Hall of Fame: Fritz Von Erich

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[Bild: http://www.wwf4ever.de/kolumnen/FritzVonErich1.jpg]

Jack Barton Adkisson`s Leben war das Synonym eines Roller Coaster Rides. Er war einer der groessten Promoter des Pro Wrestling`s, und war ein Pionier als es darum ging in den 70er und 80er Jahren das Pro Wrestling zu modernisieren. Im Ring war er als Fritz Von Erich einer der groessten Heels seiner Zeit. Er spielte einen Nazi nachdem zweiten Weltkrieg, mit seinem legendaeren Finisher, der Iron Claw. Doch ein Aspekt seines Leben`s wird ihn immer ueberstrahlen, er war der Vater von sechs Kindern und der Patriarch der bekanntesten Pro Wrestling Familie, den Von Erich`s! Einer seiner Soehne, Jackie Jr verstarb im Kindesalter. Die anderen 5 Soehne machten Karriere im Pro Wrestling, Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike und Chris, sie alle wrestleten als Von Erich`s und galten in den 70er Jahren als die Zukunft des Pro Wrestling`s. Sie alle sollten eines Tages World Heavyweight Champions werden, doch die Geschichte wurde anders geschrieben. Vier dieser fuenf Soehne begingen Selbstmord (3) oder starben an einer Drogenueberdosis (1). Es ist brutal wenn ein Vater seinen Sohn oder Tochter ueberlebt, Fritz Von Erich ueberlebte gleich fuenf seiner Kinder. Nicht wenige geben Fritz Von Erich die Schuld an der Familientragoedie, auch Personen aus der eigenen Familie. Der Name Fritz Van Erich sollte eigentlich dafuer stehen das er einer der groessten Stars und Promoter seiner Zeit war, stattdessen steht der Name fuer einer der groessten Tragoedien im Professional Wrestling.

Jack Barton Adkisson wurde am 16 August 1929 in Jewett, Texas geboren. Aufgewachsen ist Jack in East Dallas, und er besuchte die Southern Methodist University. Damals hatte er zwei Stipendien bekommen, einmal fuer Football und dann fuer Musik. Er spielte indem 1949er College Team zusammen mit Doak Walker. Als Jack Adkisson jedoch seine Frau Doris heiratete, verstiess er gegen das Universitaetsgesetz, und wurde von dem College verwiessen. Jack hatte daraufhin ein Tryout bei den Dallas Texans (damals AFL), jedoch wurde er nicht ins Team aufgenommen. Daraufhin ging Jack nach Canada, und kam nach Alberta wo er bei den Edmonton Eskimos in der Canadian Football League einen Platz als Football Spieler fand. 1953 traf er den dortigen lokalen Wrestling Promoter Stu Hart das erstemal. Stu Hart war damals Promoter von Klondike Wrestling in Edmonton, dem Vorlaeufer von Stampede Wrestling in Calgary. Jack Adkisson war mit einer groesse von 6`4 und 275 Pounds extrem beweglich, und Stu Hart bot ihm an ihn zu trainieren. So kam Jack Adkisson zum Pro Wrestling, und er trainierte mit Stu Hart, Ilio DiPaolo und Gene Kiniski.

Grosse Wrestler die athletisch waren, waren in den 50er Jahren sellten, und so fasste Jack Adkisson von anfang an Fuss im Pro Wrestling, und wurde schon bald zum Star. In den 50er Jahren nachdem World War II war die Meinung der Amerikaner ueber “Nazi Germany“ sehr niedrig. Schon sehr frueh hatte Jack Adkisson die Idee, das ins Pro Wrestling mit einzubinden. Er wollte Wrestling Fans provozieren indem er einen Ring Nazi spielt. Er nannte sich von nun an Fritz Von Erich, wobei sich der Name wie folgt zusammensetzte. Fritz war ein Familienname, und Erich war der Maedchenname seiner Mutter. Sein Finisher war die Iron Claw, nicht nur einer der bekanntesten Finisher seiner Zeit, sondern wohl auch einer der legendaersten Finisher indem Business. Es wird oft gesagt das Fritz Von Erich die Iron Claw erfunden haette, das ist jedoch nicht ganz richtig, aber ohne zweifel hat Fritz Von Erich die Iron Claw Populaer gemacht. Nach ihm haben etliche Wrestler wie Baron Von Raschke, Killer Karl Krupp Blackjack Mulligan, Blackjack Lanza, Pak Song und viele mehr die Iron Claw als Finisher uebernommen. Ende der 50er Jahre war Fritz Von Erich schon ein Star, er zog 1959 noch Buffalo, New York, dort kam es jedoch zur ersten Familientragoedie. Sein aeltester Sohn Jackie Jr Adkisson war damals 6 Jahre alt, waehrend eines Sturms war er draussen, und kam an ein Elektrokabel. Er bekam einen Schlag, wurde Bewusstlos, fiel in eine Pfuetze und ertrank. Jack Adkisson traf der Tod hart, er gab sich die Schuld an dem Unfall, und dachte er haette es verhindern koennen wenn er nicht immer so lange unterwegs gewessen waere. Fritz Von Erich verliess daraufhin die Gegend, und zu dieser Zeit erlaubte Fritz Von Erich einem anderen Wrestler mit dem Namen Wally Siebe, den Namen Waldo Von Erich zu benutzen in der WWWF. Waldo Von Erich wurde spaeter ueber lange Zeit der Top Heel der WWWF der gegen den Champion Bruno Sammartino antrat.

In der AWA wurde dann Fritz Von Erich am 27 July 1963 in Omaha, Nebraska gegen Verne Gagne AWA World Heavyweight Champion. Den Title verlor er jedoch zwei Wochen spaeter am 8 August 1963 in Amarillo, Texas wieder an Verne Gagne. Innerhalb der NWA stieg Fritz Von Erich bis mitte der 60er Jahre auf, als es dann darum ging wer Lou Thesz als NWA World Heavyweight Champion beerben sollte, da kam jedoch Von Erich nicht in Frage, sondern man gab Gene Kiniski den Title. Von Erich und Kiniski waren eigentlich in vielerlei Hinsicht sich aehnlich, so waren sie beide Top Heels, sie waren beide guter Interviewer, und waren beide grosse Brawler (auch wenn Kiniski der bessere Wrestler war). Der Grund warum jedoch Fritz Von Erich als NWA World Heavyweight Champion nie in Frage kam, ist einfach. Zum einen spielte er einen Deutschen Nazi der 20 Jahre nachdem Krieg immernoch den Hitler Salute machte, was an seiner Glaubwuerdigkeit krazte. Die NWA wollte zudem keinen Champion mit einem “Gimmick“ und einem offensichtlichen “Fake Name“. Ohnehin waere wohl Lou Thesz schwer davon zu ueberzeugen gewessen das er den Title an Fritz Von Erich abgeben sollte, da war im Gene Kiniski viel lieber. In den 70er Jahren war Fritz Von Erich dann nochmal als NWA World Heavyweight Champion im Gespraech, NWA President Sam Muchnick war einer seiner groessten Befuerworter. Muchnick gab den wirklichen Namen von Von Erich bekannt in Jack Adkisson, doch er konnte sich nicht durchsetzen und Von Erich wurde nie NWA World Heavyweight Champion.

