Pro-Wrestling Kerry Von Erich Page Pro-Wrestling Kerry Von Erich Page
Last updated 21 April 2015
Kerry Von Erich was a very big-hearted guy. I think a lot of poeple thought that he was out in left firld a little bit. But, in my eyes, only the ones who thought that were the ones that Kerry let think that because they reallyu weren't his friends. I know I was his friend, and I got along with him, and I'll sorely miss him. But I think he had a lot of tragedies in his life previous to his own ending his life.
It's a sad thing, but what actually ticks me off and what makes me mad is that there wasn't some parental guidance there, that three brothers preceded him by suicide. What kind of a father did he have? Fritz Von Erich, from what I heard in my... years in this business, had been told that his boys were out of control. I'm not a father, but any one of my friends that were out of control, I'm going to help. He seemed to turn his head. He prostituted in David's death. There's nothing Fritz Von Erich can do to me, so I can call him a crumb, 'cause that's what I think he is. I don't think he was a father at all. I would be ashamed to be him as a father.
I'm really going to miss [Kerry], because I got along with him good. Everybody has different relationships with each individual, but I can truthfully say that I love him and he had a big heart. But I think that he was kind of a product of his environment. I don't think that he had much love and support. I think he was cheated out of some family love, some family guidance. He had already had a previous problem with prescriptions that got him on probation. Didn't they find cocain in his car? Yeah, well that's pretty heavy. Anybody that's involved with stuff like that has a problem. I think he lacked support and love. You know, the boys will help and support. I remember when the youngest brother committed suicide. KErry really worried about how Kevin was handling it. Kerry said to me, "Mike, it's almost like it don't even affect me emotionally anymore. It's like I'm used to it." He said that all he worried about was Kevin. I said, "There's only tow of you left. You are the pillar strength, in my eyes, and you are the only one that's going to be able to help Kevin." But unfortunaltely, he couldn't help himself. I don't think he had a fair shake.
He had a really big heart. I feel bad that I'm never going to be able to see him again, because I love him as one of the boys, he was my friend. He was lacking something, and I think it was love. It is a very sad thing. Three of the six children in that family committed suicide. There's something drastically wrong there. It's a crime.
I'd hear guys say, "He's out in left field and now he's beyond that, he's in the bleachers." But I know Kerry well enouth to tell you, he knew when people treated him like that. He let them believe that. I know he wasn't an idiot and he wasn't an airhead because I've sat down with him too many times and he was doing the scenario--- well, let them think that you're playing their game, but they're actually playing yours, and they don't know it.
He'll be missed by everybody. I'm sure everybody feels bad about it, even the ones that didn't know him. I'm going to misshim. I always enjoyed his company. But unfortunately, I'll never have it again. I don't know Kevin as well, but I hope he makes it.
If there was anything that cause this, it was having to live up to what the Von Erich name meant with Kerry because he was the one that had the package. If the [motorcycle] accident was the point in time when things started to fall apart, I don't know. That's the way they wasnted to push it in Texas, in the newspapers and stuff, was that he couldn't deal with the loss of his foot anymore. Kerry had learned how to deal with that physically amd mentally. He had the problems was before that.
When he was ten years old, he was hitting the ring tryong to save his dad and he'd go to school and defend the fact that "wrestling's real." When ou have to cope with things like that at such a young age, they build the foundation for the way you're going to be the rest of your life.
There was no place Kerry could go in Texas without people knowing who he was. Kerry knew that nobody wanted to know him or he was raised in such a way. Nobody wanted to know about his problems. Kerry never complained about anything, ever. I don't know if it was a genuine love for the business, because he did love the business. His problem got so out of hand that he couldn't be to the business what he possibly could have been.
I was real close to [Kerry's ex-wife] Kathy and his kids. KErry was just a big kid. His poor kids didn't think it was him [in the funeral home], they thought it was a mannequin. They think he's out on tour or something. ...He was my best friends. I loved Kerry. At the funeral, I was just looking at him with his hair all straight back. I tried to mes his hair up because Kerry wasn't that way. I was crying and laughing because I'm thinking of all the stuff that happened with us and all the funny times and all the ribs he used to pull, and that goofy laugh he had. Then I'd get mad and upset, then I'd laugh. Kerry was like a brother to me. ...He openly enjoyed experiences of life without think minute by minute what was happening.He lived life minute by minute.
About his suicide, everything was happening then. The fact that they'd issued the warrant for his arrest and the combination of everything. I don't think the prison thing was the icing on the cake, I think it was the whole ball of wax. He just felt like maybe he didn't have anything left. There wasn't a minute, not even in his last minutes, that he took to complain or to try and make somebody why he might want to do something like that. He just did it. The last words he waid were, "I love you." He said that to his dad. If Kerry went to judgment, man, he's in heaven.
...He talked about being with his brothers a lot and what it was going to be like when he finally got to go and see his brothers. I hope, for Kerry's sake, that the party is every bit as good as he expected it to be. Because there's one thing he didn't know in doing what he did. He thought it was going to make some people's lives easier. But it's going to make it hard. His girls are going to have a real hard time with it.
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