We were all left with our mouths open when we saw Zac Efron‘s transformation for The Iron Claw, but few know the sad story of the curse behind the Von Erich family, one of the most famous wrestling in the United States and in which the A24 film is based on. Here we tell you more! Iron Claw was the movement with which Jack Adkisson, known as Fritz Von Erich, won numerous matches and with which he took his 5 children to the top of American wrestling; However, the success did not last long, as misfortunes in the Von Erich family did not take long to appear.
The triumph and tragedy of a true American sports dynasty.@A24 presents Sean Durkin’s #TheIronClaw, starring Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Stanley Simons, with Holt McCallany and Lily James. In Theaters Everywhere December 22 pic.twitter.com/8k7zKh8nNa
— The Iron Claw (@ironclawmovie) October 11, 2023
Von Erich Family Curse: Accidents, Death and Drugs
Jack Adkisson, the patriarch of the family, began wrestling in the 1950s and received his stage name Fritz Von Erich when he teamed up with Waldo Von Erich, and both appeared in fights as a pair of brothers. Germans with a Nazi past. Although Fritz was not German and supposedly everything was part of the show, not everyone was happy, as it is said that a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust claimed that he had lost his seven children in the concentration camps and hoped the same would happen to the fighter. Years later, Fritz Von Erich married Doris Smith, with whom he had 6 children, Jack, Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris, but the tragedy did not take long, because in 1959, when his first son Jack was 6 years old, He was electrocuted by some cables and fell into a puddle of thawed snow and drowned.
The 5 Von Erich children grew up and quickly leaned towards wrestling, but death appeared again, because during a tour of Japan, their third son David Von Erich, nicknamed “The Yellow Rose of Texas” was found dead in his room of hotel. The next victim of the curse was Mike Von Erich because although he was never that talented in wrestling, his father forced him to dedicate himself to the sport until he committed suicide from an overdose and left a note apologizing to his brothers for his lack of talent. Years later, in 1991, after an unsuccessful career in wrestling, due to his chronic asthma and the fact that he did not have the strength of his brothers, Chris Von Erich, the youngest of the dynasty who was 21 years old, could not stand the failure and took his own life by shooting himself in the head.
The misfortunes continued, because Kerry Von Erich, who many said was the most talented of the brothers, suffered a motorcycle accident in which his foot was amputated and although he tried to continue in the fight he was unable to do so and began to say that his brothers called him. In 1993 Kerry was found dead with a gunshot wound to the chest. The last of the Von Erich dynasty to die was Fritz Von Erich himself, who died in 1997 from brain cancer that reached his lungs. Kevin Von Erich was the only one left from the Von Erich dynasty and after scandals, death, overdose, and the nightmare he experienced with his family, he walked away from the fight.
The movie The Iron Claw, which also stars Harris Dickinson, Stanley Simons, Jeremy Allen White, and Lily James, will hit theaters on December 22 of this year and we can’t wait to see it. And what do you think of the Von Erich curse?
This story was written in Spanish by Mariana Martell in Cultura Colectiva
