Kerry Von Erich: Interview by John Clark

Kerry: My father was a great, great wrestler. And like all little kids, boys want to be like their fathers, especially if they're successful. My father was really successful. He was one of the greatest promoters in the history of this sport. My brother Kevin came in first, then my brother David. And then, I came in, then Mike came in, then, Chris came in. But, I came in because of my father and his success in the business and owning the promotion here in Dallas. That was probably the promotion that pioneered all of wrestling. If it wasn't for my father, the WWF would have never come along, or WCW, or anything else. And we firmly believe in that.

Clark: Your father probably trained you, but did you receive training from anybody else?

Kerry: Yeah my dad trained me in fighting. A great, great Greco-Roman wrestler from Iran named Khosrow Vaziri -- who went into the WWF as The Iron Shiek -- he's one of the greatest amateur wrestlers ever in our business. He helped me out a lot and I used to wrestle amateur with him when I used to fight amateur through high school as well as through Texas and all over the United States as a young kid. I started wrestling in elementary school. I was seven years old when I first started wrestling. I also played football at Lake Dallas High School and the University of Houston. In high school, I was an All-American in track & field and set the world record in track & field in college. I set the world record in high school track & field eleven different times -- but that was all in the discus. In 1980, they boycotted the Olympics and I stepped out of college and right into pro wrestling.

Clark: Was your father's promotion just about just about your favorite group to ever work for?

Kerry: Yeah, but I got to say that I appreciated the WWF. I appreciate the charisma that they've added to our sport. I don't appreciate some of the showmanship that they've added to it. But as far as the charisma and the gasoline they've put in it to fuel our sport, I do appreciate that.

Clark: Turning back the clock to around February of this year, you had disappeared from the scene for awhile. Could you discuss with us what happened to you?

Kerry: Well, I stepped out because I went to Betty Ford. I just got locked up in pain killers and drugs. It came a time when I realized if I kept on doing drugs to keep on kicking ass and taking bumps in the ring, that it was going to finally kill me. When you start doing drugs, you get lost in them. I wasn't doing drugs to party. I using drugs to keep myself going, keep myself well, keep injuries down, and to keep myself in the gym. I know so many people that I know are in them that are in our business. I'm one of the few, one of the very few that got help. Whenever there's a lot of injuries involved, whenever there's a lot of heartache with death and family, you try to escape a lot, you try to medicate those feelings. You just find out you're going down a one-way street. I speak a lot now all over the United States and all over the world to kids on leadership, goals, Jesus Christ, drugs, friends, family, and everything else. But, I would not know about the problems with drugs if I didn't deal with drugs. I would not know all the problems with death if I didn't deal with death. I would not know the problems in family without dealing with family problems. Those are all a gift from God, although they're a very misconceptualized gift, they are a gift because I did learn from them. And anything you learn from is a gift. (After my motorcycle accident) that's whenever I started getting access to a lot of pain killers and stuff. But, it was way before then. The death of David just almost killed me. I almost blew my f*cking head off when David died. In fact, I would have been happy to. My brother Kevin felt the same way. My brother David was our whole world. He was one of the brothers. Then, my brother Mike killed himself, and that ended my world again. Then, my brother Chris -- who idolized me in everything I did. He wanted to be like me. He always told me, "Kerry, man, you got everything. How come, why do you have everything?" I used to tell Chris, "You've got things that I want too. Like the ability to laugh at things, and you ability to draw, and the ability you have with your hands and to love -- just your ability to love alone is something I value and wish I had. But he always wanted my athletic ability. But I don't care who you are, what you are, or what you think you are, the grass is always greener over someone else's fence. It's always greener somewhere else. That's the way my brother Chris was to me. Really, that's the way all the brothers are. I mean, I envy Kevin's values as his quickness in the ring, his love for children, I envy that. I envy David's ability for his love that he gave other people and his love for the state of Texas. Mike, I envy his ideas, his sense of humor, his strength, his willpower, I envy that. But it's not something I would take from them. But it's something that when they died, I took out of them and tried to put into myself. Anytime I took the world championship, my brothers were never, "Oh no, Kerry got it again." They were never that way, they were on my side. They never said, "Hey Kerry, slow down, back off the pace a little bit and give Kevin, David, Mike a chance to get into the limelight." It was, "hey man, go for it." Whoever is in the press is who's doing the time. I just did a lot more at the time than they did.

