You are not permitted to go to the Sportatorium. Dallas’s crucible of planned violence and stark melodrama, where fans full of this-is-real-to-me zeal once climbed down from the wooden bleachers to start fights with the wrestlers, is no longer in existence. The Whisky a Go Go of professional wrestling can no longer be found in Dallas.
It is still possible to find sportatorium truths and apocrypha floating about in wrestling culture. It was one of the first territories to use music that was particular to a wrestler’s character or persona when they entered the ring. It was a place where champions such as Ric Flair and Harley Race defended their titles, where the men who would later become Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mankind paid their dues, where the same crusty hotdogs rolled for year after year on corroded old metal, and where a ring that was mercilessly hard endured the heat of the Texas summer and the cold of the prairie wind during the winter.
In South Dallas, the location that had housed the Sportatorium, which was demolished in 2003, is now a piece of grass located next to a cluster of interchanges for Interstates 35 and 30. Dallas’s cheerful, unrelenting progress has ruthlessly eradicated all of the sorrow, entertainment, and energy that existed in the city, and it has allowed it to literally die out. And, in all honesty, when we talk about the Sportatorium and wrestling in Dallas, we are really talking about one family of ghosts: the Von Erich family, and one of the most heartbreaking tragedies in the history of professional wrestling.
A man called Jack Adkisson, who was a student at SMU and played football at the time, eventually made the decision to switch to wrestling. Taking into consideration Adkisson’s blonde hair and his Teutonic feelings, a promoter decides to give him a character that is known as the Nazi wrestler. It is not a sneering cartoon Bavarian nor a soldier like Otto Von Bismarck; rather, it is a literal (fictional) representative of the Third Reich. It is the birth of a persona. Fritz Von Erich is the new identity of Jack Adkisson. Fritz is successful, but he never manages to win the NWA world championship. He enters into a marriage. When he was born in 1952, he was the first of six sons. When he reaches the conclusion of his career in the ring, he takes control of the region that is known as Dallas. A large family ranch is constructed in Denton County, which is located one hour north of Dallas. Discovers success as a promoter, bringing Dallas’ World Class Championship Wrestling to the forefront of the United States regions as a result of his promotions. As a result of his insistence that they do so, his sons ultimately become wrestlers.
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Only five of the Von Erich brothers have passed away by the year 1993. In 1959, Jack, the oldest, passes away as a result of an injury that occurred while he was a child. At least according to a number of memoirs and conversations with his contemporaries, David passes away in 1984 while he is on a wrestling tour in Tokyo. The official report of his death states that he died from acute enteritis, while other accounts suggest that he died from complications resulting from a drug overdose. Over the course of the 1980s and early 1990s, Mike, Kerry, and Chris all took their own lives. Kevin, the only brother who is still alive, receives the inheritance of World Class, sells it, relocates to Hawaii, and builds a family in a location that is quite remote from Dallas and wrestling.
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“The Dallas Cowboys and Iron Claw” Kevin Von Erich, played by Zac Efron, is the protagonist in Sean Durkin’s new film, The Iron Claw, which follows the circumstances of the Von Erich family throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Kevin Von Erich is the kind-hearted eldest brother who survived to tell his family’s story. Only the Dead Know is the title of the film. The imagery that Durkin uses in the story are just as eerie and arresting as those that he used in his first film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which was released in 2011. There are some of the most impressive professional wrestling scenes that I’ve ever witnessed in The Iron Claw. Clearly manufactured, the bouts demonstrate the moments in which the fake sport transforms into an art form. These moments include desperation and triumph, as well as agony and identity, all of which are enacted in real time. The body of Efron is a show in and of itself. Furthermore, he is not only ripped in the modern sense, but he is also yoked. It is necessary for any competent wrestler to have layers of muscle, both show muscles and go muscles, in order to not only look fantastic but also practically survive the beatings that they take. He constructed these layers of muscle.
Each of the Von Erich brothers who wrestled exemplified a characteristic of Texas. David, played by Harris Dickinson, was the most dominant wrestler, the most natural on the microphone, and the “Yellow Rose of Texas.” He was destined to reach the pinnacle of the wrestling industry. Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), a champion discus thrower who was prevented from competing in the 1980 Olympic Games because the United States boycotted the games, exuded a magnetism that was reminiscent of the final scene of The Wild Bunch, although he was not very good at promotion and had a drug problem that was widely understood. Kevin, the good son, and the platonic image of the Texas farm boy, wrestled barefoot and was capable of doing a little bit of everything in the ring. Kevin was a good wrestler. Kevin did not possess the distinctive energy that is necessary for one to become iconic in the world of professional wrestling, as Efron’s performance makes abundantly obvious. In the movie, there is a suggestion that the peaceful and accepting nature that he possessed, which prevented him from advancing in wrestling, most likely saved his life.
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Similarly, The Iron Claw is a film that exemplifies the North Texas region. The storyline of the movie is split between the openness of the Von Erich family ranch in North Texas and the smoke-filled halls of the Sportatorium in Dallas proper. Both of these settings exist in the same physical location. Each and every aspect of Texas is reflected in the urban-rural, sin-salvation dichotomy. But what happens when the places where pain and safety are located change?
Just south of the Red River, which divides Oklahoma and Texas, is where the official region of North Texas begins. This region has approximately 15 counties and approximately eight million people. There was only farmland there not too long ago. This is still the case today; if you drive north from Dallas for a little over an hour, you will be able to see Clydesdales and calves on family farms that are actively in operation. In a diner where George Jones and Patsy Cline play on repeat, it is still possible to order a dish of fried green tomatoes that is of exceptional quality. In the distance, you can see what was formerly known as the Blackland Prairie, which is now covered in fields of clover and sorghum.
This is the function that the ranch owned by the Von Erich family plays in The Iron Claw. Previously, the Army Corps of Engineers had constructed farms and lakes in the area that was now home to the ranch. The ranch was situated in Denton County. The town square in Denton, which serves as the county seat, is unmistakably Texas. The courthouse is located smack dab in the heart of the town square. It is possible that you will be met with a “How do” in the right bars. The local state university serves as a safe haven for the local hippies, artists, readers, and people who have reached their breaking point. Even in the secular, multicultural, post-internet 2020s, it is easy to feel the pastiche of images that are present there. These images include the dinner bell, Sunday best, working boots, Sir and Ma’am, the Baptist Church, and the Methodist Church. It goes without saying that the histories of the Black people, the Mexican people, and the Native Americans in North Texas are all conveniently omitted from these clichés; but, if you drive through a town in the surrounding Tarrant Country that is called White Settlement, you might start to realize why this is the case.
