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Ahead of the new season of Dark Side of the Ring season seven, I sat down for an extended interview with series creator and producer Evan Husney. Here is part two of the conversation related to the forthcoming Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher episode and the fallout of the Plane Ride from Hell episode of the series.
Mike Johnson: I do want to ask you about a couple of the other episodes. To the best of my knowledge, the series has never really focused on one singular match before. So why Samoa Joe versus Necro Butcher? Other than the fact that, dear God, they beat the living hell out of each other.
Evan Husney: The only other match-focused episode we've really done was the Mick Foley Hell in a Cell episode last season.
Mike Johnson: I wasn't even thinking about that one because in my mind, it's really as much about Mick personally as it is about the match itself.
Evan Husney: Exactly. It's very similar to the Necro Butcher/Samoa Joe episode. That episode gave us a really fun sandbox to play in creatively. We wanted to push the show in a slightly different direction and try something new. With Hell in a Cell, that match is essentially the Mick Foley match. It's the perfect microcosm of who Mick Foley is. It represents his philosophy toward professional wrestling. That willingness to sacrifice himself. That masochistic style. By telling the story of that match, you also tell the story of Mick Foley. That's what excited us. It was just a great framework for a 44-minute episode.
Going into Season 7, I was already a huge fan of the Samoa Joe/Necro Butcher match. It's an incredible, brutal, hard-hitting match. It's the kind of match you'd show someone who's skeptical about wrestling. Somebody who says, "Wrestling's fake." You say, "Okay, watch this." Then there was a fantastic YouTube documentary by Justin Wang that really dug into the background of the match. It explained everything that led these two wrestlers into the ring together. One came from Ring of Honor and traditional strong style. The other came from the death-match underground. When those worlds collided, it created something really unique. Then you add the fact that both men were at very important points in their careers and both had something to prove. It became much more than just a violent wrestling match. It became a human story. That's what made it feel like a Dark Side of the Ring episode.
Evan Husney: It was also an opportunity to get into the psychology of Necro Butcher. What a fascinating person. Here's someone who, to this day, continues to put his body on the line in ways that most people simply can't comprehend. The punishment he's endured over the years is unbelievable. You find yourself asking, "For what?"
Then, on the other side, you have Samoa Joe, who goes on to become one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling. So there were real human stakes. There was something personal and emotional to explore through the lens of that one match. It's an incredibly exhilarating episode. It's a roller coaster. If you've never seen the match before, it's very violent, and we go into almost forensic detail, breaking down every major moment. It was just so much fun to make. I'd love to do more episodes like that.
Mike Johnson: When you're putting together a season, what's the process like with Vice? Do you have to pitch every episode individually and explain why you think it's important? Or has the network reached the point where there's enough trust that you can simply say, "We're doing an episode on Missy Hyatt," and they say, "Great, go for it"? What's the give-and-take between you as the creative team and the network that obviously has to make money, but also has to trust your instincts?
Evan Husney: Truthfully, they've always been very supportive of the ideas we've brought them. I think they trust us when we tell them we believe something is going to make a compelling story. Sometimes they'll flag certain things or ask us to make sure an episode contains particular elements, but for the most part they've been incredibly collaborative. They've given us a tremendous amount of creative freedom, which is amazing. Honestly, I don't know if we'd have that level of freedom somewhere else. It's been a great relationship. We've earned that trust over time by delivering successful seasons.
In the beginning, though, it was completely different. Everything was scrutinized. Every decision. Every pitch. Keep in mind, there have been several different management regimes at Vice since we started. Back then, there wasn't even much confidence that wrestling programming could work on the network. So every creative decision felt like an uphill battle. Today it's a completely different relationship. Now they're often the ones saying, "What about another season?" Meanwhile, Jason and I are sitting there thinking, "I think we've done pretty well already." Then they ask for more. In today's television landscape, we're incredibly fortunate to still be making this series. As long as they want us to keep making it, we'll keep doing it.
Mike Johnson: I wanted to ask you about the editing process because you're always racing against the clock. Is there ever frustration when an episode airs and some of the people you interviewed aren't happy with how they're presented? I'm specifically thinking about the Plane Ride From Hell episode. Jim Ross and Rob Van Dam have both said they felt the editing made it appear they were talking about things they really weren't talking about. Jim wasn't thrilled with the episode. Tommy Dreamer, while apologizing for some of the things he said, has also implied that some of his comments weren't presented in the context in which he made them. When you get that kind of pushback from people who gave you their time—and who trusted you enough to sit for interviews—does it ever make you want to go back and revisit an episode? When I write something, I always find things I'd like to change later, and because it's on a website I can technically go back and edit it. You don't really have that luxury. Once you've delivered an episode to the network, it's essentially permanent. When someone says, "That's not what I meant," or, "That wasn't the context," what's your reaction? Do you even have the ability to make changes afterward if you genuinely felt something should be corrected?
