Heroes Of World Class

In early 2008, I watched WWE's documentary DVD on World Class Championship Wrestling and wrote about it on this blog. I was aware that there was an independent documentary on the ill-fated promotion but thought I wouldn't have had a chance of seeing it as it was only available in the USA.

My assumption was wrong as the DVD was released in the United Kingdom. I bought it late last year and had it placed in my 'to watch' list ever since.

I finally managed to catch it over the past few days.

Heroes Of World Class : The Story Of The Von Erichs And The Rise And Fall Of World Class Championship Wrestling is a bit of a mouth-full and so was the length of the documentary.

Don't get me wrong - two and a half hours was not enough to cover everything associated with the Dallas territory but the makers managed to cram it in with enough to tell the story of WCCW and the Von Erich family.

However many times I've read or seen things about the Von Erichs it always leads me to believe that this is the most tragic tale to come out of professional wrestling. Bear in mind, I've seen so many wrestlers that I have grown up watching drop dead at alarming rates and each story is a sad one.

The Von Erich story is the saddest of the lot.

The documentary had access to old footage from World Class. It's a great job that the film was made as WWE has since purchased the tape library. Had it not been produced, the only story about WCCW would be the version that WWE did last year. I'm not saying WWE did a poor job on that DVD, I'm just saying it's like history - it's always best to have more than one source which will help convey what happened.

A number of former WCCW workers were interviewed on this film. The main person interviewed is Kevin Von Erich, who is the only member of the Von Erich brothers still alive. One of the most poignant comments made about Kevin is that 'he was once a brother and a son and now he is neither'. That sentence summed it up perfectly.

The end of the documentary showed Kevin making one final visit to the Dallas Sportarium where most of WCCW's events took place. The building was set to be demolished so he paid his final respects to the home of his father's territory.

I urge you to seek it out - especially if you've seen the WWE version of the World Class story.