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- Lance Von Erich joins the world class fight
- MJF will play Lance Von Erich in ‘Iron Claw’
A24, the film studio behind critically acclaimed movies like Hereditary, everything everywhere at onceY the green knight, is making a wrestling movie. The movie is iron claw, and will tell the story of the struggling Von Erich family. Based on A24’s previous films, this will not be a trivial piece and should delve into the sad fate of one of wrestling’s most iconic families, one that resulted in the death of five brothers, leaving only one alive.
The film also revealed that it will show some lesser-known moments from the Von Erich dynasty. The AEW wrestler MJF signed on to play Lance Von Erich, a later addition to the World Class Championship Wrestling storylines. There was a problem. Lance wasn’t an actual member of the family and fans knew that from the start. As a result, World Class fans shunned him, and his babyface drive stalled and flopped thanks to the fact that fans loved the Von Erich family, and Lance was an outsider.
Lance Von Erich joins the world class fight
The Lance Von Erich story begins in Dallas, Texas, where World Class executive David Manning introduced Fritz Von Erich to a young man named William Vaughan, 24 years old at the time. Fritz helped train Lance in 1984 and later sent him to Portland, Oregon to work for Pacific Northwest Wrestling. That promotion had built its own fair share of talent, with names like Rowdy Roddy Piper and Billy Jack Haynes leaving the promotion to become stars on the big stage. Going by the name Ricky Vaughn, he ended up as a quick study there, even winning the tag team titles with Billy Jack in 1985.
By 1985, the Von Erich family had suffered the tragedy of David Von Erich’s death during a trip to Japan the previous year. After this, Mike Von Erich suffered from toxic shock syndrome, and that ravaged his body and put him out of action for a while. This left only Kevin and Kerry Von Erich. With an ongoing feud with The Freebirds, Fritz Von Erich felt it was better to bring in a “family member” rather than just include someone like Iceman King Parsons in the six-man team with the brothers. While the documentary Triumphs and Tragedies of World Class Championship Wrestling revealed that Kevin was against Ricky Vaughn coming in as Lance Von Erich, Fritz was the promoter and ordered the move. Cousin Lance Von Erich showed up to help fight the Freebirds.
This backfired horribly. In the 1980s, fans might have felt that professional wrestling was scripted, but at the time there was still a strong need to see it as real. Hobbyists, especially those in a pre-Internet age who read Apter magazines like Illustrated Pro Wrestling, I knew this was not a true Von Erich. When Vaughn appeared as Lance Von Erich, fans felt the hype, and worse, the Von Erich family themselves were lying to them. Despite this, Fritz pushed Lance hard. He won The Freebirds six-man tag team titles, with Kerry Von Erich and Steve Simpson as his partners. He won the tag team titles from Matt Borne and Buzz Sawyer with none other than The Dingo Warrior, who soon left WCCW for WWE and became The Ultimate Warrior.
MJF will play Lance Von Erich in ‘Iron Claw’
MJF has signed on to play Lance Von Erich in iron claw for A24 film. He joins Zac Efron, who plays Kevin Von Erich, and Jeremy Allen White, who plays Kerry Von Erich. With Lance Von Erich appearing in the film, there are a couple of directions the filmmakers could take. One would be the disagreement over bringing in Ricky and calling him Von Erich. Interestingly, the entire relationship was based on another fake relationship. Fritz said that Lance was his brother, the son of Waldo Von Erich. One thing that the fans who rejected this didn’t realize was that the brothers, Fritz and Waldo Von Erich, weren’t real brothers. Waldo was a wrestler whose real name was Walter Sieber, but he played an evil Nazi and brother to Fritz (whose family is called Adkisson).
Another thing that could influence this is the fall of World Class Championship Wrestling. In the 1980s, World Class and Mid South Wrestling were the two main territories, with both breaking away from the NWA and becoming national promotions. They both failed. Lance was there when World Class broke up and began their decline. “In the year and a half that I fought for World Class, I saw the fan base disintegrate,” Lance wrote in his biography. Lance by Chance: Fighting Like Von Erich. “I think the people who had supported the wrestling promotion were disappointed and heartbroken after the death of David, Gino. [Hernandez]and Mike. World-class wrestling could have survived one of those deaths, but having to deal with three losses was tough.”
It was after this that Lance Von Erich asked for a raise. Fritz turned down the raise, so Lance went to a rival Dallas promotion. Angered at the perceived betrayal, Fritz appeared on world-class television and told the audience that Lance Von Erich wasn’t even a real Von Erich and that he was fake all along. Thus ended the story of Lance Von Erich, as he ended his career as “Fabulous Lance” in Wild West Wrestling and World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico. It will be interesting to see what story iron claw account because Lance wrote in his biography that he has no ill will towards the Von Erich family, but “there were lies that were covered up that I know what happened, but it’s none of my business to tell that.”