Iron Claw - Von Erich movie -Jeremy Allan White, Zac Efron

[TommyGufano 6021]

I don't watch much wrestling since I turned 12 or so, but the guy on the left doing a right handed clothesline while stepping into/through it  with his right foot at about 1:01 in the trailer feels like nails on a chalkboard to me. Surely that's wrong, right? Concerning lack of natural athleticism for someone trying to portray an athlete

/rant over

[Pato del Muerto 52616]

58 minutes ago, Catpfish said:

We were leaving and a car drove by with Ice Man and a couple of heels...a sad lesson to learn 

Man, that’s like telling Santa what you want and then seeing him leave the mall parking lot in a dodge Omni while drinking a Busch light. 

[dcar00 14378]

wait...this shit isn't real?  Imma need a minute.

[Herpa Derpa 6132]

[atomheartbevo 89828]

6 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Man, that’s like telling Santa what you want and then seeing him leave the mall parking lot in a dodge Omni while drinking a Busch light. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26579]

On 10/11/2023 at 2:51 PM, Beau Vine said:

Eh, the Freebirds were better.  

Two of them, anyways.

Had to neg this, because I booed the freebirds in person more than once. 

[Pato del Muerto 52616]

5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Had to neg this, because I booed the freebirds in person more than once. 

@michaelpshayes posts here when he’s not trying to make some cash as a dog the bounty hunter look-like. 

[tx 3 putt 77537]

The scene where they’re walking into the ring, all three slide in and just start kicking ass

damm that gave me goosebumps 

[atomheartbevo 89828]

So we've gotten a great 1980s basketball TV series with Winning Time.  Wish this was a TV series, but still looks to be a great 1980s wrasslin film (and they really did nail the vibe/atmosphere/aesthetic).  We've also got a nice 1980s women's wrasslin TV series with Allison Brie.

We just need:

• 1980s roller derby series 
• 1980s NFL series
• 1980s MLB series
• 1980s NHL series

 

[RPM 26360]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

We just need:

• 1980s roller derby series 

Listen to this man

[TommyGufano 6021]

8 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

So we've gotten a great 1980s basketball TV series with Winning Time.  Wish this was a TV series, but still looks to be a great 1980s wrasslin film (and they really did nail the vibe/atmosphere/aesthetic).  We've also got a nice 1980s women's wrasslin TV series with Allison Brie.

We just need:

• 1980s roller derby series 
• 1980s NFL series
• 1980s MLB series
• 1980s NHL series

 

There was a pretty good wrestling series on Starz called "Heels", but it got cancelled. It was set in modern day, but was set around a regional promotion so it felt more like it was from this era.

[atomheartbevo 89828]

1 minute ago, RPM said:

Listen to this man

We all either loved or loathed the T-Birds.  There was no middle ground.

I never understood some of the names, like the Tokyo Bombers

 

[RPM 26360]

Just now, atomheartbevo said:

We all either loved or loathed the T-Birds.  There was no middle ground.

I was lucky enough to talk my Dad into taking me to watch the T-Birds vs their version of the Washington Generals at Will Rogers in Ft. Worth. Banked track and everything. It was awesome.

[gofuckyourself 8386]

On 10/11/2023 at 6:43 PM, mdleast said:

Takes me back to the days of mdmost and I having VHS tapes of this:

 

 

Holy shit the trailer and this throwback may have made me tear up a little.

I grew up in San Antonio but this was on Saturday nights and along with SNL they were the highlight of my week.

All the Oscars. All of em.

But did I imagine that some of the von Erich deaths were attributed to the Freebirds or other wrestlers? Like the story given on WCCW was one of them was actually murdered by other wrestlers. I just remember being shocked and enraged.

May have been completely different ones though I don't know.

[Pato del Muerto 52616]

8 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

Holy shit the trailer and this throwback may have made me tear up a little.

I grew up in San Antonio but this was on Saturday nights and along with SNL they were the highlight of my week.

All the Oscars. All of em.

But did I imagine that some of the von Erich deaths were attributed to the Freebirds or other wrestlers? Like the story given on WCCW was one of them was actually murdered by other wrestlers. I just remember being shocked and enraged.

