Chris von Erich’s tragic story of reality

Von Erich is one of the most renowned wrestling families, both because of his contributions to wrestling and the tragedy that befall them. They were spearheaded by family patriarch Fritz von Erich, who debuted in 1952 and turned into a cement heel with a German character who harnessed post-World War II sentiment. He controlled NWA Big Time wrestling in 1966 and rebranded again in 1982 to World Class Championship Wrestling.

On many accounts, Fritz is tough for boys, and Kevin recalled in an interview with the Guardian that he gets a “leather strap” when they leave the line. Fritz ranked each of his sons in turn who was his favorite, pointing out that the rankings can always drive them to seek his favor. Their mother, Doris, was unhappy with the way he held his parents. “She was planning on leaving my dad because she thought he was too rough with me, Dave and Kelly. She didn’t want Mike and Chris to be raised that way.”

Doris and Fritz eventually divorced in 1992, but by that point they had already lost all their children except Kevin and Kelly.

The two youngest brothers, Mike and Chris, had never met their eldest son, Jack Jr., but they appeared to be the subject of the same curse that was said to have bothered him and his family.

Chris was born in September 1969, but the beginning of what was called the “Curse of Von Erich” began in 1959. Jack Jr. was fired and died of drows at age 6, stepping on the tongue of a trailer, receiving electric shock and falling into a paddle of melted snow. Wrestling historian David Shoemaker wrote in his book The Squared Circle about rumors of Holocaust victims who lost seven sons in a concentration camp and cursed Fritz’s family due to Nazi gimmicks.

David, the second eldest son, was found dead in his hotel room on February 25, 1984 during a wrestling tour in Japan. He was poised at the time to win the NWA World heavyweight championship from Rick Flair, with Kelly winning the title in his brother’s memory and Mike being pushed into the spotlight after his death. In 1985, Mike suffered a serious shoulder injury during a wrestling tour in Israel and after being discharged from the hospital, he developed toxic shock syndrome, which proved almost fatal. He suffered from brain damage and body atrophy as a result of his illness.

“His shoulder looked like an x ​​etched it,” Kevin said of Mike’s injury. “I was very worried.”

On June 4, 1986, Kelly tried to jump over a police car on his bike while under the influence of drugs.

“He wasn’t himself. He had no helmet or shoes,” Kevin recalls. Kelly maintained a dislocated lower back and serious injury to his right leg with his leg finally being amputated by a doctor. Kevin said, “It was very painful for him to put weight on it because the people who were mutilated still have ghost pain that they still feel the numbers.”

Meanwhile, Mike struggled with the pressure to play David’s role. In 1986 he was involved in a car accident, suffered further head injuries and the following year he was arrested for possession of DUI and marijuana – a few days before leaving a suicide note to his family, it was discovered he had died four days later. Mike had an overdose after mixing alcohol with sedative plasidil.

“It was so, it was like, ‘Oh, what a damn damn, this one more’, and it was like, ‘Oh, this again’,” Kevin said of his brother’s death. He rebutted the belief that David was being pressured to fill in his shoes, but “he was not healed, he was just wasting.”

Chris von Erich struggled like a brother with material, psychological and physical health issues. The idea of ​​”The Curse of Von Erich” is based on the supernatural, but there were many concrete issues that really pushed the tide against Chris. He was the smallest in the family, standing at 5’5″ and weighed between 160 and 175 pounds at the time the wrestler was respected for his size and height.

Still, growing up in and around the world of wrestling, working with WCCW to help and set up the ring as a child, Chris stuck to his desire to follow in the family’s footsteps. He was mildly involved in the angle throughout the late 1980s, ran to support his brothers in tag team action, and eventually made his full in-ring debut on June 22, 1990 against Persie Pringle (known as Paul Bearer of WWE).

The subsequent tag match between his brothers Kevin and Chris Adams had Chris confronting things like Steve Austin and Terry Garvin, but his large partners won Austin and Garvin while he mostly worked with Pringle. His last recorded match took place on March 31, 1991, where he worked for the World Class Wrestling Association against Todd Over Bow (the successor to WCCW).