Das Jahr 1966 war wohl das entscheidende als aktiver Wrestler fuer Fritz Von Erich. Zum einen wurde wie gesagt Gene Kiniski NWA World Heavyweight Champion und nicht er, und zum anderen wurde Von Erich ein Star in Japan bevor er ueberhaupt einen Fuss auf Japanisches Land setzte. Nachdem Rikidozan 1963 verstarb, da erlebte das Pro Wrestling in Japan einen starken Rueckgang. Es waren dann Antonio Inoki, Giant Baba und einige Foreign Wrestler die das Business dann wieder ankurbelten. Zu den Foreign Wrestlern zaehlte ein Destroyer, Bruno Sammartino, Bobo Brazil und auch Fritz Von Erich. Die Japanischen Magazine berichtet in den 60er Jahren viel ueber das US Wrestling, und bildeten die US Stars mit Bildern ab. Als die US Wrestler dann nach Japan kamen, waren sie schon bekannt bevor sie ueberhaupt ein Match bestritten. Von Erich besiegte 1965 in Texas in zwei Matches Antonio Inoki mit der Iron Claw. Die Japaner waren so begeistert das Von Erich und die Iron Claw (in Japan Tetsu no Tsume genannt) noch vor seiner ersten Japan Tour, schon so bekannt waren wie The Destroyer und sein Figure Four Leg Lock, Bobo Brazil und sein Coco-Butt oder Freddie Blassie und sein Vampire Teeth. In Japan wurde Fritz Von Erich zudem beworben, aus Berlin, Germany. Am 28 November 1966 bestritt Fritz Von Erich dann endlich sein erstes Match in Japan. Die Japanese Wrestling Association setzte sofort in Osaka ein Match mit Giant Baba an um den International Title. Baba gewann durch Countout. Am 3 December 1966 wurde dann ein Rematch in der Budokan Hall zwischen Fritz Von Erich und denn damals groessten JWA Star Giant Baba angesetzt. Das Match sollte gleich mehrfach in die Geschichte eingehen. Zum einen ist es der erste Wrestling Event in der Budokan Hall gewessen der ausverkauft war, zum anderen passierte folgendes. Waehrend des Matches setzte Von Erich seine Iron Claw an, Baba bladete dann seine Stirn auf, erwischte jedoch ausversehen mit der Klinge die Finger von Von Erich der daraufhin stark zu bluten begann. Bedenkt, das Match wurde am Freitag Abend Live im Japanischen Fernsehen uebertragen. Am naechsten morgen versuchte die Japanische Presse das ganze zu retten, und berichtete das Fritz Von Erich in das Match ging mit einem Nagel der in seiner Hand gesteckt haben soll.

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1966 gruendete Ed McLemore die Promotion NWA Big Time Wrestling. Eigentuemer der Promotion war von anfang an Southwest Sports Inc, und deren President war Fritz Von Erich. Aus Big Time Wrestling sollte spaeter noch die WCCW werden, dazu spaeter jedoch mehr. 1967 aenderte sich dann einiges fuer Fritz Von Erich. Er teamte anfang 1967 mit Waldo Von Erich vorallem in Texas (Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio und andere Staedte). Zusammen fehdeten sie gegen Al Costello und Kurt Von Brauner um die US Tag Team Title, Costello und Von Brauner wurden von Gary Hart gemanagt. Die Von Erich`s wurden jedoch ploetzlich in Texas von den Fans bejubelt, waehrend Von Brauner und Costello die Heels waren. Die Von Erich`s gewannen nicht die Title, und Gary Hart attackierte oft die Von Erich`s waehrend den Matches. In Dallas teamte dann Bearcat Wright mit den Von Erich`s, gegen Costello, Von Brauner und Hart, und sie gewannen das Match. Ein paar Wochen spaeter gewannen die Von Erich`s dann endlich die Title, die Fans bejubelten die beiden zum erstenmal. Es folgte ein Face Run von den Von Erich`s gegen Kenji Shibuya, Buddy Austin, Brute Bernard, The Executioner (Tarzan Tyler ), Mike Paidious und andere. Und so wurde aus dem Deutschen Ex Naxi Soldaten denn jeder hasste, der All American Cowboy, denn alle liebten. Zwischen mitte der 60er Jahre und mitte der 70er Jahre hatte Fritz Von Erich viele Fehden gegen Johnny Valentine, Stan Stasiak, Professor Toru Tanaka, Lord Alfred Hayes, The Sheik, Bruiser Brody und The Great Kabuki.

Title die Fritz Von Erich in seiner Karriere hielt:
-1958 & 1978: Texas Brass Knuckles Title (zweimal)
-1 July 1958: NWA World Tag Team Title (Minneapolis) (mit Hans Hermann)
-1961-1963: NWA US Heavyweight Title (Detroit) (dreimal)
-1962-1963: World Heavyweight Title (Omaha) (zweimal)
-27 July 1963: AWA World Heavyweight Title
-1965-1967: NWA Texas Heavyweight Title (dreimal)
-1965-1966: NWA World Tag Team Title (Texas) (mit Killer Karl Kox und Duke Keomuka)
-1966-1982: NWA American Heavyweight Title (13 mal)
-1967-1972: NWA American Tag Team Title (mit Waldo Von Erich, Billy Red Lyons, Grizzly Smith, Dan Miller, Fred Curry und Dean Ho) (6 mal)
-18 April 1973: NWA International Tag Team Title (Killer Karl Krupp)
-6 May 1984: World Six Man Tag Team Title (mit Kevin und Mike Von Erich)

Mitte der 70er Jahre aenderte sich jedoch einiges. Zum einen begannen langsam seine Sohne Kevin, David, Kerry und Mike Von Erich mit dem Wrestling. Fritz Von Erich trat somit nichtmehr Fulltime auf oder ging auf lange Touren, und baute immer mehr Big Time Wrestling um seine Soehne auf. Zum anderen wurde im August 1975 Fritz Von Erich zum NWA Presidenten gewaehlt. Den Fans wurde erzaehlt das Sam Muchnick zuruecktritt, und selbst seinen langen Freund Jack Adkisson zum NWA Presidenten machte. In wirklichkeit wurde jedoch Muchnick abgesetzt, was wir man heute weiss der anfang vom ende fuer die NWA war. Von Erich war von anfang an eigentlich kein optimaler NWA President, er wrestlete noch selbst was viele Promoter in der NWA stoerrte. Von Erich begruendete das damit jedoch immer das er sein Territory verteidigen musste, weil er der groesste Star noch immer war. Dann leitete er wie gesagt noch sein eigenes Territory als Promoter, und kuemmerte sich nur wenig um die belange der NWA. Als NWA President musste eigentlich Von Erich unter anderem den NWA World Heavyweight Champion booken, doch Adkisson interessierte sich dafuer nicht, und so war es Jim Barnett`s Aufgabe dafuer zusorgen das der NWA Champion gebookt wurde. Fritz Von Erich war dann ende 1975 dafuer auch verantwortlich als NWA President das Terry Funk am 10 December Jack Brisco besiegte, und NWA World Heavyweight Champion wurde. Dieser Titlewechsel und der darauffolgende zwei jaehrige Titlerun von Terry Funk wird ebenfalls immer dafuer stehen, der anfang vom ende der NWA gewessen zusein. Sam Muchnick als NWA President bookte natuerlich auch den NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Muchnick hasste Screwjobs oder Time Limit Draws, unter Muchnick gewann der NWA World Heavyweight Champion immer clean seine Matches oder Matchserien. Demzufolge wurde der NWA World Heavyweight Champion als der Top Wrestler im Business angesehen. Das aenderte sich jedoch mit Fritz Von Erich, er bookte oft Screwjobs die nun Normalitaet wurden, und auch viel komplexer mit der Zeit wurden. Der NWA Champion gewann die Mehrzahl seiner Matches nichtmehr, was die Aura der NWA World Heavyweight Title stark beschaedigte. Auch wenn nach Jack Brisco noch viele Top Wrestler den NWA World Heavyweight Title hielten, wie etwa Terry Funk, Harley Race oder Ric Flair, so erreichte der Title nie mehr den Status wie in den 50er bis mitte der 70er Jahre, und auch der Erfolg sollte niemehr der selbe sein.

