AEW is running the first wrestling show at Globe Life Field next year, but nearly 60 years ago, thousands of fans packed a different stadium to see Fritz Von Erich.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Tickets will soon go on sale for All Elite Wrestling’s All In: Texas at Globe Life Field. The July 12 show will be the first pro wrestling event to be held at the Rangers’ stadium.
However, while this will be the first wrestling show to be held at this stadium, it is not the first wrestling show to take place on an Arlington baseball field.
The first show actually took place nearly 60 years ago, on July 8, 1967, at Turnpike Stadium. This stadium, named after the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike it was located next to, would later become known as Arlington Stadium. It was the original home of the Texas Rangers, but this was a few years before the Rangers became a team. At this time, it was the home of the minor league baseball team the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs.
Initially built only to house 10,000 people, the stadium managed to draw a packed crowd of 12,000 to see legendary North Texas wrestler and promoter Fritz Von Erich challenge NWA Champion Gene Kiniski for his title in a two-out-of-three falls match. The two had previously met that April in Fort Worth in a match that ended in a double disqualification.
However, Von Erich would again be unsuccessful in his challenge.
According to a report from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the time, each man won a single fall before a doctor examined both men and ruled them unable to continue. In a case such as this, the champion would retain their title.
This drew the ire of the crowds, as the newspaper wrote that referee Marvin Jones was given a police escort to the dressing room after the match.
“The crowds created such a traffic jam that the card was 30 minutes late in starting,” the Star-Telegram wrote of the show at the time.
Tickets to the event were less than $5, with ringside seats costing the most at $4.
According to a column by longtime Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sports Editor Bill Van Fleet, the ring was erected behind home plate at the stadium, with box seats set up around it (which sold out) and bleachers set up on the infield.
“Whether you take pro wrestling seriously or not, you must admit that it has a following of avid and vociferous fans,” Van Fleet wrote at the time. “Among them may be counted many who don’t believe all they see, but who enjoy the spectacle anyway.”
The event was so successful that North Texas wrestling promoters decided to run the stadium again the next year, on Aug. 3, 1968.
This event would again see Von Erich challenge Kiniski for his championship, this time, in a “Texas Death Match,” where a winner is only determined after one of them can’t answer the bell for the next fall.
The show drew an even larger crowd than the year prior, about 12,500 fans. But Kiniski once again retained his title against Von Erich — despite losing five of the seven falls.
“Von Erich and Kiniski, understand, do not particularly inspire a tranquil feeling even when viewed from a safe distance,” Star-Telegram sports writer Bill Lace wrote of the match at the time. “Therefore when the protagonists came hurtling over the top rope, writers, announcers and timers vacated their seats with the kind of speed usually reserved for Olympic sprinters and Mexican divorces.”
After the two continued brawling around ringside and homeplate, Lace wrote, Kiniski walloped Von Erich over the head with one of the chairs left vacant by fleeing fans, denting it, and causing Von Erich to be counted out.
“Kiniski was the winner, getting to keep the championship, the title belt and presumably all the cans and cups tossed his way by not-too-loving fans,” Lace concluded. “Von Erich? All he ended up with was a king-sized headache and, of course, a ringside seat.”
There could be some carryover from these events to the upcoming All In: Texas, as Von Erich’s grandsons, Ross and Marshall Von Erich, often wrestle for AEW when it runs shows in Texas. They are the current Ring of Honor Six-Man Tag Team Champions with Dustin Rhodes. If Rhodes himself were to wrestle on the show, he would be following in the footsteps of his father, Dusty Rhodes, who wrestled on the 1968 show against Duke Keomuka.