The Iron Claw Review Part I
The critically acclaimed film chronicles the tragedies of wrestling’s greatest family. The real-life story is even more morbid.
2023 was one of the best years for film in many years. After years of films based on superheroes, toys, or cultural touchstones from the 80s and 90s inundating the market, original movies driven by creatives finally returned. However, when it’s a strong year for cinema, some films acclaimed by audiences and critics are often left empty handed during awards’ season. This year, that film was The Iron Claw (2023) written and directed by Sean Durkin. The film is based on the real-life triumphs and tragedies of the Von Erich wrestling family, who were Dallas, Texas icons during the early 80s. This article isn’t a review of the film per se. If you like great movies, then you’ll love The Iron Claw. If you’re a wrestling fan, chances are you’ll also like the film despite it playing fast and loose with the facts as the movie industry does with everything, they base on real life events. This article’s purpose is to provide greater context to a story which is uniquely and tragically American.
Fritz Von Erich (Holt McAnally), the Von Erich patriarch’s early life goes largely unremarked upon in The Iron Claw. He was born Jack Adkisson on August 16, 1929. According to Fritz’s second oldest son Kevin, Fritz’s father, B.R. Adkisson was the sheriff of Leon County and hanged men who had been convicted of crimes and tied petty criminals to trees and whipped them. When Jack turned twelve, his father would take him into town and force him to fight the other boys as the adults in attendance would place bets on the outcome of the fights.
Jack Adkisson was a good athlete, playing football at Southern Methodist University and setting the school record in discus. However, he was expelled from the university when he was 21 years old, after he wed 18-year-old Doris Smith, as this was in violation of Southern Methodist’s ban on students marrying. After his expulsion, Adkisson took odd jobs, like debt collecting and working as a fireman to make ends meet. In 1952, he gave football another shot when he heard the AFL, the rival league to the NFL, was starting a team in Dallas. Adkisson tried out for the Dallas Texans but was cut from the roster early in the preseason due to knee injuries. 1952 was also the year Jack and Doris welcomed their first son, Jack Jr.
Adkisson turned to pro wrestling in 1953, and what The Iron Claw doesn’t depict, or mention is how he adopted the ring name Fritz Von Erich. His gimmick (character) was that of a brutal Nazi, playing on American audience’s lingering resentment against Germans after World War II. The burly Fritz Von Erich with his deep grizzly bear growl of a voice quickly became one of pro wrestling’s most feared heels (villain) as he placed his hand, (which resembled a grizzly bear’s paw) over his opponents faces and squeezed their temples, a move dubbed the Iron Claw. As Fritz toiled away in the ring, he and Doris welcomed two more sons, Kevin (Zac Efron) on May 15, 1957, and David (Harris Dickinson) on July 22, 1958.
The first tragedy that befell the Von Erichs happened decades before they were in the public eye and happens offscreen in The Iron Claw. On March 7, 1959, Jackie Jr. was killed, drowning in a puddle after being shocked and knocked unconscious after touching a live wire outside of a neighboring trailer. He was 6 years old. It’s not mentioned in the film, but Fritz Von Erich wasn’t near his Niagara Falls trailer on the day Jackie Jr. died because he was wrestling in Cleveland, Ohio, leaving Doris to care for their three young children by herself. Kevin Von Erich wasn’t old enough to experience a long bond with his older brother, but he has fond memories of playing with him and recycling Coke bottles for money which they would use to buy popsicles.
The smartest decision made Sean Durkin while directing The Iron Claw was to hone in on how Jackie’s death would define the Von Erich Family’s lives even when they didn’t speak of him. Doris and Fritz’s reaction to their oldest son’s death would form how they reacted to the later tragedies in their marriage. They were too young to get married and have kids. They also came up in an era before grief counseling and when nobody was allowed to be open enough emotionally to even seek help. Doris admitted to having suicidal thoughts after Jackie’s death and she later turned his death into a measurement of time. When recalling an event that happened in the family or some other occasion, Doris would always preface it by stating how many years Jackie had been dead on the day of the event. Meanwhile, Fritz threw himself deeper into wrestling. Eleven months after Jackie’s death, Doris gave birth to a fourth son, Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) on February 3, 1960.
