Film / The Iron Claw

"Tonight, I walk with my brothers."

"Ever since I was a child, people said my family was cursed. Mom tried to protect us with God. Dad tried to protect us with wrestling. He said if we were the toughest, the strongest, nothing could ever hurt us. I believed him. We all did."

— Kevin Von Erich

The Iron Claw is a biographical sports drama about the Von Erich family, a Texan Professional Wrestling dynasty. The film is directed by Sean Durkin, and stars Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, and Stanley Simons as the brothers Kevin, David, Kerry, and Mike Von Erich respectively, Holt McCallany as patriarch Fritz, and Lily James as Kevin's eventual wife Pam. Maxwell Jacob Friedman is credited as an executive producer and plays Lance, a kayfabe-only member of the family, though almost all of his acting role ended up on the cutting-room floor.

By 1980, former wrestler Fritz Von Erich has raised four promising sons: wrestling rising stars Kevin and David, would-be Olympian Kerry, and aspiring musician Mike. However, Fritz's ambitions, coupled with his ruthlessness in achieving wrestling domination, contribute to a string of tragedies that befall the family both in and out of the ring.

The film was released in December 2023.

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This film contains the following tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Fritz Von Erich is not physically abusive to his children even in a training context, but he is still a hard, ruthless father who openly ranks which children he likes best, trains them mercilessly, and expects them to show no signs of weakness. This unforgiving approach drives two of his sons, Mike and Kerry, to take their own lives.
• The Ace: David. Although Kevin is the oldest, and considered the best athlete, and Kerry has the rockstar charisma and the best body, David is widely considered to be the best of the bunch, even including their father. David is not only the tallest, but also the best overall worker and talker. He is the one heavily considered for the World championship, until his death pushes Kerry into the spot.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: The real Doris' hair had already whitened with age during the events tackled in the film. The movie keeps Maura Tierney's dark brown hair all throughout.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: While the real-life David was considered a Texas heartthrob by some, most others found him to be the least physically attractive of the brothers. He's portrayed by Harris Dickinson, the most traditionally attractive man in the cast.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • The film shows Fritz Von Erich shouting in German as a heel while he was an active wrestler, but doesn't mention that he was originally a Nazi heel in kayfabe. The "Von Erich" ring name, in real life an example of The Von Trope Family, is instead explained as a grandmother's surname (the family's legal name is the non-Germanic-villain-sounding Adkisson).
  • The film omits Kerry and Mike's brushes with the law and generally glosses over the boys' use of illicit substances, though there are scenes where they can be seen taking performance-enhancing drugs, and Kerry's seen indulging in recreational drugs in several scenes.
• Adapted Out:
  • There was, in fact, another Von Erich brother — Chris — who was completely omitted from the movie. This is partially to keep the screenplay to a manageable length, and partially because the sheer scale of the real life tragedy might be hard for audiences to believe.
  • Save for Kevin's, the brothers' families are likewise omitted, most notably Kerry's — while Kevin's sons Ross and Marshall (who are depicted in the film) grew up to become wrestlers, so did Kerry's younger daughter Lacey, who briefly competed in TNA in the late 2000s.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade:
  • The very reason Chris Von Erich is Adapted Out is because having another brother being Driven to Suicide is perceived by the film makers to be too much (and unrealistic) for the audience.
  • The film depicts Kerry's suicide being fueled mainly by his career (and by extension physical) frustrations. In real life, legal troubles and the disintegration of his marital life also played (if not the main) factors, both of which are Adapted Out.
  • While still looking in poor health in the film, Mike looked far worse in his disastrous press conference in real life, with one eye pointing in a distressingly incorrect direction and his speech practically incoherent.
  • In real life, Kevin initially coped even worse with the deaths of his brothers, understandably struggling for years and even making a passive suicide attempt after Fritz's death. The film compresses these events, ending with Kevin moving forward with his grief in a healthy way, with Fritz still alive and healthy.
• Age Lift: Kevin's older son Ross is shown as being born in 1984, while younger son Marshall is presumably born in the mid-late '80s. In real life, Ross and Marshall were respectively born in 1988 and 1992.
• An Arm and a Leg: Kerry's drunken motorbike accident shortly after winning the NWA title (in reality, these events were two years apart) costs him his foot. Thanks to a prosthetic, wrestling boots, and painkillers, he is able to keep this concealed from the public.
• And Starring: "With Holt McCallany and Lily James", as seen in the poster above.