Hinzu kam das Fritz Von Erich als NWA President mehr sein Territory im Sinn hatte als die NWA. Die NWA war in den 50er bis 70er Jahren so stark, weil sie ein Kollektiv waren unter Sam Muchnick. Die groesste Staerke der NWA war es, das sich die NWA Promotions gegenseitig halfen, gegen nicht NWA Promotions. Wenn ein nicht NWA Promoter in eine NWA Territory kam, dann sendeten alle NWA Promotions ihre Top Stars in das NWA Territory, um den rivalisierenden Promoter aus der Stadt zu draengen. Das war eines der NWA Gesetze, und man unterdrueckte ueber Jahrzehnte so viele aufstrebende Promoter die keine Chance hatten gegen die NWA. Doch unter Fritz Von Erich als NWA President aenderte sich das, immer weniger wurde diese Taktik angewandt. Die Folge davon war, das die NWA Promotions geschwaecht wurden, und ploetzlich hatten auch Promoter ausserhalb der NWA Erfolg in Nord Amerika. Als dann Vince McMahon 1984 seine Nationale Expansion anstrebte, da war die NWA so weit schon geschwaecht, das McMahon innerhalb von weniger Wochen mit NWA Taktiken die NWA aus dem Business brachte, was schon sehr Ironisch ist. Die NWA die 30 Jahre lang das Pro Wrestling bestimmte, war schneller weg als sich das jemals jemand gedacht hatte. Es dauerte keine zwei Jahre fuer Vince McMahon und er war der Leader im Pro Wrestling und hatte die NWA ueberrannt.

So schlecht Fritz Von Erich auch als NWA President war, so gut war er jedoch als Promoter von Big Time Wrestling (WCWA und WCCW)! Big Time Wrestling war von 1966 bis 1981 eine NWA Promotion, man hielt bis im August 1978 woechentliche Shows am Dienstag ab, und ab 1978 bis 1981 Shows an jedem Sonntag abend. Doch 1981 begann der lokale Christen Sender (CBN) die BTW Shows im TV zu uebertragen, Freitag abends. Die TV Show hiess World Class Championship Wrestling, was spaeter der Name der Promotion wurde. Die Shows beinhalteten Rock Music Videos, Ring Entrance Music`s, und das Produktionslevel der TV Show war seiner Zeit mindestens 10 Jahre voraus. Innerhalb von wenigen Monaten hatte jeder WCCW Wrestler seine eigene Entrance Music, was zur damaligen Zeit ein Novum war. Entrance Music`s gab es schon seit den 40er Jahren, jedoch nur bei einzelnen Wrestlern. Viele Dinge die bei den WCCW TV Shows anfang der 80er Jahre gezeigt wurden, sind noch heute Standart`s in diesem Business. Gebookt wurden die Shows von Ken Mantell, und die Stars der Promotion waren neben den Von Erich`s auch Bruiser Brody. Fritz Von Erich selbst gab 1982 sein Retirement Match, am 14 June bestritt er im Texas Stadium ein Match gegen King Kong Bundy. Das Texas Stadium beinhaltete 70,000 Sitzplaetze, doch zu dem Event kamen gerademal 6,000 Fans, was auch aufzeigt das das Business damals nicht gerade gut lief. Fritz Von Erich kam 1984 spaeter nochmal aus dem Retirement in der Freebirds Fehde fuer ein paar Matches.

Ab 1982 ging es dann aufwaerts fuer die WCCW. Am 25 December 1982 gab es in der Reunion Arena in Dallas einen der beruehmtesten Angles der Pro Wrestling Geschichte. Terry Gordy slamte die Kaefig Tuere an Kerry Von Erich`s Kopf, und forderte Ric Flair um den NWA World Heavyweight Title mit Michael Hayes als Referee heraus. Das Match drawte 12,000 Fans und war das erste $100,000 Gate in Texas. Es war der Beginn der Fehde zwischen den Von Erich`s und den Freebirds. Diese Fehde war das heisseste was es im Pro Wrestling ab 1983 gab, und Dallas wurde das groesste Territory des Landes. Jeden Freitag abend wurde in Dallas das Sportatorium ausverkauft, und dreimal verkaufte man die Reunion Arena aus mit 17,500 Zuschauern. Zu Jener Zeit im Sommer 1983 da schien es wahr zuwerden, der Traum von Fritz Von Erich das seine Sohne einmal alle World Heavyweight Champions werden wuerden. Ende der 60er Jahre nahm er seine Soehne mit zu einer NWA Convention in Las Vegas. Er praesentierte stolz seine Soehne den anderen Promotern und meinte damals, das sie alle einmal World Heavyweight Champions werden wuerden. Die Von Erich`s galten als die Zukunft und neue Generation des Pro Wrestling, und die WCCW schien die neue starke Promotion in Amerika zuwerden. David Von Erich war der groesste Star, und hatte schon eine Fehde mit NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race 1979 hinter sich, die anderen Von Erich`s hatten schon Ric Flair besiegt, und drawten schon 10,000 Fans zu den Shows. Wie gesagt im Sommer 1983 da war die Welt fuer die Von Erich`s noch in Ordnung, doch dann aenderte sich alles!

