This Thursday marks the anniversary of the passing of Stu Hart in 2003.
Hart, a Canadian wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer, is one of wrestling’s most well known dads. That is, his progeny, their spouses, and their progeny, have all come to some level of fame in professional wrestling.
But the Harts aren’t the only famous family to follow in their patriarch’s wrestling footsteps. Pro wrestling history is littered with father-son and family ties. Like the carnival origins that proceed it, it has certainly been a family business.
And that goes all the way to the top. WWE famously is run by the son of a promoter, and his children and in-laws have risen to prominence as the McMahon patriarchy reigns supreme. America’s other major label, AEW, is also run by a son.
There’s a distinct difference between the two though. Cody Rhodes is a wrestler and the son of a wrestler. The McMahons, while they’ve certainly barged their way into the spotlight in the ring many times, sometimes for good, sometimes to horrible effect. Point is, while the Rhodes will go down as wrestlers first, the McMahons will go down as promoters first.
I make that distinction because the anniversary of Stu’s death got me thinking on how wrestling families, despite the succeses, are so full of drama, and often tragedy too. I exclude the McMahons from the following list of five infamous wrestling dads (and honorable mentions). Likewise excluded are the likes of the Anoa’i ever-branching family tree. Like the McMahons, there are fathers and grandfathers in there, and less of a single “dad catalyst.”
5. TIE: Verne Gagne & Cowboy Bill Watts
All of the dads on this list have worked as head bookers or company runners while their sons wrestled under the promotion. Stu Hart owned and ran Stampede with all his boys wrestling for him. Fritz von Erich did the same with his boys and World Class Championship Wrestling. Dusty Rhodes was the head booker at WCW several times it the late 80s and early 90s in WCW when Dustin Rhodes broke in as “The Natural.” Even Grizzly Smith was on the booking committee working under Dusty Rhodes in 1992 when Jake Roberts landed his WCW contract. None, however, were as shameless as the likes of Gagne or Watts.
Greg Gagne never had the physique or in-ring ability of his famous father. While Verne is perhaps the most famous guy to never win the NWA title, his son is seen as someone pushed without any substance. Often seen as the weak link in tag matches, and unable to put himself over as a singles babyface, Greg still managed to win the AWA Tag Team Title twice and the AWA Television Title twice. The owner of the AWA? Verne Gagne of course.
Bill Watts committed similar nepotism in the early 90s WCW. While Executive Vice President of WCW, the former NWA United States Champion and NWA Florida Heavyweight Champion had a hall of fame career in the ring, his son, Erik, had anything but. Young Erik was given the kayfabe award of WCW Rookie of the Year, continuously put in tag team matchups with wrestlers well above his grade like Sting and Ricky Steamboat, allowed to take US Champion Rick Rude to time limit draws, and even given a pinfall over Steve Austin! That’s quite a push for a guy who would end up as “Troy” in the jobber tag team “Tekmo Team 2000” in the WWF in 1995. WCW fans caught onto this bullshit daddy favoritism, roundly booing Watts by the end of 1993, a trend to which Jesse Ventura, WCW commentator, would often ask on-air, “Why do the fans always boo Watts?”
Verne and Bill might have earned it in their own right, but their gross favoritism for their boys doomed Greg and Erik from the start.
4. Grizzly Smith (aka Aurelian Smith Sr.)
If you’ve seen Beyond the Mat, you know where this one goes.
The Smiths have had a tragic go of things. Grizzly, the famous wrestler from the 60s who challenged at times for the NWA Heavyweight Title, had two children with his first wife. One. a daughter was kidnapped by her fiancé’s ex-wife and murdered. That’s just one of the tragic realizations brought to light by Jake the Snake Roberts, or Aurelian Smith Jr., in Beyond the Mat. Others include that Grizzly used to lie to his children, pretending wrestling was real and he was hurt in order to avoid spending time with them, and that Aurelian Junior was the product of rape when Grizzly Smith forced himself on a girlfriend’s teenage daughter. While Roberts’ life of tragedy and addiction and recovery is well-chronicled, he’s not the only wrestling kid of Grizzly.
