Dark Side of the Ring Pondering a Chris Benoit/Nancy Episode for Season 2
Dark Side of the Ring co-creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener spoke with Express Sport about the status of a second season, a possible Chris Benoit episode and more. You can read highlights below:
On initially planning more episodes: “Originally when we were working on season 1 we were planning to do more episodes. It was actually going to be eight episodes that we were going to do and circumstances unfortunately changed during the process and we had to stop working on two episodes in order to successfully finish the whole first season. So we had to pause on those. We’re still waiting on confirmation on if we’re going to be renewed for another season and I hope it happens, then we will be able to go back to Brawl of All and Dino Bravo and we’ll be ale to finish those. Hopefully they will see the light of day if we are confirmed for a season 2 but there’s unfortunately nothing to announce yet.”
On having a host of possible stories for a second season: “Not even exaggerating, [there are] probably more than 25 stories that I would love to cover for the show and give them the same treatment. There’s several that we have discussed for theoretical season 2, it’s just [that] most of those were kind of close to our chests because if we do get another season we want the people involved in those episodes and those stories to be the first to be heard about them as a matter of respect because some of those stories are pretty sensitive and some of them are on the darker side.”
On the most difficult story to do in season one: “I think the hardest episode [was] probably the Gino Hernandez story, The Mysterious Death of Gorgeous Gino. One thing I was focusing on my end is what happened to Gino. There’s a lot of rumours and stories and wrestlers sharing stories on the road. That episode was kind of tripping to a lot of rumours, doing a lot of research and doing everything ourselves. I think out of all the episodes, some are searched a lot before like the Von Erichs’ story or the Montreal Screwjob whereas Gino Hernandez hadn’t been very much reported. But we were really excited for it because we got new information that the wrestling world hadn’t heard before. It’s definitely exciting and it’s probably one of our favourite episodes.”
On the possibility of an episode on Chris Benoit: “I think that the Chris Benoit story is obviously a very dark story. I think that it is a tragedy that is worth re-examining cause there is a lot to be found out about the story since it happened. I think that if it were to be done then we would really need to have the right people to talk about it and we need the people that this incident really affected the most in order to tell it kind of appropriately. Because I think that story could have easily been told in an exploitative sort of way and so I think you just need to have the appropriate voices to be heard for that story in order to tell it properly. But I do think it is a story that is something that if done right is definitely necessary.”
On The Rock praising the series: “The Rock’s endorsement of the show on Twitter was quite the moment for me personally, I was in the super market when I saw I got a Twitter notification from The Rock and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Growing up as a fan, I was a huge fan in the early 1990s but I really became like a megafan in the Attitude Era. And I remember sitting in the audience for a WWF house show leading to WrestleMania 14 and The Rock was a heel with The Nation of Domination. And I remember as a kid screaming from the top of my lungs ‘Rocky sucks’ and I started a chant. And then to be able to get praise for the show it was just mind-blowing, it was a really cool nod that we got there. It would be awesome to be able to work with him, there’s definitely stories, not necessarily directed to The Rock, but there is definitely stories about his family that are super fascinating. It would be great, I wouldn’t turn that down.”