May have been completely different ones though I don't know.

Not the von Erichs but one of them, maybe bruiser Brody?, was stabbed to death by invader I believe. 

[shadow_operative2.0 16033]

This DailyMotion link ain’t great, but it’s here. ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ episode 

 

Vice link if you have a TV provider that carries it. 

https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/the-last-of-the-von-erichs/

Edited October 13, 2023 by shadow_operative2.0
That shit didn’t embed

[gofuckyourself 8386]

3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Not the von Erichs but one of them, maybe bruiser Brody?, was stabbed to death by invader I believe. 

Maybe that was it.

My friends and I probably invented the other. "Did you hear that David was murdered by one of the Freebirds?!"

[atomheartbevo 89828]

2 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

Maybe that was it.

My friends and I probably invented the other. "Did you hear that David was murdered by one of the Freebirds?!"

It is something the Freebirds would have done.

[shadow_operative2.0 16033]

DailyMotion link, apologies for above. 

[gofuckyourself 8386]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

It is something the Freebirds would have done.

100%. Along with Clubber Lang for murdering Mick, I probably didn't hate anyone more when I was 10 years old.

 

[RPM 26360]

Just now, gofuckyourself said:

I probably didn't hate anyone more when I was 10 years old.

 

Black Jack Mulligan / Black Jack Lanza

[Beau Vine 54466]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

So we've gotten a great 1980s basketball TV series with Winning Time.  Wish this was a TV series, but still looks to be a great 1980s wrasslin film (and they really did nail the vibe/atmosphere/aesthetic).  We've also got a nice 1980s women's wrasslin TV series with Allison Brie.

We just need:

• 1980s roller derby series 
• 1980s NFL series
• 1980s MLB series
• 1980s NHL series

 

 

[Mitch Cumsteen 18592]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Not the von Erichs but one of them, maybe bruiser Brody?, was stabbed to death by invader I believe. 

My father took me and some friends to the Hemisfair arena to see wrestling one Sunday afternoon. They had a roped off a little walkway where the wrestlers made their entrance into the ring and you could go stand next to it. My friends and I ran up between every match to get close. Well Bruiser fucking Brody didn't really abide by any ring entrance protocol. Motherfucker went right through the rope, picked up about a 10 foot folding table and threw it into the ring. It went right over our heads. He looked completely insane and he was fucking huge, like 6'9" or some shit. I thought we were for sure going to die.

And yeah... he was stabbed to death. RIP Frank Goodish. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruiser_Brody

Quote

On July 16, 1988, Brody was in the locker room before his scheduled match with Dan Spivey at Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamón (a city near San Juan, Puerto Rico), when José Huertas González, a fellow wrestler and booker,[9] allegedly asked him to step into the shower area to discuss business. There was an argument between the two wrestlers and a scuffle ensued. Due to the dressing room layout, there were no witnesses to the altercation. However, two screams were heard, loud enough for the entire locker room to hear. Tony Atlas ran to the shower and saw Brody bent over and holding his stomach. Atlas then looked up at González and saw him holding a bloody knife.[10]

Due to the heavy traffic outdoors and large crowd in the stadium it took paramedics almost an hour to reach Brody. When the paramedics arrived, Atlas helped carry Brody downstairs to the waiting ambulance as, due to Brody's size, paramedics were unable to lift him. He later died from his stab wounds. González claimed self-defense and testified in his own defense. He was acquitted of murder in 1989. The prosecution witnesses living outside of Puerto Rico did not show up, claiming they had not received their summons until after the trial had ended.

Fellow wrestlers Dutch Mantel and Tony Atlas have said that in the 1970s, when Brody and González had wrestled each other, Brody had wrestled very roughly and beat up González. S. D. Jones claims after one such match González said to him "one day I am gonna kill that man".[3]

In April 2019, Brody's death was featured on VICE's Dark Side of the Ring - Season 1, Episode 3, which included interviews with Dutch Mantel, Tony Atlas and Abdullah the Butcher.[11]

 

[orange dream 1256]

Bruiser Brody always did seem certifiable, even to my pre-adolescent brain.  He seemed just a bit different than all the others. 

