Producers of the Darkside of the Ring comment on the Kevin Sullivan conspiracy theory

GRILLING JR 3/31/20: SPECIAL GUESTS JASON EISNER AND EVAN HUSNEY FROM DARKSIDE OF THE RING:

5:00 On Kevin Sullivan being in the Chris Benoit episode: “The one person were planning on having on the show that we couldn’t get was Kevin Sullivan. Mostly because, he was there so early on in Nancy’s career and highlighting Nancy’s career was an important aspect of doing this project as her legacy has been so tarnished and swept under the rug after all these events of 2007…We wanted to highlight aspects of their personal life and have him come in. When we reached out to him and spoke to him about it, it was tough, because for him, it immediately was a complicated family situation between him and Nancy’s family and I realized I was stepping into something bigger than me and bigger than this project, and it was unfortunate because had Kevin participated to lend his perspective, we would have wanted that…I got the impression that Kevin did not want to upset her family by being in it, that is my understanding.”

11:00 On conspiracy theories regarding Kevin Sullivan playing a part in the murder: “Originally we were going to have a conspiracy section in the show. We talked to David and Sandra about it. It was a source of pain for that to keep coming up as it makes it harder in their grieving process and it was something we had in there, but of course when you are limited to a 2 hour clock on TV, you have difficult choice to make. When it was in there, it felt like, even giving any credence to this just didn’t feel appropriate because it was about here is what happened, here is the details of what happened from the people who were intimidate with this story and so for us, it didn’t feel as important, but it does play a part on how the trolls on line have dealt with this story in terms of talking about the conspiracy side of things and how people have treated David and Sandra on social media.”

25:00 On the actor playing Chris Benoit: “He is a wrestler by the name of Tyson Dukes who is a local wrestler in Ontario, and he has had an awesome career as well. We have turned to him to play several other characters before. He played Dutch Mantell in the Bruiser Brody pilot…When we spent time with him in between takes, he said he met Chris Benoit a couple times backstage. So, he had the connection. He was inspired by Chris’ work that he incorporated into his own wrestling and so we knew he already studies Chris Benoit’s work. He would already know the mannerisms, the move set, and so when it came time to cast, he was the first person we thought of.”

(thanks to CHRIS SIGGIA)