Evan Husney: There have been a few situations over the years, but honestly they've almost always involved very small factual corrections Maybe the narration said the wrong year Maybe someone's name was misspelled. Things like that. Going back and updating an episode is actually a pretty big undertaking because you have to redeliver it, make sure every platform receives the updated version, and ensure everything flows through the proper distribution pipeline. So even small changes aren't simple.
As far as Plane Ride From Hell is concerned, though, I stand behind that episode completely. I stand behind everything everyone said. Even the material that didn't make the final cut. At that point in time, culturally, the episode became extremely controversial on social media. People lost jobs. People lost sponsorships. There was a tremendous amount of fallout. I think there was a collective sense of panic throughout the wrestling industry after it aired. When that happens, it's very easy to point the finger at the filmmakers and say, "They edited me out of context," or, "They used creative editing." At the time, I chose not to engage publicly because I didn't want to pour gasoline on the fire. But I stand behind that episode 100 percent.
Everything that appears in it accurately reflects what people told us. And everything that doesn't appear in it does, too. I never felt it was appropriate to release complete interviews just to defend ourselves. That wasn't something I wanted to do.
Mike Johnson: That was actually going to be my follow-up. When someone like Rob Van Dam says it was "creative editing," do you ever feel tempted to simply put the full interview online and say, "Here it is. Judge for yourself"?
Evan Husney: It just feels petty. For us, there's a trust involved with this show. Yes, we want to tell the truth, and we want to represent people's stories and voices accurately. But we're not trying to do "gotcha" journalism. We're not trying to trap people. Going back to what I was saying earlier, we tell the story, we leave it in the hands of the audience, and whatever happens afterward is what happens. In this case, that's exactly what happened. Could I have put the full interviews online and said, "Here you go—watch everything that didn't make the final cut"? Sure, but I didn't think that would've accomplished anything positive. If, at that moment, it made life easier for certain people to say we edited them unfairly, then... okay. I know what they said. We have all the pre-interview notes. We have transcripts. We have the full interviews. When something like that happens, we can go back and verify exactly what was said, and whether it matched what they told us before the cameras even started rolling.So...It's the wrestling business.
Mike Johnson: Have you ever had someone participate in an interview, become unhappy after the episode aired, and then later have to rebuild that relationship in order to get them back for another project? I've had that happen myself. Someone gets upset over a question I asked, and my response is always, "But you answered it." You clearly didn't object while we were having the conversation. So I'm curious whether you've had to mend fences with people after the fact in order to work with them again.
Evan Husney: Really, most of that centered around the Plane Ride From Hell episode. There was this feeling among some people that somehow it was our fault they told those stories. Or our fault they answered those questions. Obviously, after that episode aired—and especially after the fallout—a lot of people became nervous. So yes, rebuilding trust afterward was difficult, but ultimately, it always comes back to the individual. People choose what they want to say. They choose which questions they answer. They choose which stories they volunteer. I think none of us fully appreciated just how explosive that story was going to become in 2022. When that kind of attention comes crashing down on people through social media, self-preservation is a very natural reaction. For some people, the easiest response was simply to say, "They changed my words." After that experience, though, we became even more diligent. If someone says something on camera now, we make sure there's complete clarity. We've always worked this way, but even more so afterward. If someone says, "I'd rather not include that," they're absolutely allowed to take it back. If they want to stop, clarify, restate something, or strike a comment altogether, we've always allowed that. We've always tried to make the process collaborative, because our goal has never been to create a wrestling exposé. Going back to the expectations people have because of the title, we've never approached this as a "gotcha" series. Our goal has always been to humanize wrestling so people outside the business can better understand and appreciate it. That's always been where we're coming from. I think most of the people who've worked with us would agree with that. Honestly, there really aren't many examples of someone watching an episode and feeling completely misrepresented. Usually it's more along the lines of, "I wish this part of my career had been included," or, "I wish this title win had made the final cut." I remember Road Warrior Animal saying he really liked our Road Warriors episode, but he wished we'd spent more time covering additional moments from their career, and I completely understand that.
Going back to what I said earlier, every one of these episodes could be feature-length. I'd love to have that kind of time. I wish we could. but I can't think of many people who've come away feeling that the episode fundamentally failed to represent the conversations we had.
Mike Johnson: Do you think if you'd had another half hour for the Plane Ride From Hell episode, it might have addressed some of those complaints? Maybe there would've been more room for context...rr do you think the reaction would've been the same regardless because of the subject matter?
Evan Husney: Honestly...I think it probably would've been even more controversial.
Mike Johnson: That's entirely possible.