• Artistic License – History: Several examples.
  • As noted above, the Von Erichs/Adkissons had six sons — Jack Jr., Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris. Chris is not at all depicted in the film.
  • David was married twice, and had one child who died of SIDS, but (much like for Kerry) the film portrays him as unmarried and childless.
  • The real Kevin and Pam got married in 1980; in the film, it appears that they tie the knot in early 1984, very shortly before David's death. Their wedding was also an outdoor wedding instead of a banquet hall one (which was Kerry's).
  • The real Doris was present when Kerry defeated Ric Flair for the NWA World Title; in the film she just watches its broadcast.
  • There are some liberties taken with Kerry's serious motorcycle accident, which results in the amputation of his foot.
    • The ill-fated ride is shown as taking place in 1984, shortly after he became NWA World Champion. In real life it took place in 1986.
    • The timeline of the accident and amputation is noticeably condensed. In real life he underwent surgery to save his foot but this ultimately failed when Kerry attempted to walk on it before it healed. The film skips over this, implying that the amputation was immediate.
    • Kerry's motorcycle itself. The film used a 1998 Kawasaki model despite the accident happening in 1984 (1986 in real life, as stated above), not to mention Kerry himself being dead five years prior to its release.
  • The film suggests that Kevin refusing to let go of the Iron Claw in his NWA World Championship match against Ric Flair was a shoot, one driven by Kevin's grief over losing yet another brother. In real life, there doesn't appear to be any evidence of Kevin shooting on the Nature Boy to get himself disqualified. Additionally, Flair is depicted as being amused with this. Shooting on another wrestler and injuring them, especially one in a more prominent position than you, is a massive taboo in wrestling. If Kevin did this in real life, Flair would have likely refused to work with him again, and Kevin's status outside of his father's promotion would have plummeted considerably. ^note A 1985 match vs Flair saw Kevin locking the claw on Ric, and refusing to release it until Fritz intervenes. Likely what the moment is referencing.
  • In the movie, Kevin is the first one to find Kerry's body after the latter shoots himself. In real life, it was actually Fritz — who, in the film, irrationally blames Kevin for not being there sooner for Kerry — who found Kerry dead.
  • At the end of the film, Kevin sells his father's promotion to Jerry Jarrett against his father's wishes. Jarrett even states that Fritz threatened him. In real life, Fritz was the one who sold to Jerry Jarrett, while Kevin opposed the sale. Moreover, Kevin briefly continued to promote World Class events after Jarrett pulled out of Dallas, which is not depicted in the film.
  • A relatively minor example, but the tag team match early in the film depicts Gino Hernandez tapping out to the iron claw in 1979. Tap outs only became a thing in wrestling during the 1990s when MMA started to get big. Submissions were verbal before this. In fact, wrestlers frequently used to tap the mat before the popularization of the tap out to get fans behind them while they were locked in submission holds.
  • Kerry's suicide is implied to be the result of his career in the WWF winding down, with the promotion only using him on house shows. It's never stated that he left the WWF six months before he killed himself. In real life, Kerry continued wrestling for months after leaving the WWF, and two of the reasons for his eventual suicide were his failed marriage and a pending drug charge, both of which are omitted from the film entirely.
  • Kerry buys Fritz a gun for Christmas, and later uses it to die by suicide. In real life, it had been a gift for Father's Day. Also, Kerry notes that the gun is chambered in .357 Magnum, while in reality, Kerry used a .44 in his suicide.
  • Perhaps minor, but Fritz seems perpetually confused as to how the wrestling business actually works, if only so that the details can be explained to the audience. In no particular order...
    • Early on, Mike asks Kevin what he thinks about the new camera angles, referencing what was, at the time, the new, innovative way the WCCW show was shot, only for Fritz to snap "Who cares about camera angles?" In reality, Fritz would care a great deal, given that he was the one who hired the director who pitched it to him, and paid for the extra equipment to make it possible. This is in the service of setting up both Mike's interest in the production side of World Class, which wrestling historians speculate could've been a genuine asset to the company, and Fritz's unwillingness to let his sons be anything but onscreen talent.
