When it comes to the Von Erich Family legacy, and the tragedies that unfortunately permeate throughout, most wrestling fans are aware of the deaths of David, Mike, Chris, and Kerry, all within the span of not even a decade, but what has sometimes been called “The Von Erich Curse” can go as far back as 1959. Jack Barton Adkisson Jr., born in 1952, was the first-born of Jack Sr. (Fritz Von Erich) and his wife Doris. In a real-life exhibition of every parent’s worst nightmare, at just six years old, Jack Jr. died after being electrocuted by a trailer hitch and drowning in a puddle in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Kevin, and the late David Von Erich were toddlers when their oldest brother died, so perhaps too young to truly remember in detail, but this sort of tragedy strikes deep, and that sort of trauma can shape an existence forevermore.

Jack Jr.’s death was said to have been an accelerant for Fritz’s aggressive nature, though, as depicted in 2023’s “The Iron Claw,” it was the death of David in 1984 that sent the family’s patriarch into a tailspin. Obsessed with the NWA World Championship, which he was never able to capture himself, Fritz leaned heavily into David, Mike, Kevin, and Kerry to bring the title into the Adkisson/Von Erich household, while the diminutive Chris, the youngest brother, never really had his father’s full faith, at least in terms of his wrestling prowess. 

That pressure, coupled with several other factors, undoubtedly, led to an unbearable string of deaths that all started with Jack Jr. All of David, Mike, Chris, and Kerry would die young, with David’s death the only one of the four that wasn’t at his own hand. The rising star died in Japan with the official cause being enteritis causing his intestines to rupture, though some had other theories, including Ric Flair, who claimed an overdose, and others (namely Kerry) who’d cite a heart attack.