Athletes - Kevin Von Erich

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	Athletes - Kevin Von Erich

Kevin Ross Adkisson (born May 15, 1957 in Belleville, Illinois) is a retired professional wrestler under the ring name Kevin Von Erich. He is the last surviving son of wrestler Fritz Von Erich and had four brothers that wrestled, David, Kerry, Mike and Chris. He was nicknamed "The Golden Warrior" and used Ted Nugent's rock song Stranglehold as his ring entrance music.

Career

Kevin Adkisson played football at North Texas State University as a fullback until an injury ended his football career and dream of playing in the National Football League.

Kevin started wrestling as Kevin Von Erich in 1976. He spent most of his career wrestling for his father's promotion, World Class Championship Wrestling. He teamed with his brothers and had a huge feud against the Fabulous Freebirds (Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy and Buddy Roberts). They had many classic six-man tag matches that are still talked about today.

Kevin also had a long feud with Chris Adams that lasted for months and had many violent matches. Kevin would also tag-team with Adams on numerous occasions before and after their feud. Away from the ring, Kevin and Chris were close friends; Kevin served as a pallbearer during Adams' funeral in 2001.

Kevin had a great arsenal of moves and holds with which he often startled his opponents. He was the champion of the Iron Claw, a classic Von Erich finisher. He also used the headscissors and the body scissors. The body scissors was one of his favorite holds. He would wrap his thighs around the waist or abdomen of his opponent and squeeze until he would give up the match.

Kevin was also known for wrestling barefoot, highly unusual in a sport where almost all wrestlers wear high-topped boots. Kevin later admitted in an interview that he never set out to wrestle barefoot, but that before his debut match, someone hid his boots as a rib, and he wasn't able to find them before his match, so just went out barefoot to wrestle, and it later became his trademark.

Kevin had several close matches with NWA World Champ Ric Flair, but never won the title.

Kevin was very close to his brothers David and Kerry and was deeply affected when each of them died. He became semi-retired after Kerry committed suicide in 1993 and permanently retired in 1995.

Kevin now dabbles in real estate and spends time with his family, although he does appear on several wrestling conventions and still owns the rights to the World Class Championship Wrestling name and its library. He and his wife of over 25 years have two daughters,Kristen and Jill in college, and two younger sons,Ross and Marshall (Ross is a high school football player). The oldest daughter,Kristen now married, gave birth to Kevin's first grandchild (a girl) in September 2004.

On October 3, 2005, Kevin made an appearance on the WWE Homecoming show alongside other WWE Hall of Famers. Later that night, as Dusty Rhodes and the other WWE Hall of Famers were gathered in the ring, Rob Conway came out and interrupted Rhodes. This eventually led to Conway's beatdown by several Hall of Famers, in which Kevin used the Iron Claw on Conway, to the raves of the partisan Dallas crowd. Announcer Jim Ross said afterwards that he never thought he would live to see the iron claw again.

On January 20, 2006, Kevin and his son Ross Adkisson (billed as Ross Von Erich) appeared on a local wrestling card in Longview, Texas as guests of Roddy Piper's Piper's Pit. During the segment, in which Kevin and Piper talked about going to the Sportatorium as teenagers, Skandor Akbar interrupted the interview to berate both Kevin and Ross. At one point, Akbar pushed Ross, which prompted Kevin to apply the iron claw on Akbar. Greg Valentine then pulled Akbar away, with Kevin, Ross, Piper and The Grappler taking in the cheers of the crowd.

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Athletes - Kevin Von Erich

Career

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