    • Fritz chides Kevin for staying down "too long" after a suplex on the concrete from Wrestling/Harley Race hurts Kevin enough that he barely manages to enter the ring before a ten-count completes. The last second return to the ring at count 9 not only was (and is) a standard bit of wrestling drama, but staying down and "selling" for such a time period was the encouraged, even expected, way to "sell" to the crowd how devastating such a move would be, especially when your opponent is the Worlds Heavyweight Champion; while part of his job was to make the local competitor look good returning the favor was considered good etiquette, especially if you were trying for the belt yourself someday as Kevin is.
    • Fritz also chides Kevin for not "taking it to him." As NWA champion, Harley Race would be the one leading or "calling" the match, as he's shown doing in the film when he tells Kevin they're "going for a ride" before throwing him over the top rope. Kevin not listening and trying to do whatever he wanted would be a great way to get one or both of them injured and a surefire way to make certain he'd never get the Worlds title; injuring the NWA champ loses everyone money so every promotion would be angry with both he and World Class. Beyond that, "shooting" on Harley Race, a noted badass who also had a habit of packing heat everywhere he went, would be a terrible idea during and after the match.
    • Fritz appears at times to have no idea how the "game" is played and seems to struggle with the political side of the territorial system. Yet in real life, not only did Fritz have a vote on who the NWA world champion would be, he actually sat as NWA President for a time. Thus Fritz would know exactly what the politics behind becoming World Champion were. He did secede from the NWA at one point, but not necessarily "just" because he couldn't hack it in wrestling territorial politics.
• Auto Erotica: Kevin and Pam have sex for the first time in a car after attending a college party.
• Big Brother Instinct: After he says his dream is to own a ranch that houses all his younger brothers and their families, Pam pegs Kevin as a natural eldest son who wants to take care of everybody. ^note He has to clarify he's only the second eldest, as his older brother died when they were children. Indeed, throughout the film Kevin is able to intuit when things are going south for his younger brothers and tries to advise them against certain choices, only to be devastated when they all die young anyway.
• The Big Guy: David Von Erich is visibly inches taller than his brothers, who are themselves larger, powerfully built men. David is typically the brother who storms the ring to make the save, or battle off a number of heels, when his brothers are in trouble or are being cheated.Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy fills this role for the Von Erich's arch-rivals The Fabulous Freebirds.
• Bittersweet Ending: Kevin is the only surviving son of the Von Erich family, and the loss of his brothers, as well as the abuse he suffered at the hands of Fritz, have clearly taken a major toll on him. However, by openly weeping in front of his sons, it's clear that he's become his own man and is processing his pain in a healthy way.
• Book Ends:
  • The film begins and ends with a man, his two sons, and his pregnant wife. In the film's beginning, it's Fritz firmly laying out his wrestling ambitions to his wife Doris, who is stressed about their finances and the future, as Kevin and David look on silently. In the end, it's Kevin — who has decided to take a step back from wrestling and become a better father and husband — happily playing with his sons and wife Pam.
  • One of Kevin's first on-screen matches ends with him winning by disqualification, and his last on-screen match ends with him losing by disqualification.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Kevin eventually decides to be a more present and emotionally available father to his sons than his father Fritz had ever been to him and his brothers.
• Break the Haughty: Doris is fairly aloof, cold, and emotionally uninvolved with her sons, and makes petty potshots towards Pam at the latter's wedding. In the end, devastated by the loss of all but one of her sons, she breaks down in Pam's comforting arms.
• Broken Ace: Kerry Von Erich is the star of the family, a would-be Olympian and a champion wrestler who Fritz considers his favorite. He's also utterly destroyed by the various tragedies that befall his brothers, leading to the loss of his foot in a motorcycle accident and his eventual suicide.
• Can't Catch Up:
  • Kevin is an extremely successful wrestler and a great athlete, but while he can definitely connect with his home Texas crowd he lacks the easy charisma that comes so naturally to his brothers, and tends to get tongue-tied or stage-frightened on the microphone. Ultimately, first David and then Kerry surpass him in the overall wrestling business.
  • World Class Championship Wrestling as a whole suffers from this as well. When the film starts in 1979, World Class is drawing large crowds, has a lot of money coming in, and has a lucrative TV deal that broadcasts internationally. As the film goes on, the crowds are noticeably dwindling and World Class is in such dire financial straits that the Von Erichs are forced to sell up by the end of the film. It's stated that the WWF poaching Kerry, as they did with many stars of the territories, is a major factor.
• Chekhov's Gun: A literal example. Kerry gifts his father a gun for Christmas. Shortly after, Kerry retrieves the same gun to take his own life.
