Evan Husney and Jason Eisener recently sat down with the 411 Wrestling Interviews podcast, where they discussed their creation, Dark Side of the Ring. To check out a few of their comments from the conversation, check them out below:
On season 2 starting with the Benoit Family story, and ending with the Owen Hart fall:
Evan Husney: Well, for Benoit, I remember before Jason and I knew that we were going to have a Season 2, we didn’t really plan for it, but kind of the downtime working in between Season 1 and when it eventually aired, you know, we really wanted to tell that story. We really wanted to revisit that because we were sensing not only fans wanting to know more about it, but as we got to know folks like Chavo Guerrero Jr., someone we got know during the making of the first season, that there was kind of like — because there’s a lot of these — a lot of the wrestlers who were involved in that story had moved on outside of WWE. There was sort of this [notion] like, ‘OK. Now, we can talk about it, and we want to talk about it. We haven’t really processed these emotions because we’ve been told not to for so many years, and it’s kind of that need for catharsis.’ But also, it’s also like when we learned that Nancy’s sister, Sandra [Toffoloni], and Chris’ son, David, were kind of estranged and now trying to come together, I think we sort of learned, now there’s a reason to kind of revisit this story, or there’s more purpose for us. It’s not just talking about, like what you were saying, sensationalizing or exploiting this story just for a television show. We would never want to do that... So, once we realized that, we started developing it as its own little side project that we would maybe pitch to another network. But as soon as we heard that it was a Season 2, it was like, ‘OK, we’ve done all this research, but it’s too big for one hour of television with commercials. We’re gonna have to make it into two.’ That’s what happened there. And then with Owen, it was just kind of like a similar thing. I don’t want to revisit this story because it is one of the darkest days in wrestling, and I wouldn’t want to exploit it the same way. And then when we did reach out to Martha [Hart, Owen Hart’s widow], and then, honestly, when I did more research on my own learning more about Martha’s side, which I really think has been marginalized, and/or unless you had read her book, you wouldn’t really know all the things that she had gone through. I saw a whole opportunity, we both did, saw an opportunity to really kind of tell another side of that story than what’s been out there. And that gave us the purpose to do that.
On if they knew season 3 would be longer than season 2:
Evan Husney: Yeah, they called us up and said 14 episodes. I was not expecting that. I was like, ‘Huh, Excuse me?’ And [I] was trying to even process — you know, first off, we were in the throes of the pandemic. And that was even how? How? At the time. And then it was like, ’14 episodes?! Oh my gosh!’ And yeah, because Jason and I have had many ideas like Brian Pillman, or stories that we wanted to tell if we had an opportunity to make a third season. But 14 was kind of like bigger than we ever anticipated, but yeah, it was 14 from the get-go. And then it was like, when we learned that the season was going to be split up into two sections in the year, it made it a little bit more achievable. And it’s like, ‘OK. That’s cool.’ And then that gave us a little bit more confidence to be able to think about it, ‘OK. Let’s just focus on the first half for right now, and then as we’re going…’ You know, we have our amazing, hard-working team that we can’t make the show without, researching it along the way. And then we’re like adding to the roster of stories as we’re going. But yeah, 14 [episodes], whew!
On being able to watch season 2 during quarantine:
Jason Eisener: Yeah, for us too. Even when the lock[down] here in Canada, it was like this crazy lockdown right at the top, and we had to stay inside. We were working on post for Season 2.
Evan Husney: Remote! Some of the first *laughs* remote productions. We had to adapt to it very quickly because our — yeah, I think we got the last shots of Season 2, we filmed them two days before the entire province shut down.
Jason Eisener: It was the day before. Literally, the day before the whole — everything, all productions shut down. And then it gave me a giant hard drive of all the footage on it, and it went home here in Nova Scotia.
Evan Husney: You went home with like a —
Jason Eisener: A giant computer.
Evan Husney: And that’s how we finished the last three episodes, yeah.
(H/T and transcribed by 411Mania)
