.
29:38I want my VCR back right now. I said, Chris, come on, wait for the morning, okay?
29:43I'll give it to you in the morning.
29:44And 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, 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.
30:10I believed it, you know.
30:13I went 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, choking.
30:35I said, Chris, what did you do?
30:38I thought, you know, I took some pills.
30:39I just 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 Erich family torn apart,
31:02Kerry accepts an offer to go mainstream with the WWF.
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.
31:21After enduring several tragedies and the decline of his family's wrestling promotion,
31:27Kerry takes the Von Erich legacy to wrestling's biggest stage.
31:31However, no one knew he was wrestling with an unthinkable secret.
31:45This 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.
31:58We just, like, so we 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 Erich name.
32:10However, a secret from his past was slowly catching up with him.
32:15Kerry 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.
32:28I remember Rick Hazard, I saw him, and he said, holy cow.
32:32He said, his ankle looks like an alligator chewed on it.
32:34When they made the decision to amputate,
32:36I would have never, ever thought it could be kept secret.
32:41I guess Fritz thought they didn't want to make Kerry look weak,
32:44especially after the other tragedies,
32:45so they tried to hide the fact of his foot situation.
32:49He wanted me to promise to hide that, and we all promised.
32:53Anything 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,
33:09it 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 do, to come back like that,
33:31and 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.
33:41But instead, it was another thing he had to hide,
33:42and it was another thing that was probably weighing on him mentally.
33:46I'll never be as good as I could be.
33:48I'll never make my dad proud, whatever the case may be.
33:51With his transition to wrestling's grandest stage,
33:55Kerry 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, he's one of the biggest superstars of that period.
34:08I mean, it was like he still had the physique,
34:10but introducing him at that stage of the game to a national audience
34:13when he was physically limited, it just wasn't the same.
34:17And he quickly drops the Von Erich name,
34:19tells him you can't do the claw, his name is the Texas Tornado.
34:22And they just call him the Texas Tornado.
34:24They didn't even call him Kerry Von Erich.
34:26All he had going for him was that he was Kerry Von Erich.
34:29The Texas Tornado!
34:32When he was there, things were going down.
34:35I mean, it was not a secret, things were going down.
34:37He had, you know, a series of drug-related issues,
34:39he was not happy at all.
34:41Kerry didn't handle the fame, all you've seen.
34:44You know, he was always out with rock and roll people and all.
34:47And I was more of a family man, you know.
34:49It'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,
34:58they immediately fill him up with all these drugs.
35:00They got the painkillers in you,
35:02they got the pills they're giving him.
35:04That was not a good path for him.
35:07Because of the drugs.
35:09He was on probation at the time,
35:10and then he got arrested again.
35:13And, you know, he was afraid because of the probation violation
35:15that he was going to go to jail this time.
35:17I remember he went to his wife and said,
35:20I'll go to jail if you promise that when I come out of jail,
35:22you'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.
35:42But we sure as hell ain't going to die.
35:44He said, I'll tell you what, Kerry.
35:46Let's, uh, 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,
35:56and there's no drug dealers up there, so it'll be great.
35:58I wish we'd have gone up there with our .44s.
36:02On the morning of February the 17th, 1993,
36:05the same day Kerry was scheduled to be indicted on drug charges,
36:09he 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.
36:18And 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
36:22until I get there.
36:24I called, tried to call dad a couple of times
36:26and could not get through.
36:28Fritz was continuing on pouring concrete.
36:31Kerry came, walked up, gave him a big hug and said,
36:35Dad, I love you.
36:36I really, really love you.
36:39Kerry got in the Jeep and took off in the Jeep.
36:43And so, Dad's sitting in the house,
36:45wondering why Kerry's been out in the field so long.
36:47He said he, uh, went and looked and his pistol was gone.
36:51The .44 he'd given dad for Father's Day.
36:54And when he went down, there was a clear out area down there
36:57and he saw the Jeep part.
36:58With one glove laying on the seat.
37:01So he knew then what was happening.
37:02He had taken the glove.
37:04The shooting hand.