Now is the time to address the elephant in the room. Pro wrestling isn’t real. A pro wrestler doesn’t actually win or lose a match. A booker (matchmaker) or a promoter tells them beforehand if they are going to be winning or losing. Wrestling has been rigged for over a century and with the advent of television more elements of showmanship began to creep in until it became less about simulating an athletic contest to becoming a form of entertainment disguised as a sport. Because pro wrestling was founded on a code of silence called Kayfabe, this culture of secrecy inevitably leads to people in the wrestling business keeping everything in and outside of the ring a secret. Fritz Von Erich couldn’t admit to the public that wrestling wasn’t real. Being the one to reveal the true nature of the wrestling business would have resulted in getting blackballed as it was the perceived fear at the time fans would stop going to the matches if they ever found out it was all rigged. To admit wrestling wasn’t real would be a betrayal on par with a mobster becoming a government informant and Fritz did not want a repeat of what happened to him when his secret marriage to Doris was revealed to Southern Methodist University. Fritz had to lie about what pro wrestling really was and this culture of lying gave him permission to never acknowledge any of the problems in his personal life.
The wrestling business was largely consolidated by the National Wrestling Alliance (N.W.A.) a consortium of wrestling promotions in North America and Japan when Fritz Von Erich began his ascent in the sport. The N.W.A. World Heavyweight Championship was what held the alliance together and promoters affiliated with the N.W.A had high standards for who they would award the title to. In addition to being a great performer, a wrestler had to become popular in multiple N.W.A. promotions across the country, and they had to demonstrate their reliability by never missing a match. Although the schedule was grueling, being the N.W.A. Champion was the highest paying job in wrestling as they were guaranteed a 10% cut of the gate for any event they wrestled on. As The Iron Claw demonstrates, the process of choosing the champion was a highly political one, a wrestler needed to have enough promoters on their side to receive a majority vote for the title. Fritz never won the championship. He was seen as a great challenger for the title and as someone who could sell tickets with whoever was the reigning champion and give the fans a great match, but he was not seen by the N.W.A. power brokers as someone who was worthy of carrying it. Fritz’s Nazi villain gimmick may have been another reason for the N.W.A. 's refusal to give him the belt as that would have created the wrong kind of publicity.
Anyone who watches The Iron Claw will undoubtedly notice Fritz Von Erich was a wealthy man but would be mistaken to think his wealth came entirely from his wrestling career. Fritz became rich when he invested in property around Lake Dallas and eventually built a ranch there where he would raise cattle. Despite his dismissal from Southern Methodist University, Fritz ingratiated himself with Southern Methodist’s alumni in the Dallas business community, who remembered him from his football and discus days. After Fritz founded the Big Time Wrestling promotion in Dallas, Texas with the N.W.A.’s backing, he subsequently positioned himself as the promotion’s top star by turning babyface (good guy). Without admitting that wrestling wasn’t real, Fritz revealed to the wrestling fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex that his name was Jack Adkisson, he was from the Dallas area just like them, and only adopted the evil Nazi persona for publicity. Fritz and Doris’ family grew larger after their move to Texas. On March 2, 1964, Mike Adkisson (played by Stanley Simons in the most underrated acting performance of the year) was born and on September 30, 1969, they welcomed their youngest son, Chris. Mike and Chris would form a special bond as they grew up largely separate from their more athletic older brothers. Chris would be diagnosed with asthma during his youth and the medication he took to treat it stunted his growth.
During the 1970s, religion became one of the most important pillars in the Von Erich family’s lives, something The Iron Claw shows but doesn’t emphasize enough in my opinion. Fritz became a born-again Christian during this time, but accounts differ as to why he converted. Fritz claimed he was deeply moved after hearing a sermon from Dallas pastor W.A. Criswell. However, another story is that Fritz became born again after Doris, a devoutly religious woman, threatened to leave him. After his conversion, Fritz would play up his Christian faith to the heavily religious Dallas wrestling audience when he gave interviews on television, something his sons would do when they began their careers. In later years, The Von Erich family’s critics would question the sincerity of Fritz’s faith as the number of tragedies in his life became too numerous to ignore.