Kabuki was nightmare fuel for me.  MF'er spewing that green mist.

 

[Mitch Cumsteen 18592]

3 minutes ago, orange dream said:

Bruiser Brody always did seem certifiable, even to my pre-adolescent brain.  He seemed just a bit different than all the others. 

Kabuki was nightmare fuel for me.  MF'er spewing that green mist.

Yeah Bruiser Brody always seemed a crazy but he seemed 100% completely unhinged when he picked up that table. Absolutely terrifying. And that Kabuki green shit was nasty and creepy as hell. Did he have red mist, too? I can't remember that far back.

[RPM 26360]

Wahoo McDaniel

Iceman King Parsons

Johnny Valentine

King Kong Bundy

 

[Beau Vine 54466]

Jimmy Garvin was awesome.

I was also a big fan of Bundy and Brody.  They should've tag teamed.

The Kerry-Flair championship cage match with the Freebirds officiating was pretty much the best sporting event in DFW in the 80's.

[zman13 180]

The theater on opening day will be packed with 40 to 60 year old dads who dragged their family to the movie. I'll be one of them.

[Augustus 3061]

On 10/11/2023 at 7:55 AM, mdmost said:

Damn that takes me back to being a kid in Dallas in the early 80s. The Von Erichs were gods and WCCW was must-watch TV. I remember when our dad took mdleast and me to the shitty Sportatorium. No Von Erichs but we saw Iceman King Parsons win a match.

One of the most exciting nights of my childhood was going to the Sportatorium with a schoolfriend and his dad.

No Von Erich's that night, but I got to see one of my favorite things in wrestling back then, Ox Baker giving his opponent the "heart punch" which resulted in the guy flopping/convulsing on the canvas like a fish out of water.  I was terrified of Baker and that punch, which made it beyond thrilling.

But most of all, it was just incredible to be in the crowd that I'd seen on TV every Saturday night for years. 

 

[atomheartbevo 89828]

1 hour ago, zman13 said:

The theater on opening day will be packed with 40 to 60 year old dads who dragged their family to the movie. I'll be one of them.

And we'll do our best re-enactments of the Titannic crowds from '97 when we come out of the theaters crying.

[TexPx 2325]

My dad was friends with Bill Mercer.  
The von Erichs belonged to our church, the First Baptist Church and Bowling Alley of Denton.   David and Kerry came pretty regularly for awhile.  Kerry always had some hawt ass arm candy with him.  

Yeah. I was in Denton at the time. Remember David’s funeral there. I used to see them in the bars around Denton. West Prairie St. Pub and mostly at the Longbranch on 35, a short hop from their place in Shady Shores.
Longbranch was owned by Rex Cauble in the late 70s. Lots of stuff going on in Denton in that time period including Rex and the Cowboy Mafia.

[Beau Vine 54466]

24 minutes ago, TexPx said:

Longbranch was owned by Rex Cauble in the late 70s. Lots of stuff going on in Denton in that time period including Rex and the Cowboy Mafia.

When I was a kid, our NTSU football tickets were right next to Rex Cauble.  He knew nothing about football, so when we first met him, my dad and I explained basic rules to him.  By the second game, he thought he was an expert.

 

[Hermanator 7179]

On 10/11/2023 at 2:49 PM, squib said:

My daddy made me cry only twice in all my years. Once when he beat me with a tire iron for chasing them goats on my bike and forcing them to tear up a stretch of fence. The second time when he put me in the figure four and told me wrestling was fake. I healed up from episode one; the wound is still fresh 40 years later on the second. 

The Von Erichs were/are gods among men. 

 

[BrickHorn 18290]

11 hours ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

Yeah Bruiser Brody always seemed a crazy but he seemed 100% completely unhinged when he picked up that table. Absolutely terrifying. And that Kabuki green shit was nasty and creepy as hell. Did he have red mist, too? I can't remember that far back.