A Q&A for Wrestler magazine in 1990 gave insight into how Chris was perceived as the latest von Erich wrestler, saying, “There were many people who believed that it would never happen. Owned.”

“What got worse was that everyone was running around saying, ‘poor little Chris von Erich’. a bit Chris, “He told the wrestler how he was accepted. Hey, I’m a guy. I’m 20 now and I thought it was time to stand up for myself.”

Chris had some health issues that hindered his career as a wrestler. Chris, suffering from asthma, was taking prednisone, which, along with the unfortunate side effects of osteoporosis, made his bones very fragile and breaks a simple wrestling manipulation.

He also had experienced depression and related substance abuse after Mike’s death. In one instance, Chris maintains a broken arm in the ring, refuses to retrieve his brother’s tag, breaking the other arm with a dropkick. With the microphone gone, the pressure on legacy was intensified. “It was a difficult fight for him and I think he was overwhelmed,” Kevin said of him.

On September 12, 1991, around 9pm, Chris was found outside his family home in Edom, Texas, when his brother Kevin and his mother, Doris.

He was injured by a 9mm bullet to the head and was admitted to the hospital at East Texas Medical Center just after 10pm, and was declared 20 minutes later at age 21. His death committed suicide. Toxicology reports revealed that cocaine and barium were in his system at the time of his death, and Kevin has since explained that he had found a suicide note reading, “It’s not anyone’s fault. I’m with my brother.”

Kevin then recalls meeting his brother before his death and chasing him into the forest of his family’s ranch. Chris reassured he was okay and told Kevin to go back home and read the notes he left for them.

“I wish I hadn’t left,” he said. However, when he returned to the ranch he was told it was a suicide note. “He was choking,” Kevin recalls finding his brother. “I hooked my arm underneath him to lift him up. My thumb went into this hot blood… he was so disappointed, I couldn’t see the top of the hill.

Less than two years later, Kelly finished his life and was moved by his family’s ranch just 15 days after turning 33 on February 18, 1993.

Chris von Erich really had no opportunity to establish himself by wrestling like his predecessor. By the time his career and life came across their early purpose, he was wrestling with less than 10 games in total. But that fact alone does not stop him from being lovingly remembered by the people he met.

“He was really funny and resourceful too,” said Holly von Erich, Chris’ paternal nie, through Kelly, of his uncle. “He was very protective. He wanted to be like Dad. I remember him and Dad working out in the big gym in the barn. I remember when I was with Mimi and Grandma every morning he would walk through the kitchen and say, ‘Are I getting bigger?’ ”

“He wanted to be a wrestler, like he probably had in him more than anyone else. And it’s so heartbreaking that those steroids for his asthma stunted his growth like that and weakened his bones.”

The tomb of Chris von Erich in Grove Hill Memorial Park is carved with “Psalm 13:5-6” from the Christian Bible, with the other underneath reading “Finally Peace.”

Despite the fact that Chris is the only one who doesn’t hold a wrestling title, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 along with his father and brother.

For those confused because they saw “The Iron Claws,” Chris was omitted from the biopic and combined with elements of the story of his life and the elements of the film’s microphone. It was one of the more discussed creative freedoms in the biopics, and many said that Chris’s story should have been told or told in the same way as the rest of his brothers.

Director Sean Durkin reasoned that the source material already puts an emotional burden on the pages. He also felt that the similarities between Mike and Chris stretched beyond their end, and that his brother felt the weight he had died and the need to step up to the plate.

“[They] Durkin told Entertainment Weekly. He also told Roxx, “I’ve never made a more difficult decision to do makeup as a writer.”

In the film, Holt McCarlany portrays the head of the von Erich as a cold, distant father who is only interested in the children who carry his legacy. However, Kevin is fighting over the notion that father pressure led to the brother’s suicide.

“You’d think the pressure Fritz put on us is why my brother commits suicide,” he said. “It did that. And the fact that Kelly lost his leg and couldn’t come back. Mike, that heat wasn’t coming back. Everyone lost the dirt and you just felt like dirt was hopeless.