• Coins for the Dead: This practice is alluded to when we see Kerry in what seems to be the afterlife: he's on a boat on the river he and his brothers used to swim in. Before he gets off to reunite with his dead brothers, he leaves a quarter behind.
• Curse Escape Clause: Kevin believes that the curse of the Von Erichs is to do with the name. So, when registering the birth of his first child, he insists of the name Adkisson instead of Von Erich.
• Dark Reprise: "Live That Way Forever" is first performed by Mike and his band as a fun number at a grungy college party. Later, a Softer and Slower Cover of it plays as Mike commits suicide.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The film's prologue, set in protagonist Kevin's young childhood while his father was still an active wrestler, is ominously shot in black and white.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title refers to the famous hold of the Von Erich family and the hold Fritz has over his sons.
• Driven to Suicide: Mike and Kerry both take their own lives.
• End of an Age: The last act of the film is set during Kerry's tenure in the WWF in the nineties, where it's noted that attendances at World Class are way down and that they will have to sell up, marking the decline of the territory system in the previous decade. Even the NWA World Title doesn't have the prestige it once did, with Fritz, the man who had obsessed over the belt for decades, stating that Kerry holds the second most prestigious title in the world, the WWF Intercontinental Championship, and wondering when he is going to get a shot at the World Title.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The film opens with Fritz blindsiding Doris by revealing that he'd sold their family car for a fancier and more expensive alternate without her knowledge or consent, insisting that it's what's needed to further his career to provide for the same family who will now struggle harder with the higher bills — foreshadowing his fixation on fame and appearances over the well-being of his sons and the input of his wife.
  • After his big match winning the NWA Texas Title, Kevin tries tries to shoot a promo interview on the subject, which he repeatedly flubs, especially when David starts good-naturedly mocking him from behind the camera to trip him up. Kevin's a great wrestler and athlete, but he has a tendency to get tongue-tied and flustered, especially when it comes to putting his feelings into words, and David is more easygoing and charismatic.
• Everything's Big in Texas: As in real life, the Von Erich brothers are marketed as good-hearted Texan boys who can still kick ass. Naturally, they're hometown heroes to the Dallas area.
• The Face: A big reason Fritz puts his focus on David is not just his skill but the fact that he’s a tall Pretty Boy who is easily the brother with the most social skills, therefore being the most presentable and camera ready.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Mike has next to no interest in wrestling, wanting nothing more than to play music with his band. Fritz grudgingly tolerates this for a while, but after David's death, he forces Mike to compete as a wrestler, resulting in a horrible shoulder injury in the ring that, combined with toxic shock, puts him in a coma. When Mike emerges from the coma, Fritz makes it clear he expects him to continue wrestling, and Mike commits suicide. Even worse, this shows Fritz's lack of imagination. With his interest in both music and camera angles, Mike could've been a real asset to World Class on the production side, but Fritz instead wants him to win the family glory in the ring.
• Fatal Flaw: Hoo boy.
  • Fritz's fatal flaw is his ambition and resentment. Having failed to become NWA World's Heavyweight Champion in his own time, he is absolutely determined that one of his sons will carry that honor in his place, and become the most dominant wrestling dynasty in the world. He has many other flaws as both a father and as a man, but his ambition lies at the roots of most of them, and it's his ambitions that ultimately destroy his family and his promotion.
  • David's ambition also destroys him, but in a distinctly different way. Wanting to be the brother to succeed and climb to the top of the mountain, he refuses obvious warning signs that his health isn't keeping up, leading to the trip to Japan where he perishes of a ruptured intestine.
  • The same reckless energy that made Kerry a captivating, charismatic performer and led him to push through the pain to learn to wrestle again with only one foot also leads him to the drunk motorcycle accident that costs him his foot in the first place. It also leads him to become the most notorious drug abuser of the brothers, and ultimately drives him to take his own life once it becomes apparent his career is winding down.
  • Kevin is a downplayed example, in that most of his flaws are things he works through during the film. But his problems communicating and sharing his feelings outside or even in his immediate family are major problems for him both in the wrestling business, where he's prone to stage fright and flubbing his lines, lacking some of the electric charisma of his brothers, and outside of it, where he struggles to stand up to Fritz's destructive plans or to open up to his wife and children until the very end of the film.
