Rahim Mohamed: Come for the bodyslams. Stay for the Canadian pop-culture flourishes

"The Iron Claw" dramatizes the unbelievably tragic story of the Von Erich family of pro wrestlers — and squeezes in some sweet Rush tunes, too.

Zac Efron in The Iron Claw.

By: Rahim Mohamed

A24’s The Iron Claw was one of the most glaring omissions from January’s announcement of Oscar nominees, inexplicably getting shut out from all categories. Moviegoers and critics alike were especially vexed by the Academy’s snubbing of star Zac Efron from the “Best Actor” category. The High School Musical alum garnered universal praise for his believable portrayal of musclebound journeyman wrestler Kevin Von Erich, the sole survivor of the cursed first family of Texas wrestling.  

We won’t spend too much time recapping the history of the family today; I encourage everyone to see this movie, even if you’re not a wrestling fan, so will keep spoilers to a minimum. (There have also been some documentaries that have studied the family, too, if that’s more your speed.) For those who haven’t heard of them, the short version goes something like this: the Von Erich family, headed by father Fritz Von Erich, was absolutely gigantic in American, specifically Texan, wrestling in the late 70s through to the 80s and even into the 90s.

There really isn’t any version of this in any sport today that I can use as a comparison. They were iconic, giants in their industry, but their success was offset by repeated excruciating family tragedies. I noted above that the family was cursed, and there’s really no other word for it. The Iron Claw actually glosses over some of what this family went through, and even then, uninformed moviegoers would be forgiven for concluding that the film dramatized the troubles faced by this family, exaggerating them for the sake of plot. 

No such luck. The reality was even worse than the fiction. Family tragedies were cut for the sake of time.

You can count me among the aggrieved keyboard warriors who feel the indie wrestling drama deserved much better from the Academy. But, full disclosure, I may be just a little biased: The Iron Claw resonated with me as both a lifelong wrestling fan and, perhaps more surprisingly, an admirer of Golden Age Canadian popular culture (circa 1970 to 1985).

While the period film plays out in and around early-1980s Dallas, Ontario-born writer and director Sean Durkin manages to work in a few well-placed nods to his home country. These touches, in turn, make The Iron Claw feel more like a true, authentic artifact of the time and place.

Fans of Golden Age Canadian rock will be delighted by the film’s perfect use of Rush classic “Tom Sawyer.” Not only does the iconic synth-rock anthem anchor the film’s obligatory sports movie training montage (IMHO one of the best montages outside of the Rocky franchise), its inclusion in The Iron Claw helps establish filmmaker Durkin as a true admirer of the era’s wrestling who’s done his homework.

“Tom Sawyer” was, in fact, the real-life walkout music of family standout Kerry Von Erich (played in the movie by Jeremy Allan White) during an early stretch of his career in the 1980s. Kerry was also, on occasion, billed as “The Modern Day Warrior” in reference to the song. The song’s appearance in the film is, among other things, a classy nod to his memory. (Kerry, like pretty much everybody depicted in the film, died under tragic circumstances, taking his own life by gunshot at the age of 33.)

The song is also, more primordially, a bad ass needle-drop that, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before, never fails to get the pulse racing. 

Indeed, seeing the boxing robe-clad Von Erich brothers descend the concrete steps of a faithfully recreated Dallas Sportatorium to guitarist Alex Lifeson’s reverberating power chords takes the viewer right into the stands and back to that lost era of American pro wrestling — one can almost smell the pungent (but somehow not altogether unpleasant) mixture of popcorn, stale beer, chewing tobacco and sweat that must’ve filled the air at the time. I had a hard time staying in my seat for the entirety of the montage.

Singled out by Rush frontman Geddy Lee as the band’s “defining piece of music” from the 1980s, “Tom Sawyer” is that rare song that doubles as a time capsule, perfectly capturing the essence of a moment in time. It’s so much more than just a nostalgic cut for the dads in the audience: its usage is essential to both setting The Iron Claw’s pitch-perfect tone and reproducing the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of Texas wrestling’s heyday. 

Another notable connection between the Von Erichs and Canada, sadly left unexplored in the film, is that it was legendary Stampede Wrestling promoter Stu Hart who gave the family its cursed surname in the early 1950s. Hart met family patriarch Jack Adkisson Sr. while Adkisson was in Edmonton during a brief stint in the CFL, ultimately taking him on as a pupil. Hart soon rechristened Adkisson “Fritz Von Erich”, making him one half of an “evil Nazi” tag team, alongside Toronto-born grappler Walter Paul Sieber (as “Waldo Von Erich”). Adkisson goose-stepped and sported a ring jacket emblazoned with an Iron Cross as part of the reviled foreign heel act. 

“Fritz Von Erich” was one of a “who’s who” of wrestlers who’d pass through Hart’s Stampede territory on their way to superstardom, a list that includes Andre the Giant, Harley Race, Lou Thesz and the Dynamite Kid. Four of Hart’s own sons also made their mark on the territory — the Hart Family’s story rivals that of the Von Erich’s in terms of both accomplishment and tragedy. 

Adkisson would hang onto his ring name for the entirety of his storied career, even after returning to his home state of Texas to play the part of all-American babyface. He would also, fatefully, pass along the Von Erich moniker to each of his six sons — all but one of whom would die young. 

Depending on who you ask, Hart may have signed the brothers’ death certificates when he gave Jack Sr. the ring name “Fritz Von Erich.” One urban legend that’s made the rounds in the wrestling community has it that the “Von Erich curse” started when a Holocaust survivor, who’d lost his own sons to the death camps, put a hex on father Fritz as punishment for using Naziism to draw cheap heat from audiences. 

While eliding the sordid origins of the Von Erich surname, The Iron Claw nevertheless plays with the idea that it’s the ultimate source of the family’s misery. In an expository scene early in the movie, Kevin tells love interest Pam (played by Lily James) that whispers about his family’s ill-fatedness have swirled around the wrestling community since firstborn son Jack Jr. died in a freak accident as a child. He posits that his father set the “curse” into motion when he took his mother’s maiden name, despite her family’s own string of misfortune. (This is half-true; her real-life maiden name was “Erich.”) The surname’s Nazi origins were reportedly referenced in earlier drafts of the film’s script but dropped from the final version. 

Kevin’s own ambivalence toward the superstition is a key driver of the film’s plot. While dismissive of the “Von Erich curse” at first, he starts to come around to it as the family’s misfortunes pile up. At his most distraught, he briefly abandons his wife and infant son in hopes of protecting them from the supernatural terror. In an earlier scene, Kevin had accompanied his wife to the local registry to make sure that the surname “Adkisson” (and not “Von Erich”) was printed on his newborn son’s birth certificate.

While it takes place in the heart of the Lone Star State and mainly serves to tell the story of a family, The Iron Claw also offers a few fun Easter eggs for fans of the Canadian popular culture of the time — no doubt attributable to Canuck writer-director Sean Durkin. Canadian viewers will come for the bodyslams and stay for the Rush guitar licks. Everyone else can go for a compressed but reasonably faithful story of a possibly cursed family of American celebrities brought low by repeated tragedies during a fascinating era for both pro wrestling and North American pop culture. Don’t listen to the folks at the Academy. This one is definitely worth two hours of your time.

Rahim Mohamed is a master’s student at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. His writing has appeared in The Hub, and the National Post, and CBC News Calgary.

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