Rockin’ Robin, former WWF women’s wrestler, and Sam Houston, well-traveled wrestler including time in the WWF, are Grizzly Smith’s children by his second wife. Robin has leveled accusations of sexual abuse at Grizzly Smith, and Sam Houston himself spent years battling alcohol and drug addiction, as well as serving time in prison. Houston, like his half-brother, is currently in recovery. He currently promotes wrestling in the Smiths’ native north Texas.
While the Smiths’ story in wrestling is mostly one of downfall, they did leave their mark. Especially Jake the Snake. There was a time too, in the late 80s, when all three children were under WWE employ, racking up multiple pay per view appearances each with Robin reigning as women’s champion for a time. Arguably, no trio of siblings has ever been more dominant in the WWF at once.
3. Dusty Rhodes
The sons of a son of a plumber, Dustin and Cody Rhodes have had long, impactful runs in pro wrestling that continue to cook in AEW. Dustin, who’s career and underrated impact on the last 25 years of pro wrestling I’ve chronicled well here at TWM, is a Hall of Famer by any measure, and arguably ushered in the edgy era of late 90s WWF television with his quixotic Goldust character. Cody was a rising star in WWE and since has famously formed the company most positioned to challenge the WWE brand, running AEW backed by Khan money.
But it wasn’t always sunshine and roses. If you watched Dustin’s promo leading up to his and Cody’s epically awesome match at Double or Nothing this past summer, you’ll recall his espousing regret over the distance between him and his half brother, and the different ways they were raised by their famous father. A lot of that was shoot. While Dustin’s childhood was defined by absenteeism, especially after Dusty and his mother divorced, Cody was brought along by Dusty on the road, and you can even see pre-teen Cody standing with his dad at Dusty’s WCW Hall of Fame induction at Slamboree 1995.
Apart from their upbringing, Dustin also had some adult problems with his dad. His marriage to Terri Runnels, Marlena of WWF diva fame, estranged him from his father, and the two largely didn’t talk during Dustin’s initial Goldust run in the WWF while Dusty was still in WCW. Dustin’s estrangement caused resentment from Cody. On Talk is Jericho Dustin revealed that this was on top of an already strained relationship from growing up with the same dad and separate mothers. Cody, in an interview with Jack Whitehall ahead of Double or Nothing, in turn, confirmed as much, saying he and Dustin’s dynamic was always a bit weird because during the year’s Dustin and Dusty did not speak, Cody and Dusty were like best friends.
After his divorce from Runnels, Dustin battled drug and alcohol addictions, and many predicted his downfall. He has said that mending his relationship with his father and Cody was a big part of his recovery and resurgence in the ring from that addiction.
Sadly we lost Dusty only a few years ago, but it looks like AEW is going to provide us with a platform to see his sons for years to come.
2. Stu Hart
Ah, the man that sparked this list. Stu Hart accomplished as much as anyone could in wrestling before the modern era and the rise of the WWF/E and other international promotions. And his progeny in the sport is well chronicled. I mean, has any family released more books than the Harts?
Of course, all Hart offspring talk centers on Bret and Owen. The two brothers were two of the most important wrestlers in the WWF in the 90s. Hart, famously won the WWF title every single year between 1992 and 1997. Infamously, he was the central target of the Montreal Screwjob, the most well-known double-cross in an industry history full of double-crosses. Sadly, Owen will be forever remembered for his tragic, untimely death at the WWF pay per view, Over the Edge, in 1999, the result of a stunt mishap. Otherwise, he is generally noted as one of the most underrated performers of the era.
But the Hart family doesn’t stop there. The British Bull Dog Davey Boy Smith married Stu’s daughter Diana. Her scathing tell-all book had to be pulled from shelves, containing sordid details of Smith’s drug addictions, Smith’s sexual abuse of Diana, Bret’s generally antagonistic toward the rest of the family, and the money-grabbing antics of the siblings and their significant others. Diana and Davey’s son, Harry Smith, has seen success at the pro-level. Natalia Neidhart is of course, of course, a long time mainstay of the WWE women’s scene and is the daughter of another pro-wresting son-in-law, Jim Neidhart, and Stu’s daughter, Elizabeth.