• Financial Abuse: Late in the film, a nearly-broke Kevin looks through the accounting and sees that he was never making as much money as the books say he did. He then realizes that on top of all the other types of abuse Fritz had heaped on him and his brothers, he was also taking a cut of their profits. In real life, this was a twisted way to keep his children close to him and dependent on him, because Fritz feared they'd leave him if he let them. Notably, David was the only brother who did have significant experience in other territories, and it's not a coincidence that David was seen as the greatest and most well-rounded of the brothers.
• Finishing Move: The titular Iron Claw is this for the Von Erich clan. Nothing flashy or fancy, just a powerful grip crushing an opponent's skull or stomach to end the match.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: David is Sanguine, Mike is Phlegmetic, Kevin is Melancholic, Kerry is Choleric.
• Gilligan Cut: Doris tells Mike in no uncertain terms that he is not to go to his band's university gig. We immediately cut to Mike's older brothers and Pam helping him sneak out. They all go to the party together.
• Handicapped Badass: As in real life, Kerry continued wrestling even after losing his right foot. He treats it as a Dark Secret, with only his family, medical professionals, and few selected friends knowing about his condition.
• Happily Married:
  • Despite some rough spots over the course of the film, Kevin and Pam genuinely love each other and their kids and want to make their marriage work. Kevin taking a step back from wrestling to focus on his family puts them on much better terms, and the Real-Person Epilogue mentions their real-life counterparts are still married with a large brood of children and grandchildren.
  • Doris and Fritz seem to genuinely love each other, even sneaking off to have sex during their son’s wedding reception, but the death of nearly all of their sons seemingly fatally damages their marriage, with a scene near the end implying that Doris will no longer take care of Fritz — a foreshadowing of their impending real-life divorce.
• Heads or Tails?: When he needs to decide whether Kevin or Kerry will compete for the world title in David's place, Fritz opts to flip a coin, claiming it to be the only fair way to decide. The camera focuses on the coin in the air before cutting to Kevin patting Kerry on the back as the latter heads into the ring.
• Healthy in Heaven: In the vision of the deceased Von Erich brothers reuniting in the afterlife, amputee Kerry has both his feet and Mike is whole after the series of medical catastrophes that ruined his body.
• Heroic Build: Kevin is heavily muscled, even in comparison to his brothers.
• Hidden Depths: Doris notes that Fritz was a talented and classically-trained clarinetist, which shocks the sons as they've never heard of Fritz having any interest in music, especially considering his derision towards Mike's hobby. Doris herself is a talented painter who, for reasons even she doesn't remember anymore, gave the hobby up after marrying Fritz.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Jimmy Carter appears in the newscast declaring the US's declining from the Moscow Olympics in protest for the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
  • The film features a number of notable pro-wrestling figures from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, such as the Von Erich Family (obviously), Harley Race, Ric Flair, Bruiser Brody, etc.
• Hope Spot: After Kerry moves to WWF, he appears to be on the road to greater success as the Intercontinental Champion... only to get demoted to the undercard and house shows. This, compounded with his chronic pain, plays a major role in Kerry's suicide.
• Housewife: Doris Adkisson has dedicated her married life to homemaking for her husband and strapping sons, while they go out and earn money. Near the end, it's implied that she's divorcing Fritz by not making him dinner and pointedly picking up her painting hobby again.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Several of the Von Erichs are this, despite the accolades they received in their careers:
  • Fritz never won the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship, which is something that eats away at him, driving him to have his sons win the title. The real Fritz was AWA World Champion at one point.
  • Kevin is given a non-title match with Harley Race that he wins via DQ, seemingly setting him up for a title run until it's given to Ric Flair instead. Kevin does have a match with Flair later, which he loses by DQ.
  • Kerry is a more traditional sports example, as he's all set to go to the Olympic Games in the discus event until President Carter announces a US boycott of the 1980 games in Moscow over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. His own wrestling career, while netting him the NWA World Title and the WWF Intercontinental Title (both of which were short reigns in real life), comes to an abrupt end due to his personal issues, resulting in his suicide.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When Kevin confronts Fritz for paying him and his brothers less than the books show, Fritz counters that he used the money to maintain the family’s home and lifestyle.
• Inciting Incident: Jimmy Carter's decision not to allow US athletes to compete in the Moscow Olympic Games sends Kerry Von Erich home, where his father soon pushes him into the wrestling world and into the spiral of bad choices that will eventually destroy him.
• It's All About Me: Fritz puts his dream of getting the heavyweight champion belt in his family on his sons and emotionally coerces them in order to get it, seeking to achieve glory vicariously through his kids.