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Als erstes erwischte es “The Yellow Rose of Texas“ David Von Erich am 10 Februar 1984 im alter von 25 Jahren auf einer Japan Tour. David wurde am 22 July 1958 geboren und war der dritte Sohn von Fritz Von Erich. David war auch derjenige der der groesste Star seit anfang der 80er Jahre in der Familie war. Er hatte grosse Fehden mit den Freebirds, Ric Flair und Harley Race, allerdings stimmt es nicht das David Von Erich den NWA World Heavyweight Title gewinnen sollte. David Von Erich verstarb an einem Herzinfakt hervorgerufen durch eine Drogenueberdosis. Sein engster Freund war Bruiser Brody der auch anwessend war, laut Ric Flair habe Brody die Painkiller die Toilette runtergespuellt bevor die Polizei eintraf. Spaeter meinte Brody das er ueberreagiert habe in der Situation. Mid David Von Erich`s Tod begann der Abstieg der Von Erich Familie und von der WCCW, und es begann eine tragische Kettenreaktion. Nach David verstarb am 12 April 1987 Mike Von Erich. Mike war der fuenfte Sohn von Fritz Von Erich der am 2 Maerz 1964 geboren wurde. Mike wollte nie Wrestler werden, sondern Musiker. Doch als David verstarb, da wurde er dazu gedraengt in den Ring zusteigen um ihn zu ersetzen. Waehrend einer Tour in Israel verletzte sich Mike an der Schulter, und brauchte eine Operation. Er erhollte sich von der Verletzung nie wieder, und musste zuruecktretten. Auch Mike verstarb an einer Drogenueberdosis, spaeter wurde bekannt das auch er Selbstmord begangen hat. Nach David`s Tod hielt Fritz Von Erich eine Show mit dem Namen “David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions“. Und nachdem Mike Von Erich verstarb benannte Fritz Von Erich die WCCW Shows in die “David & Mike Show“ um. Damals war das ein Riesenskandal, die meisten Leute fanden das sehr geschmacklos, und die WCCW verlor rapide an Zuschauer. Doch das war alles noch harmlos gegenueber dem was sich Fritz Von Erich als naechstes erlaubte. Bei einer WCCW Show in der Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas, taeuschte Fritz Von Erich einen Herzinfakt vor. Den Fans wurde spaeter gesagt das er verstorben sei, und waren schockiert. Man kann sich wohl die Reaktion vorstellen als die Fans erfuhren das alles nur ein Angle war. Kein Promoter ging jemals so weit, und kaum ein Promoter konnte damals glauben das Fritz Von Erich so einen Geschmacklosen Angle mit dem Background seiner zwei Toten Soehne sowas zeigte.

Die Quittung bekam Fritz Von Erich wie gesagt gleich mitgeliefert, die Zuschauer blieben aus. Als naechstes begannen die restlichen Von Erich`s ihren Ruf zu ruinieren. Kerry Von Erich wurde an der Mexicanischen Grenze mit Drogen erwischt, doch bevor es zu einer Anklage kam, verschwanden die Beweisse. Ansonsten tauchten sie bei Bookings nicht auf, oder waren betrunken. Texas Promoter Bill Watts der Mid South Wrestling gross machen wollte, angacierte Ken Mantell den Booker von Fritz Von Erich. Mit Mantell verliessen die Top Stars inkl den Freebirds und Chris Adams die WCCW. Fritz Von Erich verklagte daraufhin Bill Watts, doch die Klage wurde fallen gelassen nachdem Watts selbst Pleite ging. Als naechstes brachte Fritz Von Erich den Wrestler Kevin William Vaughn zur WCCW, und nannte ihn Lance Von Erich, er sollte der aelteste Sohn von Waldo Von Erich sein. Das Problem war nur Lance war ein mieserabler Wrestler, der nichts konnte. Als “Lance Von Erich“ dann auch noch zu einer anderen Promotion wechselte, da behauptete Fritz Von Erich im Ring bei einer WCCW Show das er in wirklichkeit kein Von Erich sei, und sollte der Bastard noch einmal den Von Erich Namen benutzen, das er ihn verklagen wird. Unnoetig zu erwaehnen das das nur einer von vielen Vorfaellen war, der einen weiteren Nagel in den Sarg der WCCW haemmerte. Fritz Von Erich gab dann die WCCW an Jerry Jarrett ab, der die WCCW dann in die USWA uebernahm.

Als naechstes verstarb dann Chris Von Erich am 12 September 1991. Chris war der juengste Sohn von Fritz Von Erich und wurde am 30 September 1969 geboren. Chris war wohl der Von Erich der am meisten das Business liebte, doch seine Karriere blieb erfolglos. Er bekam Depressionen, und ueberwandt nie den Tod seiner Brueder Mike und David. Am 12 September begang er Selbstmord indem er sich in den Kopf schoss. Daraufhin lies sich Doris Adkinsson von ihrem Mann Fritz 1992 scheiden. Doris warf Fritz Von Erich vor, er sei schuld an dem Familiendrama, das jedoch noch nicht zuende sein sollte. Am 18 Februar 1993 beging naemlich Kerry Von Erich im alter von 33 Jahren Selbstmord. Kerry erschoss sich mit der Pistole, die er von seinem Vater zu Weihnachten 1992 geschenkt bekam. Kerry Von Erich war der vierte Sohn von Fritz Von Erich, er wurde am 3 Februar 1960 geboren. Er wurde bekannt als “The Texas Tornado“ und “The Modern Day Warrior”, er wurde auch der erfolgreichste Von Erich Sohn, als er bei der Parade of Champions Show 1984 gegen Ric Flair den NWA World Heavyweight Title gewann. Doch schon damals hatte er Drogenprobleme, am 4 June 1986 hatte er einen schlimmen Autounfall und war seither Koerperlich angeschlagen. Als Kerry Von Erich im Februar 1992 zum zweitenmal wegen Drogenbesitzes erwischt wurde, da wusste er das er ins Gefaengniss geht, Kerry zog den Selbstmord vor. Kevin Von Erich ist bis heute der einzige Von Erich der ueberlebte, das ironische dabei ist, er war derjenige der die groessten Drogenprobleme von allen Von Erich`s hatte, und ausgerechnet er ueberlebte. Kevin war der zweite aelteste Sohn von Fritz Von Erich, der am 15 May 1957 geboren wurde. Er war der “Golden Warrior“ der gegen Ric Flair und Chris Adams fehdete. 1995 trat er zurueck, im May 2006 verkaufte er die WCCW Videobaender an die WWE, und trat daraufhin noch einige male bei WWE auf. Fritz Von Erich selbst lebte seit 1992 alleine in seinem Haus, auch er verwandt den Tod seiner Soehne nie, und das er dafuer verantwortlich gemacht wurde von den meisten Leuten. Er bekam Lungenkrebs der sich auf sein Gehirn ausbreitete. Am 10 September 1997 verstarb Fritz Von Erich im alter von 68 Jahren, in seinem Haus in Lake Dallas, Texas.

Die Tragoedie der Von Erich Familie wird Fritz Von Erich immer anhaften. Egal wie gut er als Wrestler war, egal wie erfolgreich er als Promoter war, oder wie schlecht als NWA President. Man wird Fritz Von Erich vorallem mit dem Tod seiner 5 Soehne in Verbindung bringen! Die Geschichte der Von Erich`s ist sicherlich eines der dunkelsten Kapitel in diesem Sport. Fritz Von Erich arbeitete seit anfang der 70er Jahre, als seine Kinder noch zur Schule gingen, auf das Ziel hin das seine Soehne einmal das Pro Wrestling fuehren werden. Noch als die Von Erich Kids jung waren, und noch lange davon entfernt waren in den Shows aufzutretten, da wurden ihre Namen regelmaessig im TV genannt. Fritz Von Erich stellte sicher das die Namen regelmaessig in den WCCW Programmen standen, oder in anderen Wrestling Magazinen. Der Traum ging bis in den Februar 1984 als der Tod von David Von Erich eine Familientragoedie ausloesste.
In Memory of the Von Erich Family.

