When we talk about wrestling in the 80s,
it's hard to imagine how popular...
the Von Erich brothers were.
Those guys were ready-made.
The Von Erich family could've been the
equivalent of the Kennedys.
It was a dynasty. It was a family dynasty.
They were the all-American boys from Texas.
They are real-life Texas heroes, in the flesh.
They didn't have to put 'em in a funny outfit.
They didn't have to give 'em a different name.
They had the look; they had the physiques;
they had the athletic ability.
They were superheroes in the ring.
But then, there was constant bad news.
The Von Erichs could have two legacies...
They could have the legacy of being one of
the biggest attractions, wrestling families in history.
Or they could have the legacy as a cautionary tale.
Von Erich is dead... Von Erich was found dead...
Von Erich was seriously injured after--
He just couldn't take it anymore.
I loved the wrestling business all my life,
but it's not that important.
Some people say, well, it's just the pressure of the spotlight.
Other celebrities have been unable to cope.
Who knew we were gonna have, you know,
4 major deaths over the next 3 years.
During their brief reign, the Von Erich family
ascended to wrestling superstardom,
but just as quickly suffered relentless personal tragedy.
In this episode, the last surviving brother
reflects on his unimaginable journey.
You know, I wanted to get away from wrestling.
I wanted to get out. I wanted to be anonymous.
And they say the Pacific Ocean has no memory.
Well, here I am in the smack dab in the middle of it.
No, this is it.
It's the, the love, and the peace,
and the harmony. That's--
You can't put a price on that, you know.
I think I'm the richest man in the world.
My childhood? Well, I was an older brother,
and so, it was a lot of fighting.
I could overdo that power of being a big brother, but...
So, I learned not to.
But, man, they adored me, and I adored them.
There was this us against the world kind of thing.
Please, don't think I'm in a bad way,
that I've suffered.
I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.
These are some hunting pictures. When we were living--
We always hunted with our dad,
these were when we were real young.
This, we lived in a little, this is 16 acres,
and this little shack; that's how we lived,
out in the country, when dad was wrestling.
And then, here's a shot just about 2 miles from this spot
is this farm, and this is where I raised my boys.
My dad always said, "Whatever you put into
something is what you get out of it."
He was a really good wrestler, a solid wrestler.
There's no way
I think he was the best of all time.
But he was a vicious wrestler.
Ah, my father...
You know, wanted something different.
If you want to be a bad guy, be the best.
And so, as far as my dad was concerned,
a Nazi was about the most despised creature you could be,
and he became-- he was a Nazi.
Fritz Von Erich from Berlin, Germany.
Here we go.
He could create a lot of heat just coming across as
the German hitting the ring that was gonna
beat up all the Americans.
My connection with the Von Erich family is,
I was Fritz's right-hand man.
Fritz was the main event.
He was a huge star in the 50s and 60s,
all over the country.
If you're wondering what qualifies me to be a
pro wrestling expert,
almost 50 years of obsessive collecting,
hoarding, and research.
So, Fritz had gotten the reputation as
the toughest guy in Texas.
As little kids, our dad being the bad guy,
we didn't see it that way.
So, watching wrestling, to us, was torment.
You know, when the crowd was cheering,
we knew that was bad because without a doubt,
he was the most hated villain of all wrestling,
and so, one brother would have to watch while the
other brothers would cover our ears and eyes,
and you know, and wouldn't look.
And the other, other brother'd say,
"Dad's winning!"
So, we'd start watching again, you know.
We were so into it.
Fritz also developed the, the Iron Claw.
A blast through the Iron Claw!
Applies it as only he can.
The Claw's a hold that my dad invented.
The crazy thing about it is, that after years and years
of doing the Claw,
you get scary, crazy good at it.
You just grab and you do this, you know,
squeeze the guy in the temples with your big hands.
You just... That's it.
My name is Dave Meltzer, and I've been writing the
Wrestling Observer Newsletter since 1982,
so it's been pretty much my entire life.
Fritz Von Erich was actually wanting to get out of wrestling
and raise his family, and do a lot less traveling.
It was always the goal of wrestlers in those days to
buy a territory, become a promoter;
that's where the real money was.
Fritz had a big office, and he's the boss,
and he's the promoter with World Class Championship Wrestling,
but he was also a very strong business person.
