Exploitation of dead wrestlers in WCCW

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Check out Warrior's thoughts on the family, apparently he was close with Chris.

[willywonka666]

I didn't realize Fritz and Doris divorced-how long was he ill?

[Venti]

Jul 22, 2014 12:01:38 GMT -5 James Fabiano said:

Jul 22, 2014 3:56:53 GMT -5 Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster said:

WCCW proves that even as bad as the WWE got with Eddiesploitation in 2006, there has been far far far worse has been done by others than Vince could ever do.

If we are talking about strictly death, the Gino thing was bordering on it, but to be fair, other than that, WCCW just did your typical "name shows in memory of..." deals. Yeah it was using the family tragedies to draw, but never tried to keep deceased wrestlers in their storylines.

WWE on the other hand also did not learn from Eddiesploitation, and thus we got Bearersploitation. I bet if there wasn't bad publicity/legal issues with Owen and Benoit, we'd see them exploited too. (as it is, there were subtle references to Owen's death on WWF/E television since then, if you watch and listen carefully)

And now I am thinking of the instance in TNA when Kurt Angle tells Jeff Jarrett that he (Kurt) "wasn't the only one who lost a wife."

Wait, what examples of WWF making subtle references to Owens death are there? Just asking out of pure curiousity.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

remember when vampiro fell and Schiavone did jr's owen voice...f***tards

[khali]

Jul 25, 2014 21:50:53 GMT -5 willywonka666 said:

I didn't realize Fritz and Doris divorced-how long was he ill?

Not long at all. They explain in Heroes of World Class that he was dizzy, and when he went to the doctor was diagnosed with brain cancer. From there, he only lived a few more months.

Kevin noted changes in Fritz's attitude in his last couple of months alive. He would tell Kevin that the only reason he was still alive was because he didn't have the guts to kill himself like his brothers. And at one point he pulled a gun (the same gun Kerry committed suicide with) on Kevin as well. Both of these things Kevin attributed to Fritz's medical condition.

[James Fabiano]

Jul 26, 2014 23:37:24 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

remember when vampiro fell and Schiavone did jr's owen voice...f***tards

Yep, and unless they were that clueless, making Kanyon bump off the Ready to Rumble cage...in Kemper Arena.

But back to WWF/E, yeah, they did the same selljob for every "this is REAL" injury angle. Most infamously, Chyna at RR01 (Lawler even leaves the announce table), and Rock after getting hit by the NWO truck on Raw...JR drops the "show must go on" line there too.

And I always wondered about HHH being dropped from his car at Survivor Series, and Steph coming out on Raw whining about how they'd have a family and etc. Didn't they officially lose the lawsuit at that time?

Then the unintentional ones like Rock asking Chris Benoit if he'd attack him from the rafters. Eerie when you consider where Benoit was trained.

[Venti]

A wrestler's death being brought into am angle sure doesn't make me want to invest in the product..

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

In his autobiography, Gary Hart said that initially, Fritz did not want the boys in the business. David was set on it and began training behind Fritz's back. Kevin wasn't passionate like David, but was interested (especially after the knee injury) and was training also.

Apparently, after David, Kevin, and Kerry debuted and became stars, he was hooked.

[Phil Parent]

Jul 25, 2014 0:13:45 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

You can actually trace the moment the tragedies began to unfold, it was when Gary Hart left the company. Fritz, although meaning well probably, became an enabler, "Uncle" Gary never let the boys work while they were under the influence. Gary once said that WCCW died when the people lost faith in the Von Erichs.

It did. And they started to lose faith in the Von Erichs when they did the Lance Von Erich deal. Gary Hart said that from that point forward, people would tell him that they didn't like the Von Erichs anymore because they lied.

And then, with all the tragedies, they figured out that the Von Erichs weren't the good all-american boys they thought they were... and the Dallas territory died, with a generation of fans heart-broken.

That WWE World Class DVD was the best documentary they ever did.

[willywonka666]

Jul 29, 2014 16:55:21 GMT -5 Phil Parent said:

Jul 25, 2014 0:13:45 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

You can actually trace the moment the tragedies began to unfold, it was when Gary Hart left the company. Fritz, although meaning well probably, became an enabler, "Uncle" Gary never let the boys work while they were under the influence. Gary once said that WCCW died when the people lost faith in the Von Erichs.

It did. And they started to lose faith in the Von Erichs when they did the Lance Von Erich deal. Gary Hart said that from that point forward, people would tell him that they didn't like the Von Erichs anymore because they lied.

And then, with all the tragedies, they figured out that the Von Erichs weren't the good all-american boys they thought they were... and the Dallas territory died, with a generation of fans heart-broken.