[Bild: http://www.wwf4ever.de/kolumnen/TheVonErichs.jpg]

[Nefercheperur]

The Sad Story of the Von Erich Family
vom Dallas Observer, 20 bis 26 November 1997
By Robert Wilonsky

His hands are those of his father -- enormous, fleshy, strong. They are calloused, almost faded, worn from years of wrapping them around men's faces and using them as weapons. These are the hands that wrestled a decade's worth of opponents, men with such names as Ric "Nature Boy" Flair and "Gorgeous" Gino Hernandez. He made a small fortune with his hands, as his father did before him, and as his brothers did during their shortened stays in the ring. His hands carried on the family business even after Dad retired and his brothers died. He inherited The Iron Claw, the grip that made the old man a legend and the family a wrestling dynasty.

Yet when he shakes hands standing in the atrium of a Lewisville Mexican restaurant, the man once and forever known as Kevin Von Erich is soft, gentle, almost consciously so. He looks slightly worn down, tired -- you can see that much in his sleepy eyes. His gut seems a little more ample, a touch softer than it did a decade ago, when he seemed to be made of granite.

Kevin Von Erich can still intimidate you simply by being, yet it's almost as though he is hiding the strength in his body and in those hands. His is now the yielding handshake of a father who plays catch with his sons; who holds his four children and caresses his wife of 18 years; who moves boxes into the office he is setting up to deal with his father's estate. His is the handshake of a gentle man known to his family and closest friends only as Kevin Adkisson.

Kevin Von Erich doesn't really exist anymore. He disappeared two years ago, when Adkisson stepped into the wrestling ring for the final time. His body had been wrecked by injuries to his knees and to his head, having endured seven knee surgeries and at least five serious concussions. Even now, he walks with a slight shuffle, like a man who has been on a horse too long.

Kevin -- dressed this cool November afternoon in a plaid flannel shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of flip-flops -- says he is not in any pain, physical or emotional. He claims he has put behind him the injuries that wrecked his once-promising football career, the wounds suffered in the ring -- and the deaths that have made the Von Erich name synonymous with tragedy.

Just 15 years ago, the Adkisson family was enormous -- five brothers and a happy mother and father who were married when they were almost children. They lived, for a moment, a storybook life on 137 acres in Denton County, in a house Doris Adkisson designed and her husband, Jack, built. They owned, for a moment, the world of professional wrestling.

Then, in 1984, the brothers began dying, succumbing to accidents, illnesses, drugs, and self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The family had already lost one son -- 7-year-old Jackie, to an accident in 1959 -- then David fell. Then Mike, then Chris, then Kerry. The loving couple divorced. The empire collapsed -- ravaged first from the outside by cutthroat competition, then from the inside by death. By 1995, there were simply no more Von Erichs left to wrestle. Kevin was the last brother alive, and he wanted no more of it.

Long ago Kevin had his fill of professional wrestling that had become more spectacle than sport. "To tell the truth," Adkisson says now, "wrestling was just a job to me."

If he ever loved it at all, it was because wrestling gave him a chance to be with his brothers and father -- but they're all gone now, and they have left Kevin to take care of the estate, to keep the Von Erich name from becoming a footnote in wrestling's scant history books. Even now, he and his late brother Mike's ex-wife have begun putting the family history on a Website. It's a sort of "virtual museum," as Kevin calls it, a cybershrine to the glory days.

Kevin is 40 years old now, the lone survivor of the Von Erich legend. He has outlived his five brothers and just buried his father, who died of cancer two months ago. Kevin rarely goes public with his grief, acting as if his personal loss belongs to someone else. He speaks about his father and brothers almost as though they were out of town for a while, gone on a trip and due to return at any moment.

"I don't know what some kind of psychologist would say," he explains, emitting a quick grunt you might mistake for a chuckle. "I do just pretend it never happened, and it works fine for me."

But then why build a monument to your memories? Why attempt to preserve the very pain that has stalked you your entire life? His tragedy isn't virtual; it's remarkably real. Kevin claims the Website is all about making money, but get him talking about the past, chronicling his losses, and it becomes obvious: Kevin Von Erich is still wrestling -- only this time with his demons.

The Von Erichs were once this town's ubiquitous heroes, authentic good guys in a sport filled with cartoon evil. Even patriarch Jack Adkisson, better known as the goose-stepping, Nazi-sympathizing Fritz Von Erich, became a hero -- a good businessman who helped turn wrestling into a million-dollar enterprise, a good Christian who spoke in front of church groups, a good father who had no answers for why his boys died before he did.

"Fritz Von Erich" became the creation of a boy from a small Texas town who moved to Dallas when he was in his teens. Jack was a track star at Crozier Tech, then a football hero at SMU, where he shared the field with Kyle Rote -- until he married his wife, Doris, and lost his scholarship. He took all sorts of jobs after college -- working as a loan collector, a fireman, anything to make money. In 1952, when he heard there was going to be a pro football team in Dallas, the Texans of the old AFL, Jack signed up. He didn't last more than a couple of preseason games -- his knees were too bad for football.

At the suggestion of an acquaintance, Jack then hopped on the pro-wrestling circuit. And he was awful, losing every one of his early bouts during a time when wrestlers were coming out of college' it was, for a moment in the 1950s, still a sport. It was hard to imagine that Jack Adkisson, who was once a golden, handsome man, would wind up becoming Fritz Von Erich -- the German Bomber, the man whose Iron Claw grip could dead-stop any comer.

By the 1970s, Jack had become one of the pioneers in modern wrestling. He leased out the Sportatorium, formed World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), brought multiple cameras into the arena, and launched a televised wrestling revolution. During the early to mid-'80s on Saturday mornings, young boys and their fathers and grandfathers around Dallas would turn on Channel 39 to watch the Von Erich brothers tangle with the Freebirds or Ric Flair. Young women filled the Sportatorium, which even then was a decaying venue, and screamed in delight. They adored the boys' good looks, their athleticism, the way they destroyed the bad guys with such grace and charm.

And this was just in Dallas. Around the world, the Von Erichs were even bigger. By 1983, long before Vince McMahon took control of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and Hulk Hogan had become a household name, the Adkissons were millionaires, owning homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and parcels of land all over North and East Texas. They drew 40,000 to Texas Stadium for wrestling matches. They met presidents of foreign countries. They often couldn't go out in public without causing scenes.

Kerry, his hair feathered and flowing, was like a comic-book rock star' he was all locks and muscle. David, a walking grin, was the cowboy of the lot, as hard as the Texas ground upon which he and his brothers were raised. Kevin, his feet always bare, came off as the brother whose gimmick was that he didn't have one. In the world of pro wrestling, where ugly men passed themselves off as pretty boys in wigs and makeup and skin-tight leather, the Von Erich boys emerged as clean-cut warriors. They never fought dirty. They loved family, God, and their fans.

Jack Adkisson didn't necessarily want his boys to follow him into the ring -- and they, in turn, were determined not to become wrestlers -- if they could help it.

Kevin received a scholarship at North Texas State University, where he showed great promise at fullback and defensive end. While playing under legendary coach Hayden Fry, he injured his knee during a game. It took him four months to recuperate, but then he ruined the other knee while trying to catch a pass thrown too far behind him. Like his father, Kevin was relegated to the sidelines.

