The Tragic Story Of Chris Von Erich

The Von Erichs are among the most storied wrestling families, both for their contributions to wrestling and for the tragedies that have befallen them. They were spearheaded into professional wrestling by family patriarch Fritz Von Erich, who debuted in 1952 and became a cemented heel figure with a villainous German character capitalizing on post-WWII sentiment. He took control of NWA Big Time Wrestling in 1966, with the promotion re-branding to World Class Championship Wrestling in 1982, which proved to be the launchpad for the next generation of Von Erich wrestlers: Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris. 

By many accounts, Fritz was tough on the boys, with Kevin recalling in an interview with The Guardian that they would get a "leather strap across our back" when they stepped out of line. Fritz would rank each of his sons in order of who was his favorite, noting that the rankings could always change to drive them into seeking his favor. Their mother, Doris, disapproved of the way he parented. "She was going to leave my dad because she thought that he was too rough on me, Dave, and Kerry. 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 of their children except for Kevin and Kerry – the latter of whom would later take his own life. 

The youngest two brothers, Mike and Chris, never met their oldest brother, Jack Jr., but it appeared as though they were subject to the same curse that had been said to have plagued him and their family. 

While Chris was born in September 1969, the beginning of what would be referred to as the "Von Erich curse" began in 1959. Jack Jr. died at the age of six by electrocution and drowning, having stepped on a trailer tongue, received an electric shock, and fell face-first into a puddle of melted snow. Pro wrestling historian David Shoemaker wrote in his book "The Squared Circle" about rumors of a Holocaust victim who had lost seven sons in a concentration camp and had cursed Fritz's family for his Nazi gimmick.

David, the second eldest brother, had been found dead in his hotel room while on a wrestling tour in Japan in February 1984 aged 25. He had been poised to win the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship from Ric Flair at the time, with Kerry winning the title in his brother's memory and Mike pushed into the spotlight after his death. In 1985, Mike sustained a serious shoulder injury during a wrestling tour in Israel, and after being discharged from hospital, he developed toxic shock syndrome which proved almost fatal. He suffered from brain damage and physical atrophy as a result of his illness.

"His shoulder looked like an axe chopped it," Kevin said of Mike's injury. "I was so worried."

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

"He wasn't himself. He was wearing no helmet, no shoes," Kevin recalled. Kerry sustained a dislocated hip and severe damage to his right leg, with his foot eventually amputated by doctors. Kevin said, "It was so painful for him to put weight on it because people that are amputated have ghost pains where they still feel their digits."

Meanwhile, Mike was struggling with the pressure of filling the role of David. In 1986, he was involved in a car accident and sustained further head injury, and was arrested the next year for DUI and marijuana possession – just days before leaving a suicide note for his family, after which he was found dead four days later. Mike had overdosed after mixing alcohol with the sedative Placidyl.

"It was so much. It was like: 'Oh God, not this again' Because I never thought Mike would do such a thing," Kevin said of his younger brother's death. Though he refuted the belief that he was under pressure to fill David's shoes, "He wasn't healing, he was just wasting away."

Chris Von Erich struggled much like his brothers with substance, psychological, and physical health issues. The idea of the "Von Erich curse" is one that draws on the supernatural, but there were a number of tangible issues that truly pushed the tide against Chris; he was the smallest of his family, standing at 5'5" and weighing 160-175 lbs at a time when wrestlers were revered for size and stature.

Even still, having grown up in and around the world of wrestling, working with WCCW as a child to help around and set up the ring, Chris was steadfast in his desire to follow in his familial footsteps. He had minor involvement in angles throughout the late 1980s, running in to help his brothers in tag team action, and would eventually make his full in-ring debut on June 22, 1990, against Percy Pringle (better known as WWE's Paul Bearer). 

Subsequent tag matches with his brother Kevin and Chris Adams saw Chris face the likes of Steve Austin and Terry Garvin, although he would mostly work with Pringle while his larger partners took on Austin and Garvin. His last recorded match came on March 31, 1991, working for the World Class Wrestling Association – WCCW's successor – against Todd Overbow. 

A Q&A with The Wrestler magazine in 1990 gave an insight into the way Chris was perceived as the latest Von Erich wrestler, noting that "There were many who believed it was never going to happen. After almost five years of constant training, it looked as if Chris Von Erich, the youngest member of the Von Erich family, would never wrestle professionally. He was too small, people said. Others claimed that he just didn't have the fighting heart that his famous brothers possessed."