Almost every wrestler that became a promoter,
you wanted your sons to be great wrestlers so they can
be the stars of the next generation.
I don't know that even if he realized how big 'a stars
they were gonna be.
We got into wrestling because we wanted
to be like our dad.
I was born into wrestling.
One good thing about being brothers,
we knew exactly what was going on.
It was beautiful.
Almost should be illegal, what an upper hand
we had on other teams...
because you know exactly what they're thinking.
It was a perfect storm.
The young Von Erich boys had debuted,
had gotten a couple years' experience.
They looked great, people knew 'em,
and all of a sudden, now they're on
this new-looking program.
everybody knew who they were.
All of a sudden, we're the #1 show at
9 o'clock in the morning on Sunday mornings.
They said, well, let's cover this like a sporting event.
They would have the cameraman and
they would have the sound guy, like, actually in the ring,
you know, during the tapings. And you'd look at it and go,
like, what's he doing in the ring?
'Cause no other company would ever do that.
We literally set the stage of where wrestling would go.
They came up with a comic book where there's some bad guys
that are trying to take over the universe and
they need the Von Erichs because our hearts are so good.
So that was just, we just cleaned up space a little bit,
you know, just the riff raff.
The girls just went nuts.
There's no telling what magazine you would see 'em in.
They were teenage heart throbs.
They were teen idols - Kevin, Kerry, Dave.
Going to the ring would be like a madhouse.
The girls'd grab at us, you know,
and of course, you gotta keep going.
And so, pretty soon your shoulders are just,
you know, scratched all up and bleeding, you know.
The place would just go electric.
I mean, your ears ring when you go home,
from that shrill scream. That was what we shot for.
We wanted that feeling, that intensity to
stay that way until it was over.
Kerry was the star.
Kerry had the movie star looks,
had the physique.
He had great personality, just charisma.
I've never seen anybody that had his strength.
David was the best performer in the ring,
psychology, movement, etc., athletically.
David used to go to the ring with a big yellow rose and
he was considered the yellow rose of Texas.
Dave was a technician.
There was not a hold you could surprise him with.
Kevin, I think, was the athlete.
He was just insane, the things he could do.
He was probably by far the best raw athlete of the bunch.
Then, Mike.
Mike didn't have the size of the other brothers.
He was real close with his little brother, Chris.
Chris, funny, funny guy. Just loved life.
The Von Erichs epitomized God, family, and country.
They're heroes.
Completely more popular than movie stars,
and more accessible.
From the time the kids were young,
if they won an award in school, athletic award,
it was talked about on the television show.
And they were in wrestling magazines with pictures,
out hunting or fishing out in Lake Dallas
with their famous father.
They grew up in the public eye.
they grew up on television; that's a lot of pressure.
I'd like to say that it was, you know,
clean cut guys, but I think people realized we were human.
But, you can 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 and
we did love each other and care and regard our fans
as people and not tickets.
And so, to their fans,
they were more members of the family in some cases.
There is something about those boys,
every one of 'em, that everyone loves 'em,
and I love 'em.
So, literally, it was almost like, I think,
everyone felt like they were the parents and
they had watched these kids grow up.
They were busy on the road 'cause you gotta realize,
it's a 365-day job.
In other words, these guys were wrestling everywhere,
sometimes 2 times a day.
The talks were already out there that David could be
one of the top prospects to be the next
World Heavyweight Champion.
David was the worker. Everybody universally said that.
He would've been the guy the NWA picked.
Even 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.
I was sitting there looking at him, and...
Ah, was looking more and more pale to me.
I got a phone call, and was asleep.
To this day, I can't stand a phone call before daylight.
It just tears me up.
This voice says, "David Manning?
Joe Higuchi, All Japan Pro Wrestling.
David Von Erich dead."
And here, is after my first knee surgery.
After my third knee surgery, my knees were shot,
and I had to give up football.
I guess Dave was comic relief.
My parents, they knew how much I loved football and so,
they said, "Dave, be careful what you say to him.
He just got the worst news of his life.
He can't play football." And Dave comes in and said,
"So, I heard you're a quitter."
When Dave died, I never got up from that all the way.
It hit me like no other one did.
I say I was the oldest brother,
but I was the second son.
Our oldest brother was Jackie.
They 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.