"It was so natural to me to watch my dad get in the ring and wrestle and want to do the same thing," Kevin says. "We all did. Of course, I never really wanted to wrestle. I kinda figured I'd enjoy it and would do it one day when I retired from football...But then I had two big knee surgeries... After that, I had to play football in these braces, and it took the fun out of it. Just firing out of my stance was a bitch. That was the beginning of the end."

David was a two-sport athlete at NTSU, where he too received a scholarship. He played basketball and football. According to Kirk Dooley, who in 1987 wrote The Von Erich Family Album: Tragedies and Triumphs of America's First Family of Wrestling, Kevin liked to give David a hard time about playing basketball, telling his younger brother it was "a sissy sport."

But it was Kerry, who was born 11 months after Jack and Doris Adkisson lost their first child, who seemed destined to make his mark in the athletic world. Like his father, who was a record-holder in the discus at Southern Methodist University, Kerry was one hell of a hurler. Jack, acting as his son's coach, made Kerry study films of Kerry's workouts and dragged his kid down to the ring they erected on the family property. While at the University of Houston, Kerry broke the junior world record -- and shattered a longstanding Southwest Conference record held by his father.

Kerry was primed to attend the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, but then Jimmy Carter got political and boycotted the games. There was nothing for Kerry to do except go into wrestling.

Contrary to myth, Jack didn't push his boys into wrestling. It merely became their best option. Like so many young men who try to escape their father's, the Adkisson boys fell backward into the family business. And Jack, especially in his later years -- after David died of an intestinal ulcer in Japan, after Mike overdosed on painkillers, after Chris and Kerry shot themselves -- often spoke as though he wished they hadn't gotten into the sport.

"Some people say I pushed those boys into wrestling, and wrestling killed-- like I killed them," Jack said in 1993. "Killed them? I loved those boys. I didn't force them to be wrestlers. I wanted something good for them,I'd rather they had gone into one of the professions, but when they wanted to be wrestlers, I helped them. But wrestling didn't kill them. Other things killed them."

Still, had David not been wrestling in Japan when he fell gravely ill in, perhaps he would have lived.

Had Mike not been wrestling, he might not have injured his arm in 1985, had, then contracted the toxic-shock syndrome that ruined his body and caused him to committ suicide two years later.

Had Chris not wanted to wrestle so badly, he might not have shot himself in the head for being so much smaller, so much weaker, than his brothers.

Had Kerry not been wrestling, he might not have become addicted to the drugs he took to ease the pain in an ankle he wrecked in a motorcycle accident in 1986. He might not have become despondent over the prosthetic he had to wear, one that made him limp horribly as he walked into the arena. He might not have gone to his parents' ranch in 1993 and shot himself in the heart.

Then there was little Jackie. Jack often blamed himself for his first-born's problems. He was convinced that if he had been home and not out on the road,in Ohio, then he could have prevented the child's horrific death by electrocution and drowning.

[Nefercheperur]

Oh, yes. Wrestling made the Von Erichs famous. It made them rich. It invested them with great expanses of land. It made them household names from the U.S. to Israel to Africa to South America. But if wrestling didn't kill Jack's boys, it sure as hell didn't help them stay alive.

Kevin believes the Von Erich family story would make one hell of a movie. "You put wrestling as the backdrop, but the human story is...It's funny, and it's sad, and it's an emotional roller. I would think it's what a movie producer would be looking for. Why the heck aren't they knocking on my door?" He says this as though forgetting for the moment that it is his story he's retelling, his loss.

He already has the opening scenes of a film sketched out in his head. Before the opening credits roll, there's nothing but absolute darkness; the setting is the moment when nighttime black turns to early-morning dawn. The only you can hear is the sound of duck wings flapping and whistling in the breeze.

Then, a gruff, booming voice explodes in the foreground: Let's get 'em!. In an instant, the whistling of wings and the pitch black gives way to the crash and flash of shotgun blasts.

"There's gunfire all over," Kevin says, his voice rising in excitement. "Then The Von Erich Story pops up. I thought that sounded like a cool opening. The movie would start off with us as little kids -- we had some crazy stories -- and then go on with our lives."

It's odd to hear Adkisson use that phrase -- and then go on with our lives-- if only because his brothers really never had a chance to go on with their lives. They were all dead well before the age of 35, most dyingin their 20s.

The deaths began as accidental tragedies. Jack might have said they were the acts of God, if he truly believed in such things. He became born-again only when his sons began dying. Jack needed to believe the deaths had meaning, that this boys weren't disappearing pointlessly.

Jackie Adkisson, born September 21, 1952, at Baylor University Hospital, was the first to be born -- and the first to die. His death occurred when he was only seven years old, when his father was on his way back from a wrestling match in Cleveland. Jack and Doris were living in Niagara Falls at the time. Their place of residence was a mobile home, a sign of how transient their lives had been while Fritz Von Erich looked for his legend.

A man in the mobile-home park had been rewiring his trailer, and he left a wire exposed that night -- a wire still full of juice. Jackie had been staying at a friend's when, on his way home, he put his hand on the trailer. He was electrocuted -- then fell to the ground unconscious. There, he died in a puddle of melting snow.

Jack blamed himself -- blamed his long trips on the road, the lifestyle of a professional wrestler always looking for a better show in a bigger town. He was convinced that had he been there that night, his son would have lived. He tried to find God, but only found that he, too, wanted to die.

"I can't imagine what it'd be like to lose a baby at that age," says Kevin,was two when his older brother died. "Any radical behavior on my fathers' part would have to be excused after that kind of grief."

Jack, by his own admission, became "pretty mean." He turned into a strict disciplinarian, quick to take the switch to the boys when they misbehaved, broke windows, didn't do their work around the house. Jackie's death nearly killed him until he took the family back to Texas in 1960; it was time to settle down, to give up the nomadic life. He still traveled, but his family now had a proper home in Dallas -- the town where Fritz Von Erich would, finally, become a star.

Jackie's death also changed the way his father approached his career. Fritz Von Erich suddenly became a dangerous wrestler. The man who had lost his first 18 matches -- not all were staged back then, especially for some guy who was just slumming it to pay the rent -- became a nightmare in the squared circle.

"He didn't fear anything. He was just ferocious, and it showed," says Kevin. "He projected it because it was there."

Jack began appearing on a Channel 4 Saturday wrestling show, then at the, a low-rent operation that Jack transformed on the strength of his reputation as a local hero. Fritz was still a young man, in fighting trim and killer shape, and he had learned much from his eight years spent driving from one hellhole to another in search of a few hundred bucks. He founded the WCCW and brought in name wrestlers from all over the country, outstanding favorites such as Verne Gagne, Wladek "Killer" Kowalski, Antonio Rocca, Bruno Sammartino. He then televised their performances from Dallas up to Chicago, Minnesota, New York, and dozens of other Northern and Eastern markets.

Back then, in the early 1960s, wrestling was for adults and still something of a sport, the outcome not always scripted in advance. It had yet to become a show peopled by fat men sporting costumes and freaks who weighed nearly 500. The days of Hulk Hogan making children's movies and Captain Lou appearing in music videos was still a long way off. Ted Turner did yet own World Class Wrestling (WCW).

