I’m not a huge wrestling fan, never have been. I will admit that my mother was a fanatic for the sport. I first got associated with wrestling back in the ’60s when I was working at KBWD. They started bringing wrestling into the coliseum.
First, it was area shows like wrestlers from Abilene and San Angelo and places like that. Eventually they went big time and the fans turned out. We had some great shows in the coliseum. People like Fritz Von Erich, Dory Funk Jr., and all of those characters started coming to town.
I have fond memories of getting to interview some of those guys on the radio. They would always show up at the radio station together, even the ones that were competing that night. Some of them would even be in costume and I mean it was a show, in and out of the ring.
My favorite was Von Erich. Fritz Von Erich, the master of the Iron Claw, was at one time, one of the most hated wrestlers in the world. A hated German with a horrible weapon (Iron Claw), just an evil, evil person. There’s no telling how many millions he made playing that part, but then things changed. He morphed into another character. Still Von Erich, still the Iron Claw, but all of a sudden he was a good guy and a fan favorite.
When I first met him he was the bad guy. He came to the radio station the afternoon before his match in Brownwood that night. I was stunned! He walked into the studio, had on a three-piece suit. We chatted for a while. He was intelligent and soft-spoken. Oh but did he change when we started recording the interview. All of the sudden his famous deep, gravely growl came out. He sounded like the most evil human on the face of the earth, and as far I knew, he was.
When the microphone was turned off though, all of a sudden he was the sweet, mild mannered guy once again. Von Erich, if you don’t know, was a lawyer. He got his law degree from SMU. A very intelligent man, but I have a feeling in the long run he made a whole lot more money off wrestling than he ever did practicing law.
Probably the best wrestling match I ever witnessed was the one in Brownwood between him and Dory Funk Jr. It was an absolute classic and I don’t know how two people, so opposite, so violently bitter toward each other, could possibly have been faking it. I thought both of these men were going to kill each other and the fans ate it up. They went crazy. I watched wrestling a few times after that but never saw anything like that fight.
At that time, I was married to a lady who believed wrestling was real but that Von Erich, and in particular the Iron Claw, was a fake. So I told Von Erich after I interviewed him that, “Is there any way I can bring her up to meet her?” He said, “Sure.”
So when the matches were over we went upstairs and Von Erich came out of the dressing room and I introduced him. He said to my ex-wife, “I hear you don’t think the Iron Claw is real?” She said, “No, I don’t.” He reached out his hand which was about twice the size of mine, and he wrapped it around her head, and he said, “Tell me when it starts hurting.”
He put a little pressure on it and she screamed and said, “It’s hurting!” He turned loose and with a big smile on his face said, “Do you still think it’s fake?” She, with tears in her eyes said, “No sir, I don’t!”
Till next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].