Pro-Wrestling Von Erich Curse Page

Last updated 21 April 2015

Halloween Special: The Von Erich Curse!!!!

The Von Erich Curse (The following is my attempt to reconstruct what I can remember from a conversation I had a few years back with a maintenance man at the International Amphitheater in Chicago. Iⶥ tried to put it down as I remember his own words. I canⴠ vouch for its authenticity, but read it and judge for yourself...)

"I⭠not saying that this story is true, and then again I⭠not saying that it isn⴮ Any fool can look at the facts and see that there is something here beyond what meets the eye. Coincidence only goes so far, if you know what I mean. There comes a time when you have to look at things and see them for what they are. A man doesnⴠraise up a family full of sons, only to have them all die off, one by one, unless thereⳠ something funny going on. Nobody wants to come straight out and say what everybody knows about this, but itⳠjust as plain as anything can be. The Von Erichs are under a blood curse. Those boys all dying, one by one, and old Fritz knows just exactly what itⳠall about, but itⳠjust too late to do anything about it. Nobody wants to say so, but that last boy is still there just ticking like a time bomb, just waiting to go off, and there isnⴠa damned thing anybody in the world can do.

I first heard this story years and years ago. I imagine it must be nearly forty years ago by now. I donⴠthink that most of those boys were even born yet. I didnⴠthink anything of it at the time, it all sounded so crazy. But one by one, those boys started dying, and I knew that there would be no end to it until every last one of them was dead and buried in the ground. Another fellow told me this story. He used to work with me here at the Amphitheater. I imagine he must be dead by now, himself. He told me that he saw it all first hand. I donⴠknow, maybe itⳠtrue. He had a lot of stories, and he liked to drink his liquor, so I generally didnⴠpay much mind to what he had to say. But this one story stuck with me. Like I say, I didnⴠ think much of it at the time, but as the years went by I thought of it again and again. Each time I heard about another one of those boys killing himself, I thought back to the night I first heard this story.

It was a rainy night, and cold, cold, cold. It might have been this time of year, or maybe even a little later. It seems to me that it might have started to snow. This neighborhood was different back then, but this Chicago weather never changes. When itⳠhot, itⳠmiserable hot. And when itⳠcold, that old wind will freeze the blood right in your veins. It was cold that night, I can remember, because I shared a drink from his bottle and I⭠usually not a drinking man. I was a lot younger then, and a lot stronger than I am now. I wasnⴠworking here full time back then, but I⤠come around when there was boxing and wrestling. They would need a few men to set up the ring and take it down afterwards, and to do odd jobs around the building. You could make a few dollars and get in to watch for free. I saw all of the fighters in those days. All of the wrestlers too.

ItⳠall run down around here now, but this used to be a different kind of place. In those days, there were auto shows and political conventions and every kind of thing in here. When they had the wrestling, they would have live television and everything. It was a very big affair. It was all different back then. They had them all in here. Gorgeous George, Argentina Rocca, The French Angel... They all wrestled right here, and it would be so crowded that they would have to turn people away. They would have big lights and television cameras and the streets would be filled with cars for blocks around. Nobody comes down to this part of town now. Imagine the President coming down here to speak at a convention. Any more, they would pick his pocket and steal his car, if some crackhead didnⴠrob him and kill him first. But it wasnⴠlike that back then. People were different back in those days.

But weⲥ not talking about that. I was telling you about the Von Erichs. He wrestled here too. The old man did. Fritz Von Erich, they called him, but thatⳠnot his real name. Jack Adkisson, thatⳠhis name, and he was a mean sort of fellow. Not just for show, like some of them was. You take some of those wrestlers, now, and in the ring they are as mean as they can be. But you meet them afterwards and they were just regular people, some of them as friendly as they could be. The French Angel was like that. He was a big ugly man. He had something wrong with his face, you see. He looked just like a monster from the movies, but if you talked to him, he was as nice and polite and as smart as anybody you ever met.

But that Fritz Von Erich was another story entirely. He and this other fellow did the tag team wrestling, where they had four men all in the ring at once. Fritz and Waldo Von Erich, they called themselves. They were supposed to be Germans, you know. They would come out stomping and making faces at the crowd, dressed up like the were in the German army or something. People took that seriously in those days. This was just after the Hitler war, and nobody wanted to hear that Nazi kind of talk. It wasnⴠjust a joke; it made a lot of folks angry. Men would curse at them and throw things. Sometimes they would get so mad that the policemen would have to take a man away. You see, plenty of those fellows had fought against the Germans, and here were these two wrestlers making out like they were Germans too. Even if a man knew they really weren⴬ I think it bothered a lot of them to see those two stomping around like that and making money off of it.

