Every nation has a wrestling family. In the UK it was the Knights, in Canada the Harts, and in Puetro Rico, it's the Colons.
America is unusual in that plenty of people could argue to be the First Family of sport entertainment. The Jarretts, the Windhams, the Grahams, the Watts - all have made a major contribution to the male soap opera that is professional wrestling. However, while Vince McMahon and his kin have an indisputable claim to being the most powerful clan in the business, it's hard to look beyond the Von Reich family when it comes to a wrestling dynasty that conquered only to then collapse.
Jack Barton Adkinsson was a Texas-born rassler whose career took off when he adopted the character of a Nazi sympathiser called Fritz Von Erich. A big star and one-time AWA World Champion, Von Erich - you hear very few people refer to him by his given names - owned the World Class Championship Wrestling territory which, through a combination of high - for the time - production values, great talent and impressive media connections, became an international phenomenon.
WCCW was also the vehicle through which the world came to know the rest of the Von Erich family. Brothers Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike and Chris all wrestled for the organisation with David and Kerry becoming two of the biggest stars of the era.
Tragically, at the very moment he seemed set to conquer the world David Von Erich, by far the most gifted of the boys, died in mysterious circumstances in a hotel in Japan. He was just 25. This wasn't the first misfortune to affect the Von Erichs - Fritz's first son Jack Jr had been electrocuted aged 6 - and nor would it be the last...
David's passing saw Kerry Von Erich step into his shoes as the sibling most likely to become a major name in the business. But while he enjoyed a brief stint as NWA World Champion, Kerry had neither the talent nor the common sense to capitalise on his position. He was also a major steroid user which meant that, while his physique was superb, his mental processes were sometimes impaired. Factor in his enjoyment of the high life and you mightn't be surprised to learn that Kerry Von Erich was severely injured in a motorcycle accident in 1986.
Amazingly, despite losing his right foot, he continued to wrestle and, as The Texas Tornado, even held the then-WWF’s intercontinental championship for a while. With his injury certain to curtail his career and his marriage going to the wall, Kerry Von Erich decided enough was enough. On 18 February 1993, he put a gun to his chest and pulled the trigger. He was 33.
Awful as Kerry's suicide was, the tragedy was magnified by the fact that Mike and Chris Von Erich also took their own lives, the first following a lengthy illness, the latter upon realising he'd never make it as a wrestler. "I used to be one of five brothers," the sole surviving Von Erich brother Kevin remarked in 2008. "Now I'm not even a brother."
If the Von Erichs' story couldn't be sadder, it does have something approximating a happy ending. Still in good health, Kevin Von Erich is a regular contributor to WWE programming who wrestles the odd independent date now again - as he did in his heyday, he still competes in bare feet. As for his illustrious family, they were inducted to the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2009. And with Kevin’s children now working in the business, we’ve yet to hear the last from the wrestling Von Erichs.