Dark Side of the Ring director Jason Eisener and producer Evan Husney revealed during an AMA on the popular Reddit SquaredCircle forum that they were originally supposed to do more than six episodes for the first season but they had to scale it back.
Husney said that they were already working on two more episodes, focusing on French Canadian Dino Bravo and the Brawl For All concept, before they halted production. “If we get the season two order, these will be looked at first,” he said. Season two hinges on television ratings and amount of views that the shows get online.
The first three episodes that aired, chronicling the death of Macho Man Randy Savage, the murder of Bruiser Brody, and the Montreal screwjob, received rave reviews from critics and fans alike. Eisener and Husney spent a lot of time doing recreations with actors who portray the subjects which morphed beautifully with the narration. Eisener said that the recreations were inspired by filming with his Hasbro action figures in slow motion and using a flashlight as the spotlight effect.
When asked if there was something cool that was left in the editing room, Eisener said that in the Savage episode, Bruce Prichard was describing an angle they pitched which involved the Sensational Sherri slapping Miss Elizabeth, something that Savage was completely against, making him livid to the point where everyone ended up in front of Vince McMahon arguing about it. “Sherri felt bad and didn’t want to do it, Randy was yelling at Bruce and Vince, then Elizabeth spoke up and said ‘Just do it.’ With everyone watching Sherri slapped Elizabeth very lightly. Liz spoke up again ‘Do it harder.’ Then Vince started yelling ‘Slap her, just slap her.’ It was cool to hear about Elizabeth getting excited and prepping an angle,” he recounted.
Husney also discussed the Bruiser Brody episode where he said that the main protagonists, José González and Carlos Colón refused to be interviewed. González was the one who murdered Brody while Colón was the promoter of the show the night the murder happened. He also said that Abdullah The Butcher “took a little while” to warm up to them because he might have saw them as “marks with cameras.” Eventually, the two managed to open him up while Tony Atlas and Dutch Mantell were very forthcoming with their story.
The Montreal Screwjob episode also has Vince Russo and Jim Cornette going at it, with both of them calling each other a liar over who came up with the idea of Vince screwing Bret. When asked if there’s a lot of other material from the two that didn’t make it on the air, Husney said, “There’s probably a solid 45-minutes of uninterrupted, although entertaining, ranting that we have on a hard drive somewhere!”
The three remaining episodes of the Dark Side of the Ring include The Last of the Von Erichs airing on May 1, The Mysterious Death of Gorgeous Gino airing on May 8, and The Fabulous Moolah airing on May 15. The episodes air on the Viceland network and on Viceland.com.