Evan Husney, producer of Dark Side of the Ring on VICE, discusses making episodes of the series centered around lesser-known professional wrestlers worldwide, such as Chris Colt and Eddie Gilbert.
Speaking with Sean Ross Sapp ahead of the premiere of the series' sixth season, Evan Husney recalled that even Chris Jericho, the wrestling Legend and narrator of the series, did not know who Chris Colt was before filming that episode. He also spoke about the benefit of anchoring a season with well-known topics, such as the Hell in a Cell match between Mick Foley and Undertaker.
"I remember when Chris Jericho sat down to do the voiceover, he's like, ‘I never heard of [Chris Colt].’ So even people who have been in the business forever, the most hardcore fans, it was something for them to discover, which is really cool," he said. "For us, we try to have something for everybody. I try to—because I am a fan and I've grown up with this, and we know so much about wrestling and all that stuff, I am a fan—so I do want to create episodes that if I didn't make the show, and I was a viewer, I would want to see, and also I'd want to see an episode that doesn't feel like it's been told a thousand times as well, too.
"However, I also don't want to underestimate the person who has never seen the Hell in the Cell match before, and this might be their first exposure to it because we hear about it all the time from people who aren't fans of wrestling, who for whatever reason, like, ‘I would never. I don't watch wrestling. I don't want to watch wrestling, but I love the stories that you guys tell on the show.’ Because they're human stories. You don't have to be a fan to be swept up in the drama of all of these stories," he adds. "So we do try to also cater to those people. It helps to have an episode, too, that has such a built-in awareness, like the Hell in a Cell, to kind of anchor a season, you know? Like you hear something that your more casual fan or your non-fan might have heard about or might have interest in, and then they might want to stick around later down the season and learn about Eddie Gilbert."
Speaking about the Eddie Gilbert story, Husney would praise Gilbert for being ahead of his time and speak about the number of wrestlers who are probably paying homage to Gilbert without realizing it. He also said that Gilbert would have done really well in the Attitude Era.
"That's a cool story, too, because it's a very deep cut, but it's also like so many people are almost paying homage to Eddie Gilbert without even realizing they are. He's one of these great minds of the business, one of these amazing people who paved the way in terms of a modern way of thinking about booking. I feel like he was kind of a generation ahead of himself. It's too bad, if he would have come in one generation later, he probably would have been somebody that everybody would have known.
"In the Attitude Era, he would have ripped it up, and then, of course, where the creative and wrestling was going, he would have been perfect for that," he adds. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and he died really young, but this is sort of a chance to spotlight the things that he did achieve, but also kind of like a ‘What if?’ story in terms of had he been born in a different time or just had he been able to live on and what he would have contributed to the Monday Night Wars or to ECW even or anything else. So it's a very exciting story, I think, for the diehards."
Mick Foley was a friend and rival to Eddie Gilbert. Foley chose not to be the regular narrator for Dark Side of the Ring after season one because he felt the series was in danger of being too dark.
Season 6 of Dark Side of the Ring began on Tuesday, March 25. Check out the full lineup of topics here.
Check out the full interview with Evan Husney, which is embedded at the top of this page.