• It's Okay to Cry: Throughout the film, which follows a family of manly Texan wrestlers, Kevin follows his father's credo that nobody can see them shedding tears. At the very end, however, he can't help but cry watching his two young sons play, because he has outlived his beloved younger brothers. When his sons come up to him, he apologizes for letting them "see [him] like this", but the children easily tell him that crying is fine. This clearly gets to Kevin and is a true sign that he is starting to move past his father's abuse.
• Kayfabe: When Pam playfully asks whether or not wrestling is fake on their date, Kevin stiffly responds, as wrestlers have responded since the dawn of time, that there's nothing "fake" about what they do. When she amends the question to what exactly his NWA Texas title means when the sport is "pre-arranged," Kevin unwinds a little and talks about it in terms of getting a promotion based on how well someone's doing at their job, and the increased responsibilities and expectations that come with being entrusted with a title along with the increased pay.
• Killed Offscreen: All of the deaths of the Von Erich brothers occur off camera. David dies in Japan, but it's announced to the audience in the form of Fritz telling Kevin. Mike is shown taking an entire bottle of pills and washing them down with alcohol, but confirmation of his death is shown with his mother angsting about having to wear the same funeral dress as she did to David's funeral. Kerry's body is shown after an audible gunshot just off camera.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Making their fate all the more tragic is that the boys are not manipulative or cruel like Fritz, instead being sweet and loving young men who are kind and affectionate to one another and to the people in each others' lives.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: The film's take on Ric Flair presents himself as a jerk in interviews but when he confronts Kevin after their match in which Kevin clearly breaks the rules savagely beating him and injuring him, Ric Flair is simply amused and offers Kevin a rematch and even offers to get a drink with him.
• Men Don't Cry: Fritz forbids his sons from hiding their eyes or shedding tears at their brother David's funeral. At Mike's, Pam is the only one crying and silently notes with shock that Kevin and Kerry are stone-faced. But by the end, as part of his Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting arc, Kevin cries in front of his sons, who even tell him It's Okay to Cry after he apologizes.
• Never My Fault: Fritz is simply incapable of accepting any sort of personal responsibility for anything that happens to his family, and it's implied throughout the film that the "Von Erich curse" is more of an analogy for his abusive parenting than it is any sort of superstitious thing. Even with all of his sons dead except for Kevin, his neglect directly allowing Kerry access to the gun to shoot himself, Fritz can do nothing except defend himself saying he'd left it to the boys to sort out among themselves. Kevin flies into a rage and nearly kills him because of his outrageous selfishness.
• Not Worth Killing: Kevin comes extremely close to choking the life out of Fritz after Kerry commits suicide, and stops just short when he relents and refuses to give into his dark side unlike his father.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Fritz and Doris outlive all but one (Kevin) of their five sons. Before Mike's funeral, Doris unravels in front of Pam by worrying that everyone will recognize the black dress she's wearing — as she'd worn it to David's previously.
• Power Trio: David, Kevin, and Kerry form this. Many of their feuds revolve around battling groups of heels, such as Akbar's Devastation Inc, or most famously, the 3 man team of the Fabulous Freebirds. Furthermore, the 3 brothers were multiple 3 man tag team champions.
• Parental Favoritism: As part of his abusive nature, Fritz lays it out in no uncertain terms at the beginning that his favorite son rankings go Kerry > Kevin > David > Mike, but stresses that the "rankings can change at any time". Indeed, Kevin later begins to resent being pushed aside for David once David demonstrates the kind of easy charisma on the microphone that Kevin struggles with.
• The Patriarch: Fritz Von Erich, the family's original wrestler turned abusive middle-aged Stage Dad towards his sons/protegees. Kevin himself manages to become one, and lives his dream of having a big ranch where all his many children and grandchildren are always welcome.
• Rage Breaking Point: During a match with Ric Flair, while in a near breakdown, Kevin refuses to let go of the Iron Claw, despite Flair grabbing the ropes for a break. Fortunately, his father's able to pry his hand off, and Flair is amused rather than angry. With all of his brothers dead, Kevin finally stops putting up with his father’s abuse and nearly strangles his old man to death.
• Real Men Hate Affection: Deconstructed. Fritz isn't entirely opposed to it, but he's noticeably more emotionally distant to his sons than his sons are to one another. In multiple scenes, his children greet their father very politely, then excitedly throw their arms around their brothers.