The one that spooked me was Abdullah the Butcher. He’d come out in a black veil, which his “handler” Gary Hart would remove very cautiously. Then of course, he’d proceed to beat and mangle his opponent while gazing blankly off into the distance. 

[Jshep34 2321]

There is a interview out there with bruiser Brody talking about family and life. Seemed like a great guy away from the insane character he played. Also undertaker first match was against bruiser. Taker talked about calling spots in match till bruiser threw him outside ring and broke a wooden chair over his back.

[atomheartbevo 89828]

Watched a recent interview with Rick Flair, and he's more coherent than I thought he'd be at this point in his life.  Actually very articulate and on-the-ball.

Edited October 14, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[TonyTexas 10534]

My little brother regrets, to this the day, that the Iron Claw was ever invented. I used it on him on a regular basis growing up. 

[Catpfish 618]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:13 AM, TommyGufano said:

There was a pretty good wrestling series on Starz called "Heels", but it got cancelled. It was set in modern day, but was set around a regional promotion so it felt more like it was from this era.

Pretty good series and it ran for 2 years.  Supposedly, there are streaming platforms that have approached the runner about continuing the story.

[The Ace of Aces 5194]

My grandmother and Fritz were good friends - they went to school together growing up. They kept in touch and when we would be in Dallas often met up at their house. The boys were older than me by 25 or so years but Mike died when I was 8 and I remember it clearly. Seeing them in person at dinner and then at the Sportaporium always confused the heck out of young Ace. And the grief that family faced was noticeable and dark. 

/csb

[Pato del Muerto 52616]

32 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

My grandmother and Fritz were good friends - they went to school together growing up. They kept in touch and when we would be in Dallas often met up at their house. The boys were older than me by 25 or so years but Mike died when I was 8 and I remember it clearly. Seeing them in person at dinner and then at the Sportaporium always confused the heck out of young Ace. And the grief that family faced was noticeable and dark. 

/csb

Yeah I read their wiki at one point a few years ago when they were brought up, to refresh my memory and it turns out that the oldest, Jack Jr., died as a boy in a freak accident up in new York. 

[Dennis Taylor 18876]

On 10/14/2023 at 2:02 AM, atomheartbevo said:

Watched a recent interview with *Rick Flair, and he's more coherent than I thought he'd be at this point in his life.  Actually very articulate and on-the-ball.

* Ric

[Dennis Taylor 18876]

Grew up on Houston Wrestling and World Class and made a few trips to the Sam Houston Coliseum. 

While still a student, I was working the door at a bar on 6th and saw Kerry walking by and said hey to him , invited him to come in but said he was meeting someone down the street.  Walked with a noticeable limp. He was cool but didn't want to draw a bunch of attention. He was dead a little over a year later 

[threesheets 1675]

On 10/12/2023 at 1:37 PM, Catpfish said:

Maybe I should have specified.  It was a sad day to learn that the wrestlers didn't really hate each other, Heel vs Face style

I feel that. I went to a Saturday night of matches at the Howe (between Van Alstyne and Sherman) football stadium back around '89. My brother and I decided to go hang out outside the chainlink fence by the locker room. Imagine our surprise seeing all the dudes that were getting ready to wreck each other sitting outside the locker room sipping on beers and smoking cigs. The real heartbreaker was when Percy Pringle saw us standing there and came over and chatted us up for a while and gave us autographs.  Never been so confused in my life- he was the #1 villain my life at the time.  Nicest dude ever.

[BigDHornfan 6553]

1 hour ago, Dennis Taylor said:

Grew up on Houston Wrestling and World Class and made a few trips to the Sam Houston Coliseum. 

While still a student, I was working the door at a bar on 6th and saw Kerry walking by and said hey to him , invited him to come in but said he was meeting someone down the street.  Walked with a noticeable limp. He was cool but didn't want to draw a bunch of attention. He was dead a little over a year later 

Limp was from his artificial foot.  he kept it a secret.

[RPM 26360]

You want to spoiler that or ruin a major movie plot point?

[Dennis Taylor 18876]

6 minutes ago, BigDHornfan said:

Limp was from his artificial foot.  he kept it a secret.