The Von Erich boys grew up on the family ranch in almost total isolation and had no one else to rely on but themselves. Fritz’s style of parenting had a lot in common with Joseph Kennedy and Joe Jackson, fathers who also had great ambitions for their sons and who became infamous because of those ambitions. Fritz built a gym in a barn on his property and by the time his sons reached puberty they were in it three and a half hours every day after school under their father’s watchful eye. The Von Erich boys did sets of curls with dumbbells weighing between two pounds and 50 pounds. The weight of the dumbbell was increased after each set. The boys did elevated pushups, where Fritz had them lift their feet while they were against the wall. Fritz was able to train them to do these pushups until their bodies were almost perpendicular to the wall. He also taught his sons balance by making them run across the top of a wood fence while catching footballs he threw. Fritz was very much his father’s son when it came to disciplining his sons and teaching them toughness. Fritz would whip his boys with a leather belt whenever they misbehaved and if one of them did anything wrong when he wasn’t present, he would round them up and demand to know who the guilty party was. If none of the boys confessed or gave the guilty party up, Fritz would whip all of them. His method of teaching his sons toughness was to string them upside down in the barn by their ankles and make them fight each other, just like his father did to him. This was how Fritz Von Erich prepared his sons to either be pro football players or Olympic shot putters and if that failed, they could always become pro wrestlers like him.
Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris were called Von Erich by their peers and teachers in school along with everyone else in the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex and never by their real surname. The boys never had a chance to be Adkissons and The Iron Claw makes this clear as well. The three oldest Von Erich boys continued to pursue athletics after they graduated from high school, receiving scholarships to different universities in Texas and they began wrestling for their father’s promotion in the summer when they weren’t in school. One by one they became wrestlers full time when their college athletic careers failed to pan out. What The Iron Claw doesn’t make clear is how none of the three eldest Von Erichs were enthusiastic about getting into the ring. Neither Kevin or David were passionate about wrestling and only did it for the money and to be with their brothers. David was more interested in raising horses. It was Kerry who seemed to have the greatest athletic potential and it was rumored he was already using steroids when he was just 16. As The Iron Claw depicts accurately, Kerry was a gifted discus thrower, and his father made it no secret he was his favorite son. Kerry received a football and track scholarship to the University of Houston, but just like Kevin and David, he left school to wrestle full time. The Iron Claw echoes Von Erich family lore, by depicting that Kerry was prevented from representing the United States in the 1980 Olympics because of President Carter’s boycott. However, this isn’t true. Kerry never qualified for the Olympics as three other discus athletes were chosen to represent the United States in the games. Kerry’s Olympic background was fabricated to make him look more prestigious to Dallas wrestling fans.
The Iron Claw does a masterful job at showing off the unique qualities which made Kevin, David, and Kerry Von Erich stars upon making their pro wrestling debuts. Kevin was the most acrobatic of the brothers and he also wrestled barefoot, which made him stand out amongst his peers. He also gained a reputation for not pulling his punches or his kicks. When Kevin Von Erich hit you, he hit you for real. David was not classically handsome like his brothers. He was a rugged, fiery tempered man just like his father. David was the only Von Erich to embrace the Texas cowboy image by wearing a cowboy hat and vest to the ring. He was also the tallest of the Von Erich boys and David quickly established himself as the best wrestler and best talker of the trio, which were vital attributes the N.W.A. looked for when deciding on future world champions. Kerry was built like a true superstar. He was 6 '3 and 250 pounds (as great of an actor Jeremy Allen White is, all the Hollywood camera trickery in the world can’t hide that he is only 5' 6), had long thick flowing hair, and his body looked like it had been carved from granite. He wasn’t a good interviewer, but Kerry had a dumb jock charm which fans found enamoring. His overall aura was unmatchable. From the time the brothers debuted, Fritz hyped them up as future N.W.A. World Champions on television and arranged for them to win nearly all their matches and the film emphasizes this dynamic as well. On the rare occasion the Von Erich’s lost a match it was because their opponents either cheated or exploited some loophole in the rulebook.
The Iron Claw depicts Kevin, David, and Kerry jockeying for position to win the N.W.A. title in many of the film’s critical scenes. Onscreen this plays out over several minutes, but in reality, this dynamic played out in Dallas every week from the late 1970s until the early 1980s. However, the film does an excellent job of concisely showing the Von Erich boys’ hierarchy within the wrestling world and within their own family. By the time their careers were fully established, David and Kerry were the favorites to eventually get a run with the N.W.A. title and Kevin was the odd man out. As depicted accurately in the film, Kevin lacked David’s interview skills and Kerry’s aura and while he was a star to the Dallas wrestling fans, these limitations meant the N.W.A saw him the same way they saw Fritz, a wrestler who could sell tickets and have a great match with the champion but could never be a champion himself. In both The Iron Claw and in real life, Kevin grew less interested in wrestling when he realized he was never going to be N.W.A World Champion.