You know, Jack was actually coming home from school and
it had snowed.
I think he was 6 years old, and as he was trying to
step over the tongue or go around the tongue of a trailer,
he touched it. Somehow it electrocuted him,
and he fell in the snow face-first and drowned.
I was looking for him, you know,
a little 3-year-old kid, and...
looking for him, and...
I knew something was bad and I was like,
watching my parents. They were all crying.
And, Jackie had been electrocuted.
Came in and saw my dad punch a car window,
just shattered it.
He came out of that different.
He was still an honorable man on the outside,
but I think inside he wanted to die.
He was suffering.
He thought, "What have I done to deserve this?"
He was at war with the world.
He wanted to make everyone suffer like him.
It was the first of unimaginable tragedy that
that one family had to go through.
When it came to David Von Erich,
just 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".
And I said, "So, what happened?"
"We find in room dead."
It's 2:30 in the morning and
I'm trying to decide, how do I get this news.
Back then there weren't cellphones.
And so, I got in my car, and - I'll never forget -
it 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?"
So, I think he knew, for me to go all the way down there,
it's something very, very serious.
I said, "Fritz, they just called me from Japan.
David's dead."
My mother, she'd been told, and she just went
running off into the woods. It was barely day break.
My dad just... walked outside and stared at the sky.
I went a little crazy.
I didn't want to see anybody.
I had to be in the woods and I stayed in the woods too.
Fritz said, "You go to town, you make the phone calls.
You find out what happened to my boy."
I managed to get a hold of Brody,
who was also a, you know, legendary wrestler,
popular in Japan.
Brody said that when they opened the door,
the way he was laying, it looked like
he was trying to get to the phone.
I knew Brody always to be so tough and such a
strong good man, but when he was telling me,
he was like [stammering]... he couldn't talk, you know.
He's crying inside. I never saw Brody cry.
And he goes I said, "Frank! Don't think about it.
Don't think about it, Frank!"
And he goes, "He's dead, Kev."
And I went, "Frank!" God, it was terrible.
The next day, after Dave had 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.
It was a big fricking deal in that part of the country.
It was almost like the fans had lost a son.
I mean, it was emotional on 2 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.
I remember that airplane coming in with Dave's coffin on it.
No one would look us in the eye because they knew we all hurt.
We hurt so bad. And people hurt for us, too.
The funeral was just insane.
It was like one of those old funerals of
the silent movie stars.
There was a lot of wrestlers right here in this area.
When they went to the funeral,
the tears flowed. It was, it was hard to take.
And so, we estimated probably 4 to 5,000 people,
showed up for this service.
It was just beautiful, expression of love.
The schools let out.
The Texas legislature convened.
It was like... Texas got hurt that day.
You couldn't get anybody else in.
They literally had to put a screen outside and,
and speakers outside for the thousands of people
that were there.
I didn't know that we were that big, I guess.
Inside the business, we heard that he'd passed away
in his hotel room in Japan;
that generally only means one thing...
There's all this word out that he overdosed,
but there's no doubt that he didn't.
One of the biggest rumors out there was that
when Brody found him, Brody threw away all the pills.
And we waited to hear that autopsy report.
Fritz was adamant, "I want to know what the autopsy says,
and whatever it says,
that's what we're gonna have to put out."
And, it came back, acute enteritis.
His intestines, basically from an infection,
swole up to the point they ruptured.
his body filled up with blood and heart failure
About 2 days or a day before he was gonna leave to go to Japan,
he was throwing up.
Fritz was very stern about,
you make the shows you're booked at.
So, he left and went over there.
No, I'm telling you what really happened.
We're not big shots that told the country of Japan
to falsify those documents, you know.
I'm a wrestler. You're not gonna...
no one's gonna listen to me for that.
It was gastro enteritis, a terrible way to die.
And we lost him.
Every man's gonna die...
But we do our best...
We do our best 'til that day comes.
We had a guy named Glen Goza.
And he had wrote, "Heaven Needs a Champion,"
and 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."
♪ YOU WORE THE FAMILY NAME WITH PRIDE... ♪
David Von Erich, as a person and as a wrestler,
was a true champion.
He had a great gift and he knew how to take it to the,
to its fullest.
After 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.
There will be a new World's Heavyweight Champion
crowned on that afternoon.