Yet as much as Jack revered the traditions of wrestling, he helped end the business as well. When his boys began wrestling on Channel 39, young kids began coming up to the Sportatorium. Beer sales turned to soft drinks; the kids wanted autographed pictures of their heroes, wanted to jump in the ring and have the Von Erich boys feel how strong their muscles were.

Almost in an instant, the grown-up world of wrestling became children's play -- and a huge business. Television created thousands of markets, where there had only been hundreds. Promoters no longer cared about making money through ticket sales; they had to put on productions, gaudy shows, in order to attract ratings and advertisers. The new breed of fan needed superheroes and supervillains, Batman and the Joker duking it out in front of the cameras.

When television became big, Kevin says, "wrestling didn't depend on the gate. We got in there and just rocked. We gave it all we had, so that in the mornings after the match, we were sore and felt like we had done our best. So we would get in the ring and break teeth and bones."

The boys began paying the price for their hard work. Kevin started shooting up with painkillers while in his late teens; his knees, ruined by football, used drugs almost non-stop. David and Kerry also began using drugs to numb the paint.

"We were taking shots of deadener in our knees every Monday night before the matches, and that would last a few days," Kevin says. "It was just a fact of life. If you make athletics your business, it's a tough business, and you want to have your body as your vehicle. You have to have it in good working order, and if it doesn't work, you've got to put deadener in there and make it work. We abused our bodies."

Whenever the phone rings early in the morning, Kevin will, in an instant,from a deep sleep and answer the phone. He will, as he says, simply"freak out," so sure someone is calling to deliver the worst of news.

At dawn on February 10, 1984, Kevin received the call that his brother David had died in Japan. The family knew he was sick when he left to wrestle in January, but Jack and Doris never imagined a small flu would evolve so quickly into an intestinal inflammation that would, in a painful instant, take their-year-old son's life.

Just like that, another son was dead -- and part of the business was now gone, the Von Erich who was perhaps the best wrestler in the family. The 6-foot-7 David -- who had cultivated the image of the cowboy, never was without his black hat and leather vest -- he was the son who had come out most like his old man. David, who was at once goofy-looking with mangy red hair and imposing physique, had mastered Fritz's Iron Claw...and did it with a smile. Most thought David would become the Von Erich while his other brothers came into their own. In May of 1984, David was scheduled to beat Ric Flair for the National Wrestling Alliance heavyweight championship. He never got the chance to take the title from Flair; instead, Kerry won the title in front of more than 40,000 at Texas Stadium.

"I'm still not over Dave's death yet," Kevin says, the first signs of dawn peeking through the curtain. "That was the worst one. In 1984, when I got that phone call in the morning..."

He pauses, then looks down at the table. He reaches for a tortilla chip. "All the other deaths were terrible; they were bad, but nothing was like the first one. It was like something in me, like...I don't know."

Kevin looks up and flashes a sad sort of smile. "It hurt to the point where it just couldn't hurt anymore. I didn't shut down or anything. It's not like I lost my ability to love or be soft or enjoy music or art or anything. But somewhere in there just...like...I don't know how to put it. Maybe it was a defense mechanism or something."

David's death was, in one sense, bad for business. But it did allow Mike -- an average-looking kid who didn't have his brothers' rough good looks or, athletic style -- a chance to step up, to fill the void as the third brother in the act. But in 1985, during a match in Israel, he dislocated his shoulder. During surgery to correct the injury, he contracted toxic-shock, which sent his temperature soaring to 107.

Somehow Mike survived -- his parents referred to his recovery as a miracle -- but he struggled for months to regain his strength. His body, once so resilient, rejected the workouts. He was in constant pain -- and galled by his failure. His falling apart became public: He stumbled when in the ring and turned against his family, once attacking his own father. Then, he was arrested in Fort Worth when he got into a fight with another motorist at a stop light.

Addicted to painkillers and tranquilizers, he was arrested for driving while under the influence of drugs on April 12, 1987. He was released on bond, then disappeared two days later.

On April 17, his family found the 23-year-old in a sleeping bag near Lake. He had killed himself with Placidyl, tranquilizers prescribed to him by a Fort Worth doctor who had been treating Mike. Beside the corpse was a note in which Mike said he was going to meet David in a better place. In the end, Mike also wrote that he was "a fuck-up."

At the funeral, Kerry issued a statement. "I am so glad Mike is with David. Mike never really liked to be alone." Not long after Mike died, Kerry left the family business and went under contract to the WWF -- much against the wishes of the family. The Adkissons abhorred the WWF's "style," as Kevin put it, the all-spectacle-no-sport wrestling practiced by Vince McMahon's stable of cartoon characters. Kerry became The Texas Tornado, another silly-ass name. It wasn't good enough just to be a Von Erich.

Kevin, exhausted now by the toll the sport had taken on his family, began to look for a way out. "After Mike had died, we pretty much -- well, I-- had lost my zest for wrestling," he says. "It just wasn't fun. Too many was bad memories."

Of course, they would only get worse.

[Nefercheperur]

Of all the brothers, only Chris truly loved wrestling -- and yet he was the one who would never make a career in the family business. Chris was too small too wrestle -- a mere 5-foot-5 and 175 pounds -- too frail from asthma and the medication that stunted his growth and made his bones fragile.

To the rest of the brothers, all of whom had athletic aspirations outside the ring -- wrestling was just a business, a way to kill time during off seasons. They were forced into the ring only after circumstances went against them. But Chris wanted to wrestle -- if only he could , Kevin says, he could not.

"He had so much pressure, but not from us," Kevin says. "He had pressure on himself and maybe from the fans, too. Sometimes fans can be cruel. They don't know what they're doing, but they can say things like, 'Hey, are you going to be a wrestler when you grow up?' and things like that. They would just kill Chris, because he never got tall and healthy."

Kevin recalls one night in Little Rock, during one of Chris' rare appearances in the ring, how he taught his younger brother to perform a drop kick-- a Von Erich specialty. The brothers would leap into the air, get parallel with the mat, wrap their legs around an opponent's neck and send them crashing to the canvas. Somehow, in the middle of violence real or imagined, the Von Erichs always seemed to fall with grace.

During a match in Texas shortly after that lesson, Chris and Kevin were a tag team, and Chris was in the ring. Kevin recalls how Chris hit his chest, then raised his arm to block the man's retaliatory shot. When the guy hit him, Chris' arm snapped -- it was broken, the bone so brittle that the prednisone he was taking for his asthma.

"I heard a pop, and I said, 'Chris, tag me,' and he goes, 'No, wait, I'm got to do my drop kick,'" Kevin recalls. "I said, 'No, Chris, no!' Well, a drop kick would have been perfect, but he couldn't do it. I could tell his leg was broken. But he threw his drop kick anyway, and he fell and broke his shin bone, too -- the radius and the ulna. Broke 'em both. It was too bad that it just wasn't to be for Chris. He had heart, though."

Chris became too weak and too injured to wrestle. In September 1991, after being up on cocaine and Valium, the 21-year-old took his own life with a 9mm pistol. He killed himself on the family's farm, a mere 300 feet from the home Jack had built for his wife. Kevin found his brother lying near a trove of old Indian relics that Chris and Mike had once collected.