During this time, the professional wrestling industry underwent a massive upheaval. In years past, wrestling shows were aired on local television stations which didn’t reach beyond the station’s broadcasting signal. However, with the advent of cable and satellite television, it was now possible for wrestling companies to have their programming viewed by a wider audience and Fritz Von Erich took advantage of this when he reached an agreement with the Dallas based superstation, KXTX Channel 39, an affiliate of televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network to air Big Time Wrestling’s television show, in 1981. The following year, Big Time Wrestling’s name was changed to World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW or World Class) to reflect their growing audience as the show was syndicated to bigger markets like Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and even Israel. This coincided with a total revamping of their wrestling television show’s presentation. Matches were filmed using six different cameras instead of the usual two camera setup and microphones were placed on the ring posts so the people watching at home could hear the impact of wrestlers hitting the mat. Cameramen also stood on the side of the ring to get an even closer look at the action. The camera work and the microphones made it feel like the viewers were actually in the ring. World Class was also the first wrestling promotion to use instant replay. Outside of the ring segments were also aired on the show which gave audiences a glimpse into the personal lives of the wrestlers they were growing so fond of. The Iron Claw does a great job of recreating this, but what it doesn’t mention is that World Class’s TV show was groundbreaking for its era and was one of the main reasons why the Von Erichs became stars. World Class’s wrestlers also came out to entrance music to energize the live audience before the matches. Kevin came out to “Stranglehold” by Ted Nugent and Kerry came out to “Tom Sawyer” by Rush as The Iron Claw shows in a wonderful montage depicting the brothers’ glory years. World Class was professional wrestling for the MTV Generation and at the peak of their popularity, 70% of fans who attended their events were teenage girls and women in their early twenties.
Professional wrestling’s culture began changing in other ways. Alcohol had been a long-time vice for wrestlers from the sport’s very beginning, but by the early 1980s, harder drugs like cocaine, pain killers, muscle relaxers, and steroids began to spread through the business like a wildfire. World Class was at the epicenter of this trend. The Von Erich brothers quickly became addicted to drugs, especially pain killers as it was the only way to dull the pain from nagging injuries they picked up while performing in the ring every night. Kevin Von Erich’s painkiller addiction started when he was still a teenager due to the injuries he incurred while playing football. Kevin and his brothers took what he called “deadeners”, a pain killer they injected into their knees every few days to relieve the pain in their broken-down bodies. It became common for the Von Erichs to miss smaller shows and sometimes their partying wasn’t the primary cause. More often than not, they missed shows because they got lost on the way to the venue and turned back home when they couldn’t find it. Although the Von Erichs’ drug use was shown briefly in a montage sequence, The Iron Claw doesn’t show how bad their addictions truly were.
Gary Hart, World Class’s matchmaker, who in front of the screen acted as the manager to many of the Von Erichs’ rotating cast of antagonists, attempted to put a stop to the promotion’s drug culture, but was unsuccessful because Fritz Von Erich was in denial about his sons’ and the rest of his wrestlers’ addictions. Whenever Kevin or Kerry got into trouble with the law, Fritz would blame the police and he always had a way of making his sons’ legal issues go away when they were at the height of their fame. The Von Erich boys' numerous arrests aren’t mentioned in The Iron Claw, but these arrests were a key factor in their later downfall. The brothers’ substance abuse and questionable reliability did not go unnoticed by the N.W.A. They were reluctant to give one of the Von Erichs a chance to hold the world title despite their growing national popularity. When the Von Erich boys began wrestling for Fritz, he was no longer just their father, but their employer. If Fritz were to send his sons to rehab, they would no longer be in the ring, which meant fans wouldn’t come to the shows which would cost him money. Also, if Fritz ever acknowledged his son’s drug problems, it would tarnish the family’s clean cut wholesome image he had worked so hard to build.