The 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, and this time he said,
"I'm gonna win it for David."
We were adamant. With the NWA -
National Wrestling Alliance - we had to switch that title.
I think that's where we saw Fritz had some clout.
The dream of my brother is now my reality.
Leading up to that match, we knew it was gonna be big;
we didn't know how big.
But all of a sudden, you got 42-plus-thousand people
at Texas Stadium, and they're there to see one thing...
that title change.
Your referee is David Manning.
Here I knew I was gonna go
the title was changing that night.
I was super happy for Kerry.
I thought he'd make a great champion.
Here we go!
It was incredible.
It's the Iron Claw!
You can feel the pinching.
And when, whenever that 1, 2...
The whole place just went nuts.
And then you got Kevin hitting the ring,
you got Fritz hitting the ring.
You can see Doris in the background.
I'm presenting the belt, the media's going crazy.
We had all the radio stations there.
The yellow rose...
in honor of brother David.
It was a great night, and not bitter sweet at all.
Sweet-sweet.
That was probably a bigger deal to the Von Erich boys
than it was to Fritz, himself, and to the fans.
With Kerry's championship win and
a strong emotional bond with fans,
World Class Championship Wrestling was now on fire.
But with David gone, there was a void to fill.
Fritz wanted to replace David because
we were missing a piece of the puzzle,
and we decided to look for another Von Erich.
Whenever I saw Lance, he was the perfect guy.
He was chiseled.
He looked like he could be a Von Erich.
It was a terrible idea. It was--
We had never lied to our people.
It really hurt their image and it started the,
the downward spiral of going a little bit quicker.
They knew he wasn't a real Von Erich.
They're lying to us.
Lance.
Growing up, of course, we wanted to be just like him.
He's like real-life Tarzan. You know, climbing trees.
Any river he sees, he gets out of the car.
He'll dive in it, didn't care what's in it.
We saw that fearlessness in every situation,
not only in the ring, but in life and...
you know, that's what we wanted to be like and it's, it's--
We're just grateful to God that we can,
that we can follow in the footsteps and
doors are opening in wrestling.
And, you know, and we get to, you know,
pick up where the Von Erichs left off.
Kevin and I talk. You know, I go to Hawaii and see him.
He's got 2 great boys now, Marshall and Ross.
Gosh, they're so talented.
And when I look at them, I see the brothers.
Thanks, son.
Can you tell us the story about Lance Von Erich?
Yeah. Ah...
Kerry and I were dead set against that.
Of all of the angles that happened in the final years
of World Class Wrestling, Lance Von Erich was the worst.
They needed another Von Erich.
Overall, it did a lot more damage than,
than it did good.
And 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!"
That's where, I think, people lost a lot of faith.
I have to say, Kevin was dead set against it.
He felt it could get exposed and that Mike would be able
to step up and take the role.
People shouldn't say that Mike wasn't an athlete
because he sure was.
Mike was an incredible athlete.
The 4th Von Erich is getting ready to start wrestling.
Mike got involved in wrestling and he wanted
to have the size as the other brothers,
and he worked out hard.
You know, he had the drive, he had the stamina,
so it was hard for Mike.
Mike was a great guy,
but he wasn't cut out to be a wrestler.
Mike had to walk in there and be David Von Erich,
and be a main event wrestler at 19, 20 years old,
and he wasn't a great athlete.
The only thing he had going for him is that
he was called Mike Von Erich.
I mean, he just didn't look like a wrestler at all,
and 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.
The injuries did bother him, you know.
He was wrestling in Tel Aviv, and ah...
against Gino Hernandez.
Gino pulled just when he wasn't ready and out it came, and...
this time it tore a lot of ligaments.
Only a year after David's death,
Mike dislocates his shoulder in the ring
and is rushed to an Israeli hospital.
They perform emergency surgery,
and soon after, Mike is flown back to Texas.
They literally took him home,
and all of a sudden, his temperature is sky high.
The fever hitting, went over 105,
is what did the damage, I think.
I put him over my shoulder and walked down the steps
with him, put him in the car and took off.
Mike Von Erich hospitalized for routine shoulder surgery,
sustained a staph infection that escalated
into Toxic Shock Syndrome.
It was Toxic Shock Syndrome, what they called it.
