Former WWE and WCW personality Teddy Long has placed the blame squarely on Lacey Von Erich for the collapse of Southwest Wrestling Entertainment (SWE), a Texas-based independent promotion. Speaking on the “Road Trip After Hours” podcast, Long, who served as the creative director for SWE, detailed a chaotic series of events that led to his departure and, in his view, the company’s demise.
Long described a situation where Lacey Von Erich, daughter of wrestling legend Kerry Von Erich, allegedly used her influence to seize control of the company from its then-owner, Tom Lance. Long painted a picture of manipulation and a lack of proper business procedure:
“Lacey Von Erich destroyed SWE. She had no money to even buy SWE. What happened is the guy that was running SWE, you know, he’s an older guy, so he’s kind of in love with the younger girl. So Lacey was smart. She knew how to use what she had. She came in and started prancing around and, you know, showing this and that, and the next thing I know, here comes Tom Lance, the guy that was running the thing. ‘Oh, well, Lacey is going to be our brand new president.'”
Long emphasized the lack of transparency and disregard for the talent roster:
“Do you have a meeting? Do you sit down? Do you talk to the talent? Do you tell anybody what’s going on? Just out of the blue, she’s the president of the company. To me, it was certainly just really disrespectful. So that was the night I walked out.”
This sudden change in leadership was the breaking point for Long. He made clear that he was not alone in his disapproval, stating that other members of the roster also quit:
“The night they said that she was the president, that’s when I went to the locker room and I told them, ‘I’m out. I’m done’, and several of the talent followed me.”
Prior to this turmoil, Long highlighted the significant progress SWE had made under his creative direction. He claimed to have dramatically increased attendance in a short span:
“When I went over there (before quitting), they were drawing maybe 30 or 50 people. I stayed there for three months in charge of creative and running the show. In three months time, we were up to 1500 people. Then we started really going after I put some stories in there and we were selling out.”
This makes the subsequent collapse of the promotion even more stark, in Long’s telling. It is important to know SWE rebranded to Texas Style Wrestling.
However, Long’s comments weren’t entirely negative. He offered a glimmer of hope for a potential revival of the Texas wrestling scene. He mentioned conversations with Randy Klein, a promoter associated with both SWE and its successor, Texas Style Wrestling:
“I had a chance to talk to Randy Klein. He’s a promoter there with Texas Style Wrestling. He was the one of the promoters of SWE, but Randy didn’t worry about it. Randy put it in the hands of other people and thought that they were going to do the right thing. Well, they didn’t do the right thing. They screwed up all the money, but I think they’re getting back on board now. They’re running now in Texas, but I think they’re going to get a big TV deal, and they’re going to try to get this thing back to going.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Road Trip After Hours with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