World Class’s business had been steadily growing with the Von Erich brothers in the main event, but the promotion was launched into the stratosphere on Christmas night 1982, when Michael P.S. Hayes and Terry “Bam Bam'' Gordy of The Fabulous Freebirds betrayed Kerry Von Erich during his match against the N.W.A. World Champion “The Nature Boy '' Ric Flair costing him the title. This incident sparked the now infamous Freebird vs. Von Erich feud, which is depicted for a few seconds in The Iron Claw. Over the course of the next 14 months, Kevin, David, and Kerry Von Erich and Michael P.S. Hayes, Terry Gordy, and their fellow Freebird, Buddy Roberts spilled blood, sweat, and tears in front of sold-out crowds throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The Fabulous Freebirds and The Von Erichs were perfect antagonists for each other. The Freebirds were beer drinking red necks from Georgia, who cheated to win their matches and ran away like cowards to avoid a beating. The Von Erichs were honorable Texans who went to church every Sunday. Even people in Dallas who weren’t inclined to be wrestling fans got caught up in World Class’s version of a Texas-Georgia college football rivalry. The 4,500-seat Sportatorium, World Class’s home arena, was always sold out for their weekly Friday matches and business was so hot people started scalping tickets for events. However, the Von Erichs never saw the full fruit of their labor. According to Gary Hart, Fritz underpaid his sons and kept the difference for himself. Hart believes Fritz did this so his sons wouldn’t be financially independent from him and would always be under his control.
The Von Erichs’ stardom was so overpowering it blinded fans from the dark truth. When Kerry was arrested at the DFW Airport in June 1983 for carrying over a hundred pills and an unknown white powder upon returning from his honeymoon in Mexico with his new bride, it did nothing to hurt World Class or the Von Erichs’ reputation. Kerry pleaded guilty to a lesser charge for marijuana possession and his predominantly female fans believed the Fabulous Freebirds planted the drugs on him. World Class and the Von Erichs had become such a cultural phenomenon even the conservative N.W.A. was starting to seriously consider giving David or Kerry a run with the world title despite their drug issues and questionable reliability.
On February 10, 1984, World Class referee and front office employee David Manning, who was the promotion’s liaison to Japan received a call in the middle of the night from Joe Higuchi, who handled the same duties for All Japan Pro Wrestling. Higuchi told Manning they found David Von Erich dead in his hotel room in Tokyo, where he was about to wrestle on a tour. He was 25 years old and was survived by his wife Trisha. After telling Higuchi he would handle informing David’s family, Manning got in his car and drove to tell Fritz Von Erich that he had lost a second son. Fritz and Doris were having a new house built and were living in a motor home near the construction site. Manning arrived at the crack of dawn, and he could see in the trailer’s front window Fritz was already awake and making coffee. When Fritz noticed Manning, he walked to the front door, opened it, and asked him “Which one?”
David Von Erich’s death is handled abruptly in The Iron Claw, which is fitting considering how sudden his passing was in real life. In the film, Fritz breaks the news to Kevin that David was found dead in a hotel room in Japan. The circumstances which led to his death is only hinted at in the previous scene, when Kevin finds David vomiting blood into a toilet at his wedding. In reality, Kevin had been married several years prior and his wedding in the film is meant to be reminiscent of the wedding scene in The Deer Hunter (1978), the last moment where all of the characters are truly happy.
David’s official cause of death was listed as an intestinal infection called acute enteritis, which caused his intestines to rupture. David’s family and friends would report that he had a flu-like illness including vomiting and diarrhea in the weeks leading up to his death. Fritz insisted that David go to Japan to honor his commitment to wrestle there, something the film doesn’t show. The public believed the story that David died from acute enteritis, but as the years went by and other Von Erich brothers died, the media and the public became skeptical. It has been alleged drugs played a role in David’s death. Ric Flair claimed in his autobiography, wrestler Bruiser Brody, a close friend of the Von Erichs, flushed the drugs in the hotel room down the toilet before the authorities arrived. The Von Erichs also claimed David’s condition worsened after being kicked in the stomach during a match in Japan. This isn’t true as his tour of Japan hadn’t started. It was rumored the drugs were sleeping pills called Placidyl and that David had a bottle of Crown Royal in his hand when his body was found. If David was drinking alcohol and mixing it with sleeping pills, that alone could have killed him. It is also possible the combination of Placidyl and alcohol exacerbated his acute enteritis.