"What felt worse was everybody running around saying, 'Poor little Chris Von Erich.' Little Chris," he told The Wrestler of the way he was received. "People around here have always treated me like I'm 10 years old or something. Hey, I'm a man. I'm 20 years old now, and I figured it was time to stand up for myself."

Chris had several health problems that hindered his career as a wrestler; suffering from asthma, Chris was taking prednisone, which came with the unfortunate side effect of osteoporosis and made his bones so brittle they would break performing simple wrestling maneuvers. 

He had also been experiencing depression and related substance abuse after Mike's death, compounded by his frustrations in wrestling owing to his physical limitations. In one instance, Chris sustained a broken arm in the ring, and refusing to tag his brother back in, broke the other arm with an attempted dropkick. With Mike gone, the pressure of legacy had intensified for Chris, who already had so much working against his budding wrestling career. "It was just an uphill fight for him and I think he got overwhelmed," Kevin said of him.

On September 12, 1991, at about 9 PM, Chris was found by his brother Kevin and their mother, Doris, outside of their family home in Edom, Texas. 

He had sustained a self-inflicted nine-millimeter gunshot wound to the head, was hospitalized at the East Texas Medical Center shortly after 10 PM, and was pronounced dead 20 minutes later at the age of 21 – his death was ruled a suicide. Toxicology reports revealed that cocaine and Valium were in his system at the time of his death, and Kevin has since described finding a suicide note reading, "It's nobody's fault. I'll be with my brothers."

Kevin has since recalled seeing his brother before his death, following him into the woods at the family ranch. Chris reassured him that he was okay and told Kevin to go back to the house and read the note he had left for them.

"I wish I hadn't left," he said. But when he returned to the ranch, he was told it was a suicide note. "He was laying on the ground choking," Kevin recalled finding his brother. "I hooked my arm under his to lift him up. My thumb went in this hot blood... He was so dejected. Just couldn't see over the hill. If he'd just held on for a little bit longer, he'd have seen a bright day was on the way."

Kerry ended his own life less than two years later, shooting himself in the heart on February 18, 1993, on his family ranch just 15 days after he turned 33.

Chris Von Erich never really had the chance to establish himself in wrestling the way his predecessors had. By the time his career and life had met their untimely ends, he had wrestled less than 10 matches in total. But that fact alone hasn't stopped him from being fondly remembered by those who met him.

"He was really funny and witty, too," Hollie Von Erich, Chris' paternal niece through Kerry, said of her uncle. "He was very protective. He wanted to be just like daddy. I can remember him and daddy working out in the big gym in the barn a lot, and every morning when I was at Mimi and Granddad's, I remember him walking in the kitchen saying, 'Am I getting bigger?'"

"He wanted so bad to be a wrestler, like he just had it in him more than probably any of them did. And yeah it's so heartbreaking that those steroids for his asthma stunted his growth like that and weakened his bones." 

Chris Von Erich's grave at Grove Hill Memorial Park was inscribed with "Psalm 13:5-6" from the Christian Bible and another below it reading, "Peace at last."

Despite the fact that Chris was the only of the Von Erichs not to hold a title in professional wrestling, he was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame alongside his father and brothers in 2009. One might say a fitting gesture for someone who gave much of their life and health to the sport they loved – even if it did not love him back the same way. 

For those confused because they watched "The Iron Claw," Chris was omitted from the biopic, with elements of his life story combined with that of Mike's in the film. It was one of the more debated creative liberties taken with the biopic, with many saying that Chris' story could or should have been told like the rest of his brothers. 

Director Sean Durkin reasoned that the source material was already emotionally taxing on the page. He also felt that the similarities between Mike and Chris stretched beyond their demises, with both feeling the weight of an older brother dying and their need to step up to the plate.

"[They] were both the younger brothers of these three huge, larger-than-life characters," Durkin told Entertainment Weekly. He also told Uproxx further about the decision to cut the youngest brother, "I've never had a more difficult decision to make as a writer," he said. "I care so deeply, so it was painful... You have to separate and say, 'Okay, well, this is a movie, these are characters, and the movie just cannot withstand another death at that point."

In the movie, Holt McCallany portrays the Von Erich patriarch as a cold and distant father only interested in his children carrying forward his legacy. But Kevin has contested the notion that their father's pressure had led to his brothers' suicides.

"You would think the pressure that Fritz put on us is why my brothers would commit suicide," he said. "Drugs did it. That, and the fact that Kerry lost his foot and wouldn't be able to come back. Mike, with that fever, he was not coming back. It was a hopeless feeling inside to let everyone down and you just feel like dirt. All my brothers were super loyal, and that's what it was, the shame and guilt for failing. It was not my dad."