If you recall the Survivor Series ’93 you remember Keith and Bruce Hart as well, as they teamed with brothers Bruce and Bret to avenge the Hart family (first against the insults of Jerry Lawler, then, when Lawler was suspended for rape allegations, Shawn Michaels). Bruce has his own book, and he’s got some interesting perspectives on things. More interesting though is the Shawn Michaels’ version of events, where Bruce is a super jealous brother who kept trying to take the spotlight in the Survivor Series from his two brothers actually under contract. Supposedly, Bruce didn’t talk to Bret for years after because Bret wouldn’t let Bruce be the center of the Hart family heel turn (that, of course, went to Owen).
The family was divided again over Owen’s death. Several Harts, still looking for potential employment from the WWF, didn’t side with Owen’s wife’s lawsuit, others did. As usual, they all told their own version of things.
And that is just a tiny glimpse of the carny-drama in this crazy Canadian family.
1. Fritz von Erich
You’re bound to be high on the most infamous list when you played a Nazi heel character and all but one of your sons survived young adulthood.
In the early to late 80s, hardly anything in Dallas was hotter than World Class Championship Wrestling, owned by former wrestler Fritz, populated by his wrestling sons, David, Kevin, and Kerry, with later appearances by younger sons Mike and Chris. While the likes of Greg Gagne and Erik Watts paled in the shadows of their famous wrestling fathers, the von Erich boys thrived.
You could spend hours and hours on the von Erichs. Each is fascinating in their own right, and collectively they are the first wrestling family of Texas, once enjoying something of a Kennedy-esque status there.
Fritz, one of the most famous heels of the 50s and 60s in pro wrestling, challenged for the NWA title several times, but never won it. The NWA just wasn’t ready to put the belt on a heel, especially one portraying a Nazi sympathizer.
By the 80s, Fritz had mostly retired and dropped his heel Nazi persona entirely for a good old boy Texas patriarch pushing his sons in his own promotion. David won the most initial success but died suddenly in Japan while touring there. While the official cause of death was a ruptured stomach, many have spread the rumor, including Ric Flair who named his oldest son for David von Erich, that Bruiser Brody flushed painkillers before paramedics arrived on the scene in Japan to assist. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t the end of tragedy in the von Erich family (nor the beginning, the first born, Jackie, had died as a 6 year old by electrocution in a trailer park).
While David had long been pushed for NWA title glory, it was Kerry who would take the famed title from Ric Flair in 1984 in the most famous match in the world at the time (covered by me previously here at TWM on the 35th anniversary). Unfortunately, a motorcycle wreck would cost Kerry his right foot. With a prosthetic, Kerry was able to return to the ring, and even land an early 90s run in WWF, including a stint as Intercontinental Champ, as Vince was eager to capitalize on the von Erich fame. Despite this success, Kerry was from then on addicted to painkillers, in trouble with the law, and severely depressed. He killed himself by gunshot to the chest.
Before Kerry killed himself, Mike and Chris had already committed suicide—Mike after suffering debilitating toxic shock syndrome from a surgery after a shoulder injury in the wrestling ring which left him with brain damage, Chris after years of steroid abuse despite several health problems on his smaller frame. Kevin is the only von Erich son surviving. Fritz too passed in 1997.
While Kevin maintains in interviews that Fritz never pushed the boys into anything, it’s hard not to see the von Erich story as a cautionary tale of a father pushing his sons too hard to achieve the glory that eluded him, and the devastating consequence that followed. Stories document that Fritz began feeding the boys steroids when they were still teenagers to develop their bodies. Footage abounds of Fritz as a father espousing how all five of his boys (Jackie having already passed) would one day be world champ, even when Chris and Mike were still kids. That Kevin is the only one left to defend against this being the case speaks volumes.
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