It wasn't that well-kept of a secret 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Dennis Taylor

[Pato del Muerto 52616]

I’m sure showering with his rasslin’ boots on after matches, after he came back from his crash, didn’t raise any questions.  

[A-Tex Devil 2463]

I was looking at IMDB and doesn’t seem like they cast Chris (the youngest).  I guess that is just too fucking much for the average person to bear.  

[atomheartbevo 89828]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:37 PM, A-Tex Devil said:

I was looking at IMDB and doesn’t seem like they cast Chris (the youngest).  I guess that is just too fucking much for the average person to bear.  

They cast Jack Jr. (I'm assuming the movie starts with his electrocution/drowning) so I'm guessing Chris will be in the mix (there's a few actors without listed roles), but given his age, they may end before his drama really kicks in.

Ran into a friend who is around my age and from Dallas, and he saw them in person quite a few times and he said he saw them at the Cotton Bowl (I'm assuming it was The Cotton Bowl).  He was excited about the movie after seeing the trailer. He had been wondering if they would whitewash Fritz.  I asked him about the whole Zac Effron and others not talking to Kevin Von Erich, and he said it maybe because Kevin was still protective of Fritz's image at times, even when he'd say things about Fritz  in various interviews that were not a good look for Fritz. If the cast/crew had been meeting with Kevin and Kevin wasn't happy with something, it'd come out and maybe turn off some fans or just put a cloud over the movie (as if the movie needed any more of a cloud given what happened to 5/6 of them).

But some Von Erich family members did come to the set and did talk to them, and he said one of them almost broke down when seeing Holt McCallany as Fritz because they thought he looked a lot like him.

And I can see it - they did a good job of casting him

On a side note, that photo is from D Magazine's article from February of 1988:

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1988/february/the-fall-of-the-house-of-von-erich/

The Fall of the House of Von Erich

In the ring, they were masters of theatrics—heroic and invincible. In life, America’s greatest wrestling dynasty has been battered by tragedy and fate.

By Skip Hollandsworth | February 1, 1988|

Quote

All through the autumn, the Von Erichs had been waiting for the Canadian geese to return to the little pond behind their ranch house. Fritz had bought the geese a few years ago when they were still goslings, and Chris, the youngest son, would feed them by hand. Early last spring, fully grown, they had flown off to the north. When I drove out to the Von Erich’s 500-acre East Texas spread one chilly day last fall, I saw Chris, who’s 18, out in the yard, staring at the sky. The wind had come up unexpectedly, making a hollow sound as it scurried through the pines. “He looks for the geese almost every day,” said his mother, Doris. “It’s amazing for him to believe that they will make their way back to our one little pond. But we tell him it will happen. I know you’ll think this is funny, but we consider them family. We know they’ll come back.”

Quote

This was not the best time to visit the Von Erichs. A reporter from Penthouse magazine had been in Dallas the week before, asking a lot of questions about the Von Erich boys, and Fritz, who can be intimidating enough even when he’s calm, was in an uproar. From a far corner of the mansion, I could hear him booming into a telephone, his gravelly voice reverberating down the hallway like the sound of a freight train. “They’re not going to do this to us, damn it, do you hear me?” Fritz yelled into the receiver. “We’re not going to be written about like trash!”

Quote

The Penthouse reporter had been asking about the dark side of the Von Erich life. He was intrigued over what he called the “mystery” of one of the Von Erich sons, David, who was found dead in a hotel room in Japan. He wanted to know the “real” story about the suicide last spring of another son, Mike. “Don’t tell him a thing!” bellowed Fritz to a business associate. “My family isn’t going to be in a damn pornographic magazine!”

Quote

Such confrontations certainly weren’t new to Fritz Von Erich. For most of his professional life, he had been dealing with people who considered his family, at best, a garish curiosity. They were repulsed by the bombast and theatrics of wrestling; they thought it was all a scam, and surely, they figured, the Von Erichs were little more than actors who blurred the line between sport and showmanship. There was something about their lives that seemed so contrived, like a cartoon.

It's a helluva good article - a snapshot in time from 1988.

[nolongerU2horn 768]