And the doctor comes out, and he said,
"His blood pressure has plummeted and
his organs are starting to shut down."
He said, "We've done everything we can do."
He said, "I don't think Mike's gonna make it
through the night."
And they told us, "Say goodbye to him."
The hospital was getting like 250 calls an hour
where they had to hire extra staff.
People had been offering to donate
their liver and their kidneys.
We were in the room and Gary Holder,
who was considered the chaplain of World Class,
was there in the room.
Gary Holder said, "God, you stand on your word.
You said anything we ask in Jesus' name,
'I will do it'."
That's when I didn't even look up.
I thought, that's disrespectful.
You went too far.
He took the Bible and he slammed it down on the table.
And he said, "God, there is your word."
"So, keep your word, God."
And, it was less than 30 seconds after
Gary finished praying, the doors opened.
Bill Sutger came in the room with this other doctor,
and his exact words were,
"I'm not sure what happened, but everything's functioning.
His temperature has dropped, so let's see where we're at."
They couldn't believe it, but he, he's a fighter.
And I want to thank everyone out there,
all my good neighbors, for your prayers.
One week later, we rolled Mike out of the hospital.
He might have rushed it a little bit.
He was so anxious to get back.
And so, we did a big press conference.
I, I, I know I'll be back.
I can't wait 'til the Cotton Bowl 'cause I'm gonna be there.
Do you have a message for your fans?
Yeah, be at Cotton Bowl if they want to see me back,
my very first time.
I saw on TV, well, "Mike's gonna come back," and Mike--
And they were milking to it and trying to
get people interested in it.
I just didn't see how it was gonna work.
And when he first came back, it was like,
"God, I don't know if he should come back and wrestle."
He probably shouldn't have wrestled to begin with.
He looked really gaunt and hollow.
I wondered if there was some brain damage.
And that's when he attacked a stop light.
Attacked a parked car one time. Just...
Rages, you know. Nobody in the parked car.
But, they always wanted a feel-good story at the end,
and it always worked when it was stuff that they could write.
But when it was real life and they couldn't control it, it...
It didn't work.
You gotta realize, when Mike came on the scene,
the, the brothers were superstars.
So, all of a sudden, you had big shoes to fill.
And I think that was a lot of pressure that went on Mike.
And early Saturday morning, Von Erich was arrested on
suspicion of drunken driving and possession of marijuana.
The Von Erich family attorney assisted Mike
during his release from jail.
He would be the last person to see him alive.
Mike missed an event.
If you were a Von Erich, you didn't miss an event.
I remember that night,
wondering where Mike was, what he was thinking.
They had a bulletin out everywhere,
had all the police looking.
And, it was, I want to say, 2 days, maybe 3,
before they found Mike.
The news of another tragic death in the Von Erich family
has hit hard.
Mike had not been seen since Saturday, and reportedly,
was depressed about being arrested the night before.
As his mother and brother looked on,
the family's worst fears were confirmed.
Professional wrestler Mike Von Erich is dead,
the apparent victim of suicide.
He overdosed. So sad.
Everybody was just so sad. Dave, and now Mike.
You know, I didn't know this was gonna get so emotional.
Maybe I got-- I'm tired.
These are 3 big things, I guess.
You guys... Um...
Could I take another break for just about 10 minutes?
- Oh yeah, of course. - That was taxing.
And once again, another Von Erich brother
is called upon to step into the ring.
Chris Von Erich was the worst part of the whole thing
because he had had health problems.
I'm sure he wanted to be like his brothers 'cause
his brothers were his heroes.
Kevin was actually helping Chris work out.
He had to work 10 times harder than everybody else.
His body wasn't built like his brothers.
He wanted to be a wrestler so bad.
He just, it's not gonna happen.
The Von Erichs were believable heroes
to thousands of fans.
But continual misfortune chipped away at their image,
and they would have one last desperate attempt to revive it.
My brothers taught me about wrestling,
but I taught them about eating.
Mike was really something special.
- I thought you were full? - These are for dad!
And we did a few TV commercials,
shot it all night.
For a joke, Kerry puts all these foot products over in my thing.
I didn't even notice it.
This is a gift from a fan, out here.
Really old picture.
We loved our fans, and to this day,
the most loyal people in the world.
We wanted to be like good
and be good examples to kids.