That WWE World Class DVD was the best documentary they ever did.

I'll have to watch it again, but it seemed to me it was basically a lot of profiles of individual wrestlers-the other WCCW dvd though is superb.

[Phil Parent]

Jul 30, 2014 11:15:23 GMT -5 willywonka666 said:

Jul 29, 2014 16:55:21 GMT -5 Phil Parent said:

It did. And they started to lose faith in the Von Erichs when they did the Lance Von Erich deal. Gary Hart said that from that point forward, people would tell him that they didn't like the Von Erichs anymore because they lied.

And then, with all the tragedies, they figured out that the Von Erichs weren't the good all-american boys they thought they were... and the Dallas territory died, with a generation of fans heart-broken.

That WWE World Class DVD was the best documentary they ever did.

I'll have to watch it again, but it seemed to me it was basically a lot of profiles of individual wrestlers-the other WCCW dvd though is superb.

You're thinking about the Mid-South DVD. That was dissapointing.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Fritz reminds me of those religious hypocrites that preach one thing but treat their families like shit, I wonder why he never stopped them or fired them from his company, he must've known they were doing too much drugs, I remember on Flair's book, that he wrestled Kerry on Dallas (not when Kerry won the NWA belt but before that) Kerry was so f***ed up that he arrived late to the match, his boot wasn't even tied, according to Flair, when the ref was giving them instructions, Kerry was just staring at the first row asking the referee if he knew where a certain girl was, Flair thought he was kidding, but then Kerry exited the ring and went too look for her. At another point in the match, Flair told Kerry to give him a hip toss as he bounced from the ropes, Flair bounced, but Kerry actually did the hip toss before Flair returned, he looked as if he was wrestling with an imaginary man, at that point Flair and the Ref broke character and just stared at each other. It got to the point where Flair started to put himself on holds, he even had to reverse himself from his own figure four. When the match ended, Ric went backstage and yelled at the booker Ken Mantell and Fritz, he even threw the belt at them. The next day the newspaper read that Kerry wrestled Flair with a great fever that his doctor advised him to not wrestle".

[nisidhe]

Jul 30, 2014 11:51:43 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Fritz reminds me of those religious hypocrites that preach one thing but treat their families like shit[.]

There was never any indication that the Von Erich boys ever suffered abuse at the hands of their father, certainly none beyond what would have been considered reasonable at the time (60s-early 70s.)

I wonder why he never stopped them or fired them from his company, he must've known they were doing too much drugs, I remember on Flair's book, that he wrestled Kerry on Dallas (not when Kerry won the NWA belt but before that) Kerry was so f***ed up that he arrived late to the match, his boot wasn't even tied, according to Flair, when the ref was giving them instructions, Kerry was just staring at the first row asking the referee if he knew where a certain girl was, Flair thought he was kidding, but then Kerry exited the ring and went too look for her. At another point in the match, Flair told Kerry to give him a hip toss as he bounced from the ropes, Flair bounced, but Kerry actually did the hip toss before Flair returned, he looked as if he was wrestling with an imaginary man, at that point Flair and the Ref broke character and just stared at each other. It got to the point where Flair started to put himself on holds, he even had to reverse himself from his own figure four. When the match ended, Ric went backstage and yelled at the booker Ken Mantell and Fritz, he even threw the belt at them. The next day the newspaper read that Kerry wrestled Flair with a great fever that his doctor advised him to not wrestle".

If Flair told me the time, I'd have to look at a watch. That said, Fritz was making far too much money with his sons headlining World Class to fire them. One has to remember two things about 1984 (I was there, and old enough to remember:) wrestling was not under near the degree of scrutiny then as it is now re drugs and injuries, and once a man was married (and/or had kids) he was responsible for his own actions. By the time David died, most of the boys were married and/or had kids. Fritz couldn't really do anything to stop them - they were grown men and were, by right of that, responsible for their own decisions. At the same time, Fritz had been determined to keep his family together ever since young Jack's death, and in all likelihood felt that leaving them to their own devices would be preferable to driving them away with judgement and admonition. It was only around 87-88 that the bloom was finally off the rose and World Class began to flounder.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Every wrestler from the 80's, not only Flair, has a Von Erich story, most of them are about Kerry, the truth of the matter was, they all died on Fritz's watch. In my opinion he saw them as a draw first and as his sons second. I don't think that he was a good man, what kind of father prostitutes his own children's death for money? That family album made me f***ing sick.
I wasn't born in the 80's so I'll have to take your word for it, but how come during that time only that particular Family, in the wrestling business suffered that many tragedies? Fritz was nothing more than an enabler.