Now, these Von Erichs, like I say, they werenⴠlike some of these other wrestlers. I guess maybe because they were from the south, they saw things different than a lot of the others, and they didnⴠthink that they had to treat anybody decent. This old fellow who told me the story, he told me that one of them, I donⴠrecall if it was Fritz or the other one, threw a lit cigar butt at him and called him a nigger. I didnⴠsee it myself, so I canⴠsay if itⳠtrue, but I saw them both treat people pretty bad. Like I said, this was a long time ago, and you used to see things like that more often. These days, maybe people think it, but they donⴠsay it out loud. Anyway the same, they were some rough men, inside the ring and out.

Now this old fellow, he mostly worked in the locker room, cleaning up and doing errands. I think he worked mostly for tips, but the promoters would usually throw a little money his way, too, because he was real dependable. A lot of those fighters and wrestlers would have big fancy robes and all, and this old fellow had a little cage where he had an ironing board and all of his cleaning things. For no more than pocket change, he⤠fix up all of their things, and generally tend to the locker room. In those days, I met a lot of the fighters and wrestlers, but this old fellow knew them all; Joe Louis, Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, and all of the wrestlers too. They would call him by his name, because he had been around there forever, you see.

Now the story he told me was this. That cold rainy night, after the matches were all finished, he was still in his little cage just putting his things back in order. Most of the crowd was long gone, and we were out tearing down the ring and loading it on a truck. Then there were the ringside chairs to fold up and put away, and there was a big canvas tarpaulin that covered the floor that we had to fold up. He said that he thought that the wrestlers had all gone when he heard voices in the dressing area.

Now you see Fritz Von Erich was still there. He⤠taken his time in the shower, and was putting his street clothes on when a funny looking old fellow walked in the locker room. Old Fritz said something rude to him about being where he didnⴠbelong, and how the toilet was down the hall. He used bad language, but I donⴠrecall exactly what it was that he said. Fritz stood there holding his pants, swelling himself all up like heⳠ getting ready to fight somebody, and this little old man just stood his ground looking at him.

Like I said, I wasnⴠthere myself, and I couldnⴠsay for sure exactly what happened, if any of this even happened at all. But the way that I heard it, that old man told Fritz that he was there to talk to him about what Fritz had done in the war, and what part of the German army was Fritz in. Now, Fritz started to laugh, and started to tell the old man that it was all what he called a gimmick. The old man laughed and said that it was a funny word, and asked did Fritz know that gimmick was from a language called Yiddish. Fritz told him that he didnⴠcare where it came from, only that it worked, but the old man wanted to talk about gimmicks and where the word came from. By then, Fritz started to get irritated and told the old man to leave and let him go about his own business.

The old man called Fritz by his real name, Jack Adkisson, and said that he was there to talk about his own business. He started talking about how he imagined that Fritz wanted to get back to his family and how family was probably real important to him. It got real quiet and the old man talked about how family was real important to him too, and how he used to have seven sons, but that they were all gone now. He asked Fritz if he had any idea where those sons were, and Fritz was kind of sullen and said it wasnⴠany of his concern, but you could see that he knew something was wrong and he started to look a little scared of this tiny old man.

The old man rolled up his sleeve and showed a number that was tattooed on his forearm, and talked about how the Nazis were real bad men, and how he had watched every one of his seven sons taken from him, one by one. He talked about how he⤠ prayed to God that he would be taken instead, if only to spare just one of those sons, but the Germans took and killed every last one of them. He said that it was a terrible thing to be a man and lose every one of your sons, one after another, and not be able to do anything about it. He said that he hoped that Fritz would never know a thing so terrible.

I guess that Fritz turned as white as a ghost, and looked like somebody had let all the air out of him. He tried to talk tough to the old man, but somehow he just sounded scared instead. He told the old man to get the hell out of there, and how he wasnⴠa Nazi, and how all that Von Erich stuff was all just kind of a joke, and he was just a dirt farmer from west Texas trying to make a living. The old man just looked at him with kind of a sad smile, and shook his head. He turned around and walked to the door, but before he left, he waited for a minute, and looked like he was going to say something.

By then Fritz had heard enough, and he gave the old man a rough shove and shut the door against him. Something tore as it caught in the door frame, and Fritz threw open the door to chase the old man off, but by the time he opened the door there was no one anywhere near. Just that quick that old man had vanished just like he was a ghost.

Fritz looked down on the floor and picked up the patch of cloth that had caught in the doorway. He gave it a disgusted look, and spat as he threw it in the trash. The old guy that told me the story said that he steered clear until Fritz finished dressing and left. Later, when he was emptying the trash, he found the scrap of cloth and took it out. He showed it to me that night when he told me what had happened. It was a faded patch off the old manⳠcoat sleeve, a yellow Star of David that was stained with fresh blood. Embroidered over the star was something written in Hebrew letters. I never did find out what they said."