Clark: Then, what was really good of them - after they got you the help - was they brought you back in --

Kerry: Oh, they sure did. Vince has totally supported me in that. I don't have a problem with that. I just had a problem with -- I'm an idealistic kind of person when it comes to my business, and my business is keep people believing. I don't believe in telling five, six, seven year old kids that there's no Santa Claus. I don't believe in going out and telling people that our business is not for real. I believe that our business is something that we've all fought our guts out for, and we'll die for it. My dad has given his total help to this business. Gene Kiniski, Joe Blanchard, Johnny Valentine, Buddy Rogers -- these guys have made our business for real, have given their total lives for it. I'll be damned if I'm going to be one of them who lays down and says our lives aren't worth sh*t and that is just how it is. I'll tell you what, money is the key motivation in our business until you sit back and look at the values. I'm second generation, my father was a fighter. I live because of this business. I survive because of this business. People who just come walking in off the street and say, "I want to be a wrestler" and become a wrestler, and because they're big and goofy looking, Vince makes them a big, big star, and they never paid their dues. They never went through it as a kid, being beat up in school because some kid says your dad is a fake. I mean I had to kick his ass, and I got my ass kicked over and over again. So we learned to care and respect and do anything we can to keep this business alive. I got my ass kicked too many times because I was trying to make other people believe. I will on my deathbed swear that this business is real. Just remember, WWF is sports entertainment, but it's time to go back to the old school and protecting our business and working our ass off in the ring and doing whatever it takes to take our business back to the top, and put on the skills, the motivation, the dire, the love, and the needs that this business has got to have in order for it to survive forever. If you want it to go for ten years, then the WWF is it. But, if you want to make it go forever, WWF isn't it.

Clark: You seem to now have all of your priorities and your values in order. Did the Betty Ford clinic help you see these things?

Kerry: These values were already there. But values that I lost because of being in drugs, I've always had these values. It's just that drugs take away a lot of your values, a lot of pride people have inside. It's painful and very sad to see, but that's just the way it is. Here's a stat for you, out of everybody that has ever gotten into drugs, only 5% ever have gotten out. Drugs make you a liar, a cheater, a thief, and everything else. My marriage stayed strong through the whole thing. What broke us up was trials and the deaths of brothers over and over again. It's losing the sight of values, things like that.

Clark: How did you feel about being on the road as much as you were when you were with the WWF?

Kerry: When I'm on the road, I'm very much to myself. I go from the airport to the hotel -- I eat, I go to the gym and train, and then I go back to my hotel room and I just cool out before the fight.

Clark: How did your family react when they found out about the problems that you were going through?

Kerry: They were supportive. They were ready to see me get off of drugs. They knew that it was a one-way street to nowhere. Everybody thought that I would be the next one (of the Von Erich brothers) to die. The big news story hit my mom and dad here and they called them while I was out of the country and said that I hung myself. My mom and dad really flipped out. My brother Kevin heard it too, and Kevin believed it and my mom and dad believed it totally. In fact, my dad went to one ranch and my mom went to the other ranch. And all my dad's Christian friends gathered around my father and stayed by his side, them thinking I committed suicide. Then I came back into the country and I called my father, and I'll never forget the sound of his voice. One of his friends answered the phone and his friend said, "Jack, it's Kerry." My dad's first sound of his voice was, "Nooo!" He said, "Son, son, son, are you okay?" He couldn't believe it, he didn't have words. It was like someone's son coming back to life. You've got to remember, I had so many brothers commit suicide that all of the sudden, when we hear that stuff -- we believe it first and then we don't believe it second, cause you don't get that second chance. It was really something. But it was on all the news here in Texas and all the radio programs that I had killed myself. Until I got back into the country and they saw that I was alive -- all the channels -- Channel 8, Channel 4, and Channel 5, everybody retracted that I killed myself. It was on all the radio stations and everything.

Clark: That is one thing I've noticed -- that your hometown and around the Dallas area is really behind you and your family. That was quite evident at the funeral of your brother David because the whole Dallas area was in shock and filled with sadness.

Kerry: When my brother David died, the funeral was bigger than the Kennedy funeral. The police department -- helicopters and the motorcycles -- they stopped all the traffic on the highway going to David's grave sight, it was incredible. It was a great, great feeling. There was a lot of people who felt like they lost a brother. You've got to remember, my brothers and I competed in high school and college, and everything we did put on TV. Every time I scored a high school touchdown, it was on the news. They used to call my football team -- not Lake Dallas Football Team, they called it Adkisson and company in the newspaper. That made me feel good.

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