And, you know, after Dave's death and Mike's death,
you feel like you're letting everybody down.
It's, it's really hard.
With this being the third death in the family,
and being such a strong Christian family,
I think the first thing everybody wants to do
is question, "Well, if they're such strong Christians,
why is all this happening to 'em?"
I'm not saying that the boys didn't believe in God and
weren't religious. They just sometimes
didn't do things outside the ring that way.
And I don't mean they were terrorizing the population.
They were damaging themselves more than anybody else.
But, because they were so closely identified as
not only being Texas all-Americans,
but God fearing Texas all-Americans,
when things came out about car wrecks, or suicides,
or... is there drugs involved in these things,
or whatever, every move was covered by the newspapers.
The Dallas Times Herald, the local television stations,
and you could tell when you watched the television show,
you're seeing more empty seats.
You know, like, look - they were huge in '86,
and by '88, '89 they were, they were pretty bad off.
After so much tragedy, and with a family legacy
in jeopardy, Fritz's youngest son, Chris,
steps into the ring, attempting to pick up
where his brothers left off.
I think Chris felt bad.
He wanted to try to fill the shoes,
that it was almost impossible to fill based on his size.
The first I remember of Chris was, you know,
him just being like a little celebrity.
The goal was to hopefully find a way to get Chris
involved into the matches.
If he was gonna wrestle, I want to hand him
a really good ground game.
You know, all the escapes and counters,
and to be a technician.
Physically, in no way, should he have been
involved in wrestling.
Because of his size, I think he had asthma.
He had brittle bones because of the asthma medication
that he took.
It was really hard for him.
Wanted have the big muscles and all that,
but muscles are just looks.
You've got to have agility, explosive, balance, snap,
all these things that just didn't happen for him.
And then, all of a sudden, Chris broke his arm.
He couldn't work out. It was a big, big setback.
Kevin was down there.
They were down at the house in Edom,
and Chris was just all upset and depressed,
and this and that.
He'd loaned me his VCR, and so,
he called me at like 12:30 that night.
"I want my VCR back right now."
I said, "Chris, come on. Wait for the morning, okay?
I'll give it to you in the morning."
And, I hear his 4-wheeler drive around my house
a couple times and took off.
I knew he had a spot up on the hill he used to go to,
so I drove up there, you know.
He was sitting there by himself. I said,
"Chris, what are you doing up here by yourself like this?"
He said, "Well, did you read my note?"
I said, "Oh, what are you gonna do?
Kill yourself or something, Chris? Come on now, bud."
I said, "Chris, don't do anything crazy, okay?"
He said, "I won't, Kev. I promise."
I believed it, you know.
Went back to my parent's house to check his bedroom.
And, I said, "Does Chris ever write suicide notes?"
Dad said, "I think you better get up there."
So, I did get back up there.
Wish I had never left because I got there
right after it must have happened.
I saw him laying there on the ground kind of...
Choking.
I said, "Chris, what did, what did you do?"
I thought he might have took some pills.
Reached, hooked his arm and put my hand under his head
to lift him up and my thumb,
you know, found the hole.
That's when I realized that he shot himself in the head.
Mm... Yeah.
It was tough.
With the last vestiges of the Von Erich family torn apart,
Kerry accepts an offer to go mainstream with the WWF.
It's another chance in the spotlight.
You know what; when the crowd started dropping here,
Kerry was getting big offers,
would he come up and work for Vince?
Would he make some appearances up there?
Kerry, he took a, took a good offer from Vince and
he went up there.
After enduring several tragedies and the decline of
his family's wrestling promotion,
Kerry takes the Von Erich legacy to wrestling's biggest stage.
However, no one knew he was wrestling
with an unthinkable secret.
There's a school picture. What a cute little kid.
Were you guys, like, really curious kids?
Like, were you really active and...?
Kerry and I just showed off for each other
all day long, I think. We just like,
we took a chance a day, it was like...
Yeah.
A lucrative offer made to Kerry by the WWF
was an opportunity to revive the Von Erich name.
However, a secret from his past was slowly catching up with him.
Kerry was supposed to be wrestling that night.
I want to say Austin, or somewhere.
I get the phone call, Kerry's been in an accident.
It's not life threatening, but he really busted up his leg.
Kerry was riding his motorcycle and ran into
the back of a parked police car.