• Real-Person Epilogue: The film ends by explaining that the Von Erichs were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and that Kevin and Pam achieved the former's dream of living with all their descendants. A family photograph of the real Kevin and Pam with their kids and grandkids caps off the film.
• The Resenter: Kevin is devastated to learn that David is going to become NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion before he himself had a chance to be. To his credit, he knows this is wrong, and makes sure to admit to his resentment and apologize to David at his wedding. Sadly, this is right before the trip to Japan where David dies of a ruptured intestine.
• Sibling Team: As in real life, the Von Erich brothers wrestle in tag team matches alongside each other.
• Signature Move: The Iron Claw — a Finishing Move clutching the opponent's body, often the forehead — is considered in-universe (and out, note the title) as the trademark move of the Von Erich wrestlers.
• Stage Dad: Fritz pushes all of his sons into the wrestling business with the intention of winning the NWA title, a belt he himself had chased all of his career and never attained himself. This pushes them all so hard that it kills all but Kevin, including Mike, who never showed any interest in stepping in the ring.
• Stage Name: It's mentioned in passing that the Von Erich wrestlers' legal surname is Adkisson — the patriarch Fritz took on "Von Erich" during his wrestling career and his sons inherited the stage name. Kevin has to correct a nurse who assumes his son will bear the surname Von Erich, noting the possibility of passing the name on with distaste.
• Together in Death: After Kerry dies, we get a scene of him meeting his brothers — including the eldest, Jack Jr., who died as a child — in the afterlife, represented as a river the brothers were swimming in earlier. This is implied to be an Imagine Spot of Kevin's, making it an Invoked Trope.
• Unexpected Virgin: Pam expresses surprise to learn that Kevin is a virgin when they have sex in a car for the first time. This might have been a case of Kevin trying to play up his family's squeaky-clean public image; the real Kevin claimed in a shoot interview that he lost his virginity well before young adulthood.
• The Unfavorite: While Kevin is listed high at the top of Fritz's (blatantly abusive) ranking of "favorite sons", his performance in a loss against Harley Race costing him heavyweight contention drives a rift between them as Fritz had pinned his initial hopes on Kevin winning the belt. Disappointed, Fritz instead continuously favors all his other sons over the years and pushes them into the wrestling business, sometimes pointedly ignoring Kevin out of his petty grudge. This disregard of Fritz is ironically implied to have saved Kevin's life, as it gives him enough leeway to start slowly escaping his father and not be pressured to live up to his expectations until he dies like his brothers.
• Useless Bystander Parent: The family's mother, Doris, refuses to take a stand against her husband's abuse or even emotionally connect with her sons in any meaningful way at first. Tellingly, an early scene sees Kevin ask to talk to her about something and she tries to dismiss him with "that's what your brothers are for". She is similarly nonresponsive to him asking her to intervene against Fritz's harsh treatment of Mike. Instead, she uses religion as a band-aid. It doesn't work.
• Vicariously Ambitious: Fritz missed out on the NWA Worlds Championship title repeatedly, leading him to push this dream onto his sons no matter the cost.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Painful retching and a bloody toilet hint at the acute enteritis that will lead to David's death.
• The Watson: Pam fulfils this role during her date with Kevin, so he can briefly explain how world heavyweight wrestling champions are chosen.
• Weapon Title: The title is mainly referring to the Von Erich's Finishing Move.
• Wedding/Death Juxtaposition: The wedding of Kevin and Pam is an emotional high point of the film, and features the bride, her new husband, and brothers-in-law all together and dancing happily. However, David's already puking blood into a toilet, and in the next scene, we learn that he has died of a ruptured intestine.
• Wham Line: "David. He died in his hotel room in Japan." After that line, the movie takes a hard, dark turn that lasts for the rest of the runtime.
• Wham Shot: After Kerry drunkenly takes his bike out for a ride, the movie cuts to some time later as he's moving around the house and doing his daily routine in crutches. After walking into a shot and past a counter, it's shown that Kerry lost his foot.
• White Shirt of Death:
  • Played with regarding Mike. He is clad in a white tux coughing and puking blood in his last few scenes prior to his deah.
  • Kerry kills himself while wearing a sea salt-colored shirt, complete with focusing on the blood from his fatal gunshot wound to the chest.
  • Inverted by Mike, who was wearing a dark green shirt when he was Driven to Suicide but is wearing a show colored shirt the afterlife Imagine Spot with the deceased brothers.

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"I used to be a brother..."