Wrestling Legend Kevin Von Erich Returns to the Texas Stage for AEW’s ‘All In’

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) will bridge the past with the present on July 12 when the promotion, which boasts broadcast deals with TBS, TNT and HBO Max, will feature Kevin Von Erich on a Texas stage for its All In premium event.

Von Erich is the sole surviving brother of the influential wrestling dynasty, portrayed by Zac Efron in 2023’s The Iron Claw, a family which suffered multiple tragedies with the deaths of siblings Kerry, David and Mike Von Erich (played in the movie by Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons, respectively). The brothers, who hailed from the Dallas area, were local heroes (their father, Fritz, introduced the iron claw, in which he gripped an opponent’s head with his hand as an immobilizing move) and grew into a global phenomenon.

You could say the Von Erichs drop-kicked so that Hulk Hogan could body-slam. They helped usher in the era of superstar wrestlers that exploded in the 1980s and continues today — including in the heart of AEW CEO Tony Khan, whose lifelong love of the sport would turn into a career. “Kerry was the first wrestler from the Von Erichs that I saw as a kid when he was called the Texas Tornado,” says Khan. “The Von Erichs have a great history. Kevin works with us now [as a coach], and his sons [Marshall and Ross] are part of AEW. They’re also champions.”

Since its founding six years ago, AEW has hosted a slew of marquee events — at London’s Wembley Stadium, AEW set a world attendance record for the most tickets ever sold for a wrestling show (“81,035 tickets,” Kahn cites from memory) — in addition to its weekly Dynamite and Collision telecasts. Still, its July 12 live event may be AEW’s most ambitious yet. “It’s going to be a huge Saturday afternoon of wrestling,” says Khan excitedly of All In, to be held at Globe Life Field (the home stadium of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers) in Arlington, Texas. “It’ll be on Amazon Prime, YouTube and pay-per-view as well as cable and satellite.” (Fubo, Dave & Buster’s and Tom’s Watch Bar chains will also air All In in the U.S.)

AEW doesn’t have the reach or promotional muscle of the WWE, pro wrestling’s heavyweight, but it has established itself as a long-term player. “We built an enormous brand,” says Khan, rattling off benchmarks like reaching 300 episodes of Dynamite and 100 episodes of Collision this year. “AEW emerged out of the pandemic with a bigger audience and a hotter brand than ever. And now, in 2025, we had our best year. Creatively, the shows have been fantastic and the fans’ engagement has been high.”

AEW now reaches 150 countries. Among its most passionate fanbases is the U.K., where the weekly shows air on ITV. Khan spent several years living in London, taking in English football matches — and taking notes. “U.K. has a great tradition of wrestling starting with ITV’s World of Sport, which was their domestic wrestling promotion,” he says. “We brought back that tradition — just like TBS and TNT have that great tradition on U.S. cable — and have been able to build that linear audience. By most of the key metrics, the number one wrestling company in the U.K. is AEW. In such a short time, and as a challenger brand, that’s really exciting.”

AEW’s next big look will take place on yet another type of screen, when league champion MJF (Maxwell Friedman) appears in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2 in a major role. “He’s playing the son of Happy Gilmore and is one of the key young stars of the campaign,” says Khan. The Netflix film shares the actor with The Iron Claw, for which Friedman served as an executive producer, and another personal connection to the CEO as a young man. Says Khan: “A fun fact about Happy Gilmore: I saw it in a Savoy 16 theater in Champaign, Illinois, where there was a putting contest for a free Happy Gilmore T-shirt. It was a flat putt, just from one side of the movie screen to the other — but like all the way across — on carpet. I made the putt. And it was, like, 60 feet. I was the only person. I have that shirt somewhere. And it still fits.”