We have some info on the Von Erich movie “Iron Claw,” from a pre-screening of the movie this past week. The movie was largely finished although some things still had to be finalized and added and based on feedback from the screening, things also could change. The basic thing is the movie starts with a black-and-white scene of the wrestler Fritz Von Erich, using the Iron claw as a finisher, but it quickly moves to 1979, with Fritz president over breakfast with Kevin (22), David (21), Kerry (19) and Mike (15). It covers Kevin meeting Pam, his current wife of 43 years, at that time. The storyline is that Kerry was training for the 1980 Olympics but then the U.S. boycotted the Olympics and his father wanted him to wrestle. Kerry set the discus record for high school in the state of Texas and had a successful freshman year at the University of Houston, but he was far from Olympic level, and actually started pro wrestling at the age of 18 while still a high school senior. They cover Kevin & Kerry & David feuding with the Freebirds, doing cocaine and hints of steroids. The story is Kevin is mad because David is the one being groomed for the world title and promoted ahead of him. Then David died, and in the movie the death is said to be from a ruptured intestine. As noted, there have been countless contradictory stories given about David’s death, but he was sick the week before leaving for Japan, went to Ribera Steakhouse with Bill Irwin on his first night in Japan after arriving. I’ve seen photos of David from the night before his death and he looked to have partied a lot. The next day, when he didn’t arrive for the bus for the first show of a tour, they broke into his room and found him dead, and the wrestlers involved cleaned up the room from drugs before the authorities arrived. It was said that his death was due to enteritis, an intestinal inflammation, but Irv Muchnick, who covered the story closely and others had claimed a drug overdose. The family said they would send Muchnick (Sam’s nephew) a copy of the death certificate but Muchnick never received a copy. Kevin was portrayed as wanting the match with Ric Flair that was scheduled for David but they did a coin flip and Kerry was picked. In reality, Kerry was the much bigger star at that point in time. Evidently the guy who plays Flair (Aaron Dean Eisenburg) and tries to do a Flair promo was terrible. The movie is largely about Kevin as the focal point, living through the deaths of all his brothers. There appear to have been factual issues such as Kevin selling the company to Jerry Jarrett (they were actually partners before the Von Erichs, Kevin & Kerry, as Fritz had left the company to them and had gotten out of the wrestling business by this time, forced Jarrett out) and took it back over and it then when heavily into debt and out of business. It ends with Ross & Marshall, Kevin’s sons, wanting to be pro wrestlers. The movie makes all the deaths out to be flukes, basically the wrestling magazine Von Erich curse story. They don’t deal with addiction, the pressures of fame or anything like that. The report we got was the production was good, the script wasn’t that good, the verbiage is clunky and at times corny. The acting was good in some cases, but the guy who played Fritz (Holt McCallany) wasn’t good, the guy who played Flair was said to be embarrassing like people openly laughed when he cut a promo. The actors who played David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simons) were good. MJF played Lance Von Erich, but it was a small part and I don’t think he had any lines. Aside from MJF, current pro wrestlers with listed roles were Ryan Nemeth as Gino Hernandez and Chavo Guerrero Jr., as The Sheik Ed Farhat (likely footage as a rival of Fritz since The Sheik never came to Texas to feud with the kids). Chris Von Erich, the youngest brother, who also wrestled and committed suicide at the age of 21, may never have even been mentioned. Overall it was said to be better than Ready to Rumble and worse than The Wrestler, but I think the vast majority of movies made would fit into that category. The first half was said to be fun and the second half tried to be serious but probably needs to be edited differently. The overall report was that it was disappointing in that there’s many ways or angles they could take to tell the Von Erich story, and they chose a safe, boring one that doesn’t effectively communicate or commit to anything