There was also a suicide note, which read: "It's nobody's fault. I'll be with my brothers."

In 1993, his mother told The Dallas Morning News that Chris' death was, in all likelihood, almost an accident. She believed he was "toying with the weapon when the gun went off," and she didn't believe "what he said in the note he left was with conviction."

Kevin also never thought Chris meant to kill himself. To believe that a beloved brother had died by his own hand was just too difficult for him to.

By the early 1990s, Kevin Von Erich was almost wiped out by wrestling. The business had changed dramatically since the birth of Jack's WCCW. Now he had the mighty WWF and WCW to contend with, each with their cushy cable-TV deals and marketing gimmicks. The regional promoters were dying in the main, losing their audiences and their wrestlers--to the Vince McMahons and Ted Turners of the wrestling world.

Jack had enough of wrestling after Mike's death. He no longer wanted to book his sons, and his business sense began to fail him. Fed up, he turned the promotion over to Kevin and Kerry--who then teamed up with a Tennessee based promoter named Jerry Jarrett. The brothers ended up suing Jarrett, claiming he had swindled money from the WCCW and cut the brothers out of bookings in the very organization they had helped build. Jarrett said that he had rescued the WCCW, that the brothers weren't showing up for bookings, and that when they did, "they were not in a physical or mental shape to wrestle."

The suit was eventually dropped, but Jarrett likely had a point. Kerry was then in the WWF, and Kevin had exhausted himself trying to keep up the promotion in his brothers' absence. Sometimes he would wrestle three times a night in three different small towns; he became the franchise, the sole heir. Either Kevin fulfilled the obligations, or the family went broke. He found himself shooting up more and more with painkiller. He limped during the day and faked his way to victory in the ring. He took matches he shouldn't have, risking more concussions and injuries.

"Money was the only thing I got out of it," Kevin says. "But money was good, because it was money for the family. The family was hurtin'. With my brothers going down, the family needed me. So you just dig down and get it up, pull it out."

A bad concussion caused Kevin to be banned from wrestling in Texas, so he decided he'd just fight in Japan instead. "Over there, there are all those shooters," recalls Kevin, "and they like to kick you in the ribs and in the head. Well, the first night, the first match, my back was to the mat...and I got kicked right in the ear, and it was a terrible. And so I had headaches, I was throwing up all the time, so the Jatpanese matches are what made me get out of it."

Kerry was also in no shape to wrestle, much less walk. The motorcycle accident he suffered in 1986 had cost him his foot--and, in the process, turned him into a drug addict. By 1991, his wife of a decade, Cathy, left him and took their two daughters. She demanded he pay $2,500 a month in child support--which was nowhere near what he was spending on cocaine.

He was arrested in 1992 in Richardson for forging prescriptions for Vicodin and Valium. After a stint in the Betty Ford Clinic, he received a 10-year suspended prison sentence. Four months later, on January 13, 1993, the cops pulled him over and found cocaine and a syringe in his car.

February 18, 33-year-old Kerry went out to his father's house, secretly took a pistol he had given to Jack as a Christmas present, borrowed his, and drove out into the mesquite. He put a single .44-caliber bullet in his heart.

Kerry had warned Kevin he was going to kill himself--though Kevin couldn't bring himself to warn his father. Why upset the old man if Kerry was just kidding? But it wasn't as though Kerry hid his suicidal longings: He gave hints, left notes, and whispered to those around him that he was thinking of ending his life. But no one believed someone as strong as Kerry, who was the closest of all the sons to Jack, would actually become the thirdboy to kill himself. Such things just don't--can't--happen. Only they did.

The last time Kevin wrestled in Dallas was shortly after Kerry's death. The management at the Sportatorium scheduled a Kerry Von Erich memorial match and asked Kevin to attend, though he wanted no part of it. He was sick of, sick to death of it. His family had disappeared in just a few short years--no way in hell he was going near the Sportatorium, a place invested with memories that were beginning to rot.

"I sure hated that, but I did come back and wrestle," Kevin says. "It was hard to get into that ring. I can't explain it. It was hard to do it...It brought up those memories of the brothers and all that." t

After his career ended, Kevin spent much of his time with his family and his father, watching the legend fade into shadow. Doris and Jack were divorced in July 1992, a year before Kerry's death, and Kevin could never figure out how Jack had withstood losing his family. Although Jack had lost so much, he had still held onto his home in Denton County and a net worth estimated at more than $600,000.

On July 25 of this year, Jack suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with brain cancer. He knew he didn't have long to live, and he welcomed death, said he was anxious for the chance to see his sons again.

As always, Kevin was there for his father, even though Jack, though never in much pain, was "hard to be around," fluctuating between being moody and happy. Jack and Kevin rarely spoke about the many tragedies they had both experienced -they didn't have to.

On September 8, Kevin and Jack were at Jack's house watching Monday Night RAW when, during the fourth quarter, Jack began suffering enough for him to call the nurse to administer morphine. Jack slept throughout the rest of the day, then died quietly and quickly on Wednesday.

"He got out with no pain at all, and you have to think that's a good thing," Kevin says. "I've visited people that were suffering so bad it would take me days to get over it. But see, like, I'm telling you all this sad stuff. I am sure you've got sad stuff too."

Now Kevin begins the task of collecting that sad stuff and showing it to the world. He and Mike's ex-wife are now assembling the family history and putting it on the Website, which is located, appropriately enough, at.http://www.vonerich.com. There, Kevin will provide pictures and bios of his brothers and father, celebrating their place in pro-wrestling history--not the tragedies, he hopes, but as heroes. He will sell old videotapes of the brothers and Fritz; Jack had left behind hundreds of black-and-white reels and old wrestling films, which Kevin one day hopes to market on the Website.

"Someone asked me if I wanted to do the Website as a way to keep my brothers," Kevin says. "I said, `No, not necessarily.' I just think it was a hell of a wrestling show, and I'd like people to see it."

Kevin often says that when people first meet him these days, they treat him as though he is "a ghost." There are those who wonder why he is not dead or how he kept from becoming another dead Von Erich. That is why he is willing, though not necessarily happy, to rehash the past one more time. If nothing else, he, maybe someone can learn something from his tragic story. Meanwhile, he is still trying to figure it out for himself.

"I'm from the country, and last winter, there were persimmons growing on the trees," Kevin recalls. "Well, persimmons drop off during the winter. They fall to the ground and rot. The wind was blowing hard on this one persimmon, and it hadn't fallen off--and it was the dead of winter. I was thinking,`I'm like that persimmon. I'm not going to let go of the vine. The wind's, it's killing me, but I'm not going to let go.'

"I didn't have a choice. What was I supposed to do? Lay down and die? I'm a married man. I have kids. There were times when I thought, `I can't stand any more of this.' But I think God strengthened me, and I can take it. It's different now. I have everything a man could want. I have children, I have a wife who takes care of my kids so I'm free to do the dad-like play catch and things like that. I think things couldn't be better for me."

Minutes later, as if on cue, the cellular phone next to him rings. It's his son. He has been sick in bed all day with a cold. He wants his dad to come.