Intro
The Vice TV series Dark Side of the ring returns Tuesday 24th of March, with a two hour special on the life and death of Chris Benoit. Last year Vice TV released Dark Side of the ring, a wrestling documentary, looking into stories not often spoken about openly in the world of wrestling. The critically acclaimed documentary’s first season featured stories such as the deaths of Bruiser Broody and Gino Medina, the Marriage of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth, The tragedy of the Von Erich’s family, The fabulous Moolah and the Montreal Screw Job. The series brought in many personalities for the inside scoop on these stories, with the series featuring some of the most knowledgeable sources in wrestling such as, Jim Cornette, Bruce Prichard, Kerry Von Erich, Eric Bischoff and many others, whilst it was narrated by Mick Foley and Ducth Mantell.
This week the Jim Cornette Experience podcast featured the first of a two part interview with the director and producer of the series, Jason Eisner and Evan Husney, where they discussed the upcoming series. They had decided to split the discussion of the series in to two episodes so they could give more time to the first featured episode of series focussing on the tragedy that is Chris Benoit’s story. Here are some of key points from that discussion.
How Dark Side of the Ring came about;
Evan tells how he and Jason had been friends for over ten years and they both had lived parallel lives with regards to a love of wrestling since they were kids, they had both gone on to study film and television after school. Evan and Jason had always discussed how they wanted to do a cinematic documentary on the world of wrestling and at the time, Evan was already working with Vice TV. The idea for the series came about when they learnt about the story of Bruiser Broddie’s Death and how he had been murdered during an event in Puerto Rico, so they pitched the episode to vice, and were asked to come up with a number episodic stories which could focus on the darker side of wrestling.
The Cinematic Documentary Vision;
Jason talks about his back ground in the feature film industry, he felt he didn’t have to add to much and that these performers would be natural story tellers, if they could get the camera in front of these guys, that they would be able to paint a picture and he would just have frame it. With regards to the re-enactments they took inspiration from the thin blue line series, the quintessential true crime documentary series as they put it, they used these re-enactments as if they were feint memories of the stories being told, trying to make them noir and surreal.
Season 2 Episode 1 the Chris Benoit story;
They had originally meant for this to be part of season 1, but they had to reduce their episode numbers for the first season, so this episode was put on hold to see what would happen with season 2. They were glad it had been, as they felt they had not earned the right to tell this story yet. Chavo Gurero was big help when putting this episode together after meeting him and showing him the bruiser Brodie episode, they started to discuss with him about helping them put this episode together, so all the way through taping the first season they had still been developing this episode, just in case they did not get a second season so they could take it else where as it was a story that all involved believed needed to be told, thankfully they had been given this chance with a second season. Chavo helped out so much with episode that he was given a producers title, he played such an important role when it came to introducing them to all the right people, so much so that they could not have seen this project coming together without him. Chris Jericho is narrator for much of the second season and especially this episode, the episode will also feature Nancy Benoit’s sister Sandra and this the only time she has been Camera talking about this, they also managed to get David Benoit to open up for the episode, They even have first responder officer who did the welfare check. They wanted to provide a true platform for all of the people this story touched a chance to get some of feelings of the chest, they quickly began to understand that this story that most people wanted to tell, due to all the other media portrayals only focussing on the negative aspects of this story, and left so much untold. The story is not just about those we lost but also about those people who were affected by this but are still here. They expressed how this episode needed to be a two hour special for this reason, and its not just about Chris Benoit but also the story of Eddie Gurerro as it was just as important talk about Eddie and how his life and death was affected by this tragedy.
Season 2 Finale The Owen Hart Story
Another story they always wanted to tell was the Owen Hart story, but again as with all their stories they wanted to approach it carefully and honestly, of course they had made the decision that they would not produce said episode without Martha Hart being in the episode. They go on to talk about how they went about contacting Martha who has always been reluctant to talk publicly about Owen, and her decision about certain things such as not allowing WWE to put Owen Hart in to the companies hall of fame.
Final Thoughts
I loved series one, even my fiancée who just about puts up with the amount of wrestling I make her watch, loved the series and is really looking forward to watching the second season. I listen the Jim Cornette experience podcast every week, and this was great episode having the guys from dark side of the ring talking about their show and their process just added to the show, and I am looking forward to the second part of the interview next week. If you have not seen the Dark Side of the ring and you’re a wrestling fan you’re missing out and if you just enjoy documentaries, this is great series.
Andrew More
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