37:06Fritz said he walked back.
37:07There was a little row of trees.
37:09And there Kerry was.
37:12He, he was dead.
37:14Shot himself in the heart.
37:17Problems began to pile up.
37:19He just couldn't take it anymore.
37:21Dad found him.
37:22He said he'd never seen such a peaceful look on Kerry's face.
37:25Must 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.
37:33And now I'm not even a brother.
37:35Over all of that, uh, Fritz and Doris had split up.
37:39I thought my dad was taking it like a soldier.
37:42You know, my mom was really getting hit, though.
37:44And, uh, she blamed him.
37:46It was bad.
37:49The last ten years of his life was not a picture
37:52of what I would call hell.
37:53He would have never thought that he would have outlived
37:55five of his six sons.
37:59Dad, could you tell the story, though, of that day
38:01when 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,
38:11and he said, you'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.
38:23You gotta remember, there's brain cancer involved,
38:25and I didn't know if he was gonna shoot me or not.
38:27I said, Dad, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:31I said, quit pointing the gun at me.
38:33And I jumped out in the door,
38:34because I could see his thinking.
38:37I'm not gonna 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.
38:49The way he deserved better than that.
38:52What a good man.
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, you know.
39:11You know, it was so ridiculous, you know, curse.
39:12What 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 gonna kill myself, but I just wanted to fight anyway.
39:40And prison felt like the perfect thing for me.
39:42I was gonna 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
39:54there.
39:55I wanted to steal that gun, and that old man on the stop was looking right at me.
39:59Put it down my pants, and I stiff-legged walked out of there.
40:03Where I stopped and looked at him like, you got something to say?
40:07That's when he just looked at me like an old man.
40:09Didn't say anything for a long time, just looked at me.
40:12And I looked right into his eyes.
40:15He said, love you, Kev.
40:18Oh, man.
40:20I said, thank you, sir.
40:23And I went out to 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 Eric.
40:42I needed that so bad.
40:44I wanted life to get as bad as it could be.
40:49Anyway, I'm so glad it's over.
40:51Save me.
40:55You want to see the story I was telling you about?
40:57Yeah.
41:16This is my desk, my office.
41:19That's your office?
41:20Yeah.
41:21My lazy boy lounger here.
41:23How often are you here?
41:25Every day?
41:27Uh, I try to.
41:30No, it doesn't.
41:31If I can, I get here every day.
41:32That's right.
41:33But I do try to do that.
41:36I wouldn't try it for anything in the world.
41:38The peace I've ever had before.
41:42The 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
41:55just lay on the bottom.
41:56I feel like you think you're far away.
41:59No, you're never.
42:00Oh, God is right with me.
42:01I feel it.
42:02And I just, I do love it.
42:07Hey, baby.
42:09Hey, you.
42:13Kevin's kids, I've met them all.
42:14And they have beautiful kids now.
42:17What I sought for all my life was to be peaceful.
42:19And here I am.
42:21And I thank 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.
42:31He's been through so much chaos and stuff.
42:34And so for him to end up in this kind of just peaceful environment, you know, with, you know, the
42:39animals and everything.
42:40He's just like so at home and just so, you know, he loves it.
42:48I'm lucky in a way that I've found that the only thing that lasts is family.
42:54You see Ross and you see a little bit of Kerry.
42:58And you see Marshall and you see the athleticism of Kevin.
43:02And you see that big body of Dave.
43:06And then in both of them, you see the Von Eric.
43:10And so, um, hey, who knows?
43:13Maybe the story will continue.
43:16Kevin officially retired on July the 17th, 2017.
43:22Wrestling his last match alongside his two sons in Israel, where the Von Eric family name is celebrated to this
43:30day.
43:32You know, I've seen the huge crowds.
43:34I've been the guest of honor.
43:36I've been, you know, a celebrity.
43:38I've been what everybody thinks they want.
43:41I've had all that.
43:42And he's not satisfying.
43:44Is this all there is?
43:46What is satisfying is dinner with the family, children laughing, real joy.
43:53That's the truth.
43:57That's the truth.