David Von Erich’s death rocked Dallas and the wrestling world at large. Three thousand mourners gathered for David’s funeral at the First Baptist Church in Denton, Texas. Teenage girls congregated on the balcony and wept during the services. The Dallas media, who had long neglected to recognize the Von Erich’s impact on the Metroplex, had no choice but to acknowledge the family’s celebrity after David’s passing when they were flooded with more calls inquiring about his death than any other news item they ever covered.
World Class aired a special episode which paid tribute to David after his death, and I was disappointed this wasn’t dramatized in The Iron Claw because it is a real-life recording of the relationship dynamics between the Von Erich boys and their father. The show included home videos filmed during David’s youth and highlights of his career. David’s fellow wrestlers like Ric Flair expressed their sorrow for his death in taped interviews. Near the end of the episode, The Von Erich Family became the focus to show the audience that through their faith in God they would emerge from this tragedy stronger than ever. Fritz, with Chris and Doris sitting beside him on Lake Dallas, was filmed giving a sermon to the rest of his sons about David. He told them David was in a better place and they would all be joining him eventually. Fritz paraphrased some of the pastor’s sermon at the funeral saying David did more living in his 25 years than most people will ever do in their whole lives. It’s at this point when Fritz goes into full blown pro wrestling mode, blending the truth and fiction to suit his needs. He turned his attention to 20-year-old Mike, telling him he looked just like David, and it was time to take his place in the ring. Kevin echoed his father’s sentiments. Mike stayed silent. Fritz then brought the family back to what they had been working so hard for, the N.W.A. World Heavyweight Championship. He anointed Kerry as the Von Erich who would take David’s place to face Ric Flair at the upcoming Parade of Champions event. Fritz told Kerry to win the title for David. This was part of a pro wrestling storyline, but it was also the truth. It was up to Kerry to fulfill the Von Erich Family’s destiny.
The episode ended with a sit-down interview between World Class announcer and Dallas newscaster Bill Mercer and Fritz Von Erich. Throughout the interview he said that life goes on. Fritz said that if he weren’t a Christian, dealing with his son’s death would have been much harder. Fritz said David was with Jackie and thanked God David was born again. Fritz reiterated that Mike would be taking his older brother’s place in the ring and praised his athletic ability. Mike was, in fact, a poor athlete. Fritz was lying. Fritz stated David’s passing would inspire Kevin and Kerry to win the world title because the title was the most important thing to David except for Jesus Christ. Near the end of the interview, Fritz admitted making mistakes while raising his sons. “But one mistake I didn’t make was I kicked their tails when they needed kicking and when I told them something that’s the way it was, but I loved them to death and I used to worry about making sissies out of them because to this day if I wanted to grab that Kevin, or that Kerry, or that David hug and kiss them, man…nobody ever called me a sissy.”
Kevin would later say that he never got over the shock of David’s death. What The Iron Claw doesn’t depict is how neither he nor Kerry wanted to wrestle at the Parade of Champions but did so at Fritz’s urging. In honor of David, the big Texas Stadium event held on May 6, 1984, was renamed The David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions. The attendance was unheard of for a professional wrestling show at that time. Depending on the source, either 32,000 or over 40,000 people were on hand to support the Von Erichs and hopefully see Kerry win the title. The fans were so enthusiastic in their support, they didn’t mind paying twice the normal ticket price and three times the normal price for a picture of David. Nobody gave any thought that Fritz might be exploiting his son’s death for profit. The Parade of Champions sequence plays out differently in the film. Doris is shown to be watching the match on TV with David’s ghost seen briefly behind watching along with her. In reality, Doris was in attendance for the show.
Thirteen minutes into the main event, Kerry Von Erich fulfilled his family and the fans’ dream and beat Ric Flair for the N.W.A. World Heavyweight Championship. If there was a roof on Texas Stadium, it would have been blown off by the roar of the fans. All of the Von Erich brothers mobbed Kerry along with the rest of World Class’s babyfaces. When Kerry left the ring, he was met by Fritz and Doris in the aisles way where they lovingly embraced him. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Tragedy had turned into triumph and the Von Erichs were on top of the wrestling world. It would all be downhill from that point.