I remember Rick Hazzard, I saw him,
and he said, "Holy cow," he said,
"his ankle looks like an alligator chewed on it."
When they made the decision to amputate,
I would have never, ever thought it could be kept secret.
I guess Fritz thought, they didn't want to make
Kerry look weak, especially after the other tragedies.
So, they tried to hide the fact of his foot situation.
He wanted me to promise to hide that,
and we all promised.
Anything we said to each other,
if we gave our word, that's an oath.
We weren't gonna let Kerry down because
he was ashamed of it.
In Kerry's mind, "I'm a fake."
You know, the injury done on this leg...
What about it, now?
Before, it was, it was almost to the point where...
I almost had to have my leg amputated.
Now my leg is back, it's coming on strong.
Everyone was sworn to secrecy for over
about a 5-year period there.
He would do everything that a person
with both limbs would do.
I think that would 'a just been such a testimonial.
And I was proud of Kerry.
To do, to come back like that and,
not only just compete, but to impress people.
They could've presented it like that,
and maybe he would've been a little bit more inspirational,
maybe it'd have made him feel better.
But instead, it was another thing he had to hide,
and it was another thing that was probably
weighing on him mentally.
"Now I'll never be as good as I could be.
I'll never make my dad proud," whatever the case may be.
With his transition to wrestling's grandest stage,
Kerry found himself a small fish in a big pond.
But with a new identity,
it was a chance to reboot his career.
Vince brings in Kerry Von Erich,
the modern-day warrior.
You know, he's one of the biggest superstars
of that period. I 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...
he just wasn't the same.
And he quickly drops the Von Erich name,
tells him you can't do the Claw.
His name's the Texas Tornado,
and they just call him the Texas Tornado.
They didn't even call him Kerry Von Erich.
All he had going for him is that he was Kerry Von Erich.
The Texas Tornado!
When he was there, things were going down,
and it was not a secret things were going down.
He had, you know, a series of drug-related issues.
He was not happy at all.
Kerry didn't handle the fame well.
You've seen the, you know, he was always out
with rock 'n' roll people and all.
And I was more of a family man.
It's probably what saved me. I know it saved me.
Kerry was, was... doing drugs.
You just knew it.
Once he went through the accident,
they immediately fill him up with all these drugs.
They got the pain killers in ya,
they got the pills they're giving him.
That was not a good path for him.
Because of the drugs, he was on probation at the time,
and then he got arrested again.
And... you know,
he was afraid because of the probation violation
that he was gonna go to jail this time.
I 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," and she wouldn't promise him that.
He talked about what Chris did in glowing terms. It's like,
"Can you imagine the guts it took to do what Chris did?"
You know, it's like, that's pretty scary
when you hear people saying that.
He told me he was gonna kill himself.
I said, "Kerry, you couldn't do that to me."
He said, "Kev, well, what are we gonna do then?"
I said, "We'll do something,
but we sure as hell ain't gonna die."
I said, "I'll tell ya what, Kerry, let's you and me,
let's go to Alaska. Let's take our .44's
and let's just get charged by a polar bear.
We got 6 tries.
I thought it'll be good for me to get alone with Kerry
and there's no drug dealers up there,
so it'll be great.
I wish we'd 'a gone up there with our .44s.
On 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.
Called dad and he said, "Can't talk. Busy."
Well, he was pouring a driveway,
and I was gonna tell him Kerry's in a bad way,
he's headed out to your place and hold him for me
'til I get there. I called, tried to call dad
a couple times and could not get through.
Fritz was continuing pouring concrete.
Kerry came, walked up, gave him a big hug and said,
"Dad, I love you. I really, really love you."
Kerry got in the jeep and took off in the jeep.
And so, Dad's sitting in the house wondering why
Kerry's been out in the field so long.
He said he went and looked and his pistol was gone.
The .44 he'd given dad for father's day.
And, when he went down, there was a clear out area
down there and he saw the jeep parked.
With one glove laying on the seat.
So, he knew then what was happening,
he had taken the glove.
The shooting hand.
Fritz said he walked back, there was a little row of trees.
And there Kerry was.
He had...
He was dead.
Shot his self in the heart.
Brothers begin to pile up,
and he just couldn't take it anymore.
Dad found him and he said he'd never seen such
a peaceful look on Kerry's face.
