ON 18 FEBRUARY 1993, Fritz Von Erich – a legendary wrestling star and promoter – found the body of his own son, Kerry Von Erich, on his ranch in Denton County, Texas. Kerry (33) was sitting upright against a tree. He’d shot himself through the heart with his father’s own .44 – a grisly suicide that still haunts professional wrestling lore three decades later. What made it even more disturbing was that Kerry was the fifth of Fritz’s sons to die – and the third to die by suicide.
“Dad found him and said he’d never seen such a peaceful look on Kerry’s face,” says Kevin, who is the only surviving Von Erich brother.
In the early 1980s, Kerry Von Erich had been one of the biggest wrestling stars in the United States, often teaming alongside brothers David and Kevin in their father’s Dallas-based promotion, World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW). The promotion revolutionised wrestling TV and made rock-star-like heroes of the boys.
But over the years Kerry lost his brothers one by one and had his right foot covertly amputated – a secret later exposed in a macabre moment in the ring. And by the time he took his own life, Kerry was facing prison on drug charges.
The story of the Von Erich family – the subject of the new wrestling biopic, The Iron Claw, starring Zac Efron and which is released in SA on 15 March – is both horribly tragic and bizarre. In fact, the fate that befell Fritz, the wrestling Nazi-turned-all-American born-again Christian, and his brood of heart-throb sons is almost too sad for one film.
The Von Erich curse, as it’s often called, is like a warning from a time when
