Ross and Marshall Von Erich talk choosing MLW over WWE, family legacy, and “Dark Side of the Ring” special
DDT: What was your dad’s reaction when you told him you guys had landed in MLW?
Ross: He couldn’t have been more excited. There’s no other promotion that he would have been excited about [us signing with]. The style MLW has, it matches with our style so well, and the ownership, the direction the company is going, and is upward trajectory, we’re just full on-board with the whole thing.
Marshall: Basically, our dad popped, is what we’re saying (laughs).
DDT: You guys have mentioned before that you passed up a WWE tryout to sign with MLW. When you started in the business, was making it to WWE ever the endgame for your guys, and if so, how has that changed over the course of your careers?
Ross: I guess when we originally started, we started off in Japan and our motives back then were to try to climb the ladder in Japan. I don’t know, it seemed the WWE thing seemed like the route to go, that’s where everybody else was going. As the years kept going and we saw the independent scene pick up, we saw a few wrestlers make a sustainable living on the indie scene and it’s doable and there’s more promotions coming up, it’s just a really exciting time to be a wrestler right now. For us, we’re happy with where we’re at, but I don’t think our motives were ever to go to WWE. We just kind of go through the doors as they open.
Marshall: We might come from just a little bit different perspective on wrestling. We wanted to do it out of respect for our family, for our grandfather and all that. We have great history with Japan and Isreal and other countries and stuff, so our main goal is to just wrestle and follow in our family’s footsteps. We just figured whatever was meant to happen, would happen.
Ross: Exactly. After we started in Japan, we started doing Texas shows and working in Texas and talking to fans and hearing the history with how our family has impacted people, it kind of gave us another look on wrestling that maybe we’re here and wrestling for a bigger reason than just going to a building and getting a reaction. We get to talk to a lot of people who are going through hard times, there’s fans that haven’t smiled in a long time. We try to encourage people and so far it’s been a success and I’m enjoying the time with my brother. We haven’t had this much fun in our careers in, well, ever.
To have a platform like MLW, someone that’s backing us and helping us get international exposure and national exposure, but most importantly, they have a TV deal in Israel, which will always hold a special place in our hearts. Our dad had his retirement match in Israel and that meant so much to us. It was one of the best nights in our life, performing in a six-man [tag team match] with our dad. We just want to pay back Israel in that way and we’ll always be willing to work with them. When we found out MLW had the deal with them, we were extremely happy and thought it couldn’t have been a better fit.