Must 'a hit him just right.
Kevin said one thing one time, almost made me cry.
He said, "I used to have 5 brothers,
and now, I'm not even a brother."
Over all of that, Fritz and Doris had split up.
I thought my dad was taking it like a soldier, you know.
My mom was really getting hit though,
and she blamed him. It was bad.
The last 10 years of his life was not a picture
of what I would call health. He would have never thought
that he would've outlived 5 of his 6 sons.
Yeah, when he got older he had brain cancer.
You know, he was not making sense,
some of the things he said. He was questioning God.
Well, he got that gun out and he pointed the gun at me, and
he said, "You'd kill yourself too if you had the guts."
I said, "Dad, it takes guts to live, not guts to die."
And he pointed the gun at me, said,
"You're afraid, aren't you?" And I said, "No, sir."
You gotta remember, there's brain cancer involved and...
and I didn't know if he was gonna shoot me or not.
I said, "Dad, quit pointing the gun at me."
I said, "Quit pointing the gun at me!"
And then I jumped out the door 'cause I,
I can see he's thinking.
I'm not gonna let cancer decide if I live or die.
You know what; I was glad he died.
I wanted him to quit suffering.
Yeah, I'd seen him suffer too much,
what a good man he was.
Well, he deserved better than that.
What a good man.
The immortal Fritz Von Erich!
Not only have I lost a brother.
I lost all of them.
And, there is talk about there being
a curse on the family, you know.
It's so ridiculous, you know, a curse.
What happened is just terrible,
just a terrible thing. But no curse.
So, what happened with you after this?
I mean, obviously, you went through
a really difficult period, yourself?
I thought I was doing my best, and I was, but...
I was mad and...
And there was a time I thought that,
that I wanted to die, you know,
I wanted to be dead.
And I knew I wasn't gonna kill myself,
but I just wanted to fight anyway,
and prison felt like the perfect thing for me.
I was gonna steal a gun 'cause I knew
how much people hate guns.
If I stole one; that's prison.
Lo and behold, I tried it in a Lubbock gun store
with a bunch of good old Texas men in there.
I went to steal that gun, and the old man that
owned the store was looking right at me.
I put it down my pants and
I stiff-legged walked out of there.
I stopped and looked at him like,
"You got something to say?"
That's when he just looked at me like an old man,
didn't say anything for a long time,
just looked at me.
And I looked right into his eyes,
and he said, "Love you, Kev."
Oh, man.
I said, "Thank you, Sir."
And I went out to my car, and I just thought about
the magnitude of what just happened.
And I came back in that store,
gave him his rifle and hugged him.
I said, "I love you too, Sir."
And all those other men were in there.
Man, it was a great day for Texas.
Great day for Von Erich. I needed that so bad.
I wanted life to get as bad as it could be.
Anyway, I'm so glad it's over.
Saved me.
Y'all want to see this tree I was telling you about?
Yeah.
This is my desk, my office.
- That's your office? - Yeah.
My lazy boy lounger here.
How often are you here? Every day?
Ah... Try to.
Not as-- If I can, I get here every day.
I try... I do try to do that.
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
A peace I've never had before.
The more alone you get, the more close you feel to...
to God. It seems like to me.
If 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.
I feel like...
you think you're far away, you know,
you're never far.
God is right with you, and I can feel it.
And I just, I do love it.
Hey, baby! Hey, you.
Kevin's kids, I've met 'em all.
And they have beautiful kids now.
What I sought for all my life was to be peaceful,
and here I am.
And I thank you, Lord.
I've never been so happy and peaceful.
There's always kids playing here.
It's highest and best use for the land, for sure.
He'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.
I'm lucky the way that I found that the
only thing that lasts is family.
You 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.
And then in both of them, you see...
the Von Erich.
And so, hey, who knows. Maybe the story'll continue.
Kevin officially retired on July the 17th, 2017.
Wrestling his last match
alongside his two sons in Israel,
where the Von Erich family name
is celebrated to this day.
You know, I've seen huge crowds.
I've been the guest of honor.
I've been, you know, a celebrity.
I've been what everybody thinks they want.
I've had all that.
And it's not satisfying because that's all there is.
What is satisfying is dinner with the family,
children laughing.
Real joy, that's the truth.