Evan Husney: I really think so. Look, we approached that episode as an oral history. Even if people disagreed with certain comments that were made, those comments reflected the authentic viewpoints of the people who made them. There are undoubtedly people who share those viewpoints. If we had decided, "Well, that's not really an acceptable opinion in 2022, so we're going to remove it," that would've been completely unethical. Our job isn't to edit someone's beliefs. Our job is to present what they actually said. It's a very difficult story. It's not a pleasant story, but it's an important story. It needed to be told. People needed to confront that aspect of the wrestling business. Looking back, I honestly don't think there's anything we could've done differently that would've produced a substantially different outcome. It was an important story, and we told it the way we believed it needed to be told.
Mike Johnson: I've mentioned several episodes during this conversation that I really loved, including Bruiser Brody and Gino Hernandez. Is there one episode that you look back on and think, "This was our finest hour"? Maybe not just from a production standpoint, but in terms of shining a light on someone whose story might otherwise have been forgotten. For me, I really appreciated the Eddie Gilbert episode. I loved Eddie Gilbert growing up. He's one of those names that has gradually been lost to time because he passed away before the internet really exploded. I'm curious whether there's an episode like that for you. I know they're all your babies, but is there one where you think, "This is exactly why I wanted to make this series"?
Evan Husney: There are probably a few. The first one that immediately comes to mind is The Killing of Bruiser Brody. I'm incredibly proud of that episode, even though we had virtually no money to make it. In a way, I actually love that. Jason Eisener—my business partner—and I were just so hungry to make it. We were fueled entirely by passion. We were cutting corners everywhere, making no money, just trying to put this thing together because we believed in it so much. You have this vision in your head of what you hope something can become, and then you finally see the finished product and think, "Wow... it's even better than I imagined." That was a huge moment for us, and honestly, without Barbara Goodish, there wouldn't be a Dark Side of the Ring. Bruiser Brody's widow took a leap of faith on us. We really had no credentials in wrestling documentaries at that point. The fact that she trusted us enough to tell Frank's story...Everything grew from there. That's where it all started.
The Benoit episodes are another one I'm extremely proud of. That story had been swept under the rug in so many ways. Many of the people who appear in those episodes had never really been given an opportunity to process what happened publicly. There was so much grief. So much trauma. For years it felt like nobody wanted to discuss it. Watching everyone come together to finally talk about it... Watching Chavo Guerrero embrace David Benoit. Watching Sandra Toffoloni—Nancy Benoit's sister—participate. It felt like the beginning of a healing process. Obviously, no one is ever fully healed from something like that. But it felt like people were finally allowed to begin. Being in the room for those moments was incredibly special. Our goal throughout that project was simply to tell the story with as much empathy, humanity, and understanding as possible. That's something I'll always be proud of.
And then...I also love the New Jack episode. That was one of the craziest experiences of my career. I'll never forget making it.
Mike Johnson: You know what's funny? I interviewed New Jack after he did your show. It was maybe a year before he passed away. He told me that, before sitting down with you, he'd never actually watched Dark Side of the Ring.
Evan Husney: Really?
Mike Johnson: Afterwards he watched the Von Erich episode. The one where Kevin climbs up into the jungle in Hawaii. He told me he wished he'd seen that episode first because he would've brought more of Jerome Young to the interview......and less New Jack. I always thought that was interesting. Jack was a great interview. If he got wound up, New Jack came out full force, but Jerome Young, underneath all of that, was a genuinely wonderful person. I've often thought it would've been nice if people had gotten to see a little more of that side of him.
Evan Husney: That's really interesting. When we were making Season 2, we were still figuring so much out. Jason and I were sharing a tiny two-bedroom apartment while trying to make the show. We were wearing every hat imaginable. Looking back, it was a crazy time. I also have to admit there was still part of me that was caught up in the mythology surrounding New Jack. I was honestly a little intimidated by him. Our conversations beforehand were very brief. There wasn't a lot of time to build a comfortable rapport or explain exactly what kind of documentary we were making. Then he showed up and immediately noticed the production. He looked around and realized there were much bigger cameras than he was used to seeing. More lights. A larger crew. At one point during the interview he actually turned to me and asked,"Are a lot of people gonna see this?" I said..."Yeah." He realized this was something different, but I don't think he completely understood how the finished episode was ultimately going to be presented, and honestly, I do wish we'd gotten more Jerome Young. The small moments where he let that guard down were fantastic, but whenever I asked about certain subjects, he'd intentionally steer the conversation back toward the New Jack personal. Sometimes he'd lean into the mythology instead of the literal truth. If we made that episode today—and obviously if he were still with us—it might turn out differently, but at the same time...I almost wouldn't change it. It's such a wild piece of television. I think it captures something very real about who New Jack was.
Season Seven of Dark Side of the Ring premiered last night with episodes devoted to Jeff Jarrett and TNA and will continue every Tuesday.
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