Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[laughs] Well, you know, as I mentioned, yeah, we, uh, t- about two years ago we had, we had done a four-part series on sort of what happened with WCW.

It's called Who Killed WCW? And it was about how the company imploded.

It had, you know, one time, you know, usurped WWE in terms of, you know, popularity and- And a lot of people have, you know, over the years, uh, pointed fingers at various folks and who's responsible for that.

So we kinda took a very entertaining deep dive into the history of, you know, Eric Bischoff's tenure, uh, at WCW.

And the idea was, you know, that was not part of Dark Side of the Ring.

It was its own standalone project.

DuracellEvan, when you're putting together these shows, especially such an epic one like the TNA Jarrett story, where do you start? I- is it with the contacting the interviews or is it putting together the piece first and, and saying, "We need to get these guys to talk about these situations"?

Nice.

We had a whole presentation for it.

We had a bunch of research.

We had people on staff working on it.

It was a whole thing, and I think at the time for Vice, it just made more sense to kind of put all the eggs in the Dark Side basket, uh, because the brand has, uh, been kind of continually proven itself.

Um, it, it does well, and there's a loyal fan base, and so they kind of came back to us and said, "Well, we like it, but could you do it for Dark Side of the Ring?" And then it was like, well, I don't know what the perception would be if we devoted an entire season to, uh, TNA and all that stuff.

So then we kind of batted it around and looked at, okay, how can we still tell the story? And I think it made sense to...

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, but, like what did success look like for you back then? And now that you're at season seven, what would success further on look like to you guys?

Well, back then, like going all the way back, it was such a, just to try and get this thing off the ground, um, initially was such a huge lift.

I mean, there was a lot stacked against us.

You know, at the time, it's a different regime, you know, many different regimes down the line at Vice, but there was a lot of people who didn't necessarily see the vision, didn't see that wrestling could work on cable, um, didn't see that it would work for the brand.

Um, and I feel like we just got away with so much, kind of getting past every threshold of, okay, we get the opportunity to make a pilot.

Now we got the opportunity to make a full season.

And I, every time I thought we hit it out of the park, and then, uh, some stumbling block would be there where either they, they weren't sure if they wanted to air the series or if they wanted to sell it.

... do you still encounter wrestlers who are hesitant to speak to you because they're afraid of exposing the business?

So I'm going to play, um, that answer from Evan Husney.

I thought it would be fresh and exciting to have her sit down, tell her side of the story.

I'm sure there's ways in which she deserves, you know, her flowers for the things that she accomplished in TNA, you know, as well too, and, and in the wrestling business.

And that would have been a great opportunity to do that too.

So in the back of my mind, I've always been so optimistic.

You know, like rarely have we pursued someone and not been able to, uh, get them on camera or get them to sit down in the proverbial chair, you know? Um, but this was a series of reach outs.

Um, you know, Jeff even reached out, um, um, um, on our behalf, um, because they're- On good terms today.

Uh, tell me a little bit about how you arrived at this specific match and that this required its own episode.

[laughs] Well, you know, sometimes, you know, we, we, we can take great liberties with this platform that we have.

[laughs] You know, and sometimes we decide...

We don't do this all the time, but sometimes it's like, okay, we have this series and, uh, you know, which is amazing.

It's incredible that we, that we even have this opportunity, but sometimes you just wanna do what, uh, you wanna see on TV.

[laughs] You know? Uh, and it's like nobody necessarily asked for this, but who cares? Let's, let's do it.

Um, and this was a match for me that I definitely remember s- hearing about, seeing, seeing on the internet a long time ago.

I think it really does humanize a lot of these figures and get to tell those stories.

Right.

And we did it for Vice, and it was kind of this o- opportunity to do just like something different.

Sty- it's a little stylistically different, it doesn't have reenactments, and it was just trying to kinda separate fact from fiction in terms of like, you know, how WCW imploded.

And it was very cool.

We had access to all this archive that had never been seen before and, um, it was just a cool experience.

I, I'm really proud of that, that project.

I thought it came out really well.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Well, I mean, you know, you talked about th- th- the cutting room floor.

I mean, you know, this, and I was mentioning earlier that, you know, the third hour we needed so badly, but really this thing could have even gone much farther than three hours.

If you, if you take in, you know, all of the different, you know, stories, uh, and, and, and side quests that, that could have been present here, uh, with this story.

I mean, originally going way back when we did that, you know, Who Killed WCW miniseries, uh, that was sort of a separate doc thing we did, the idea was to continue, uh, in that tradition and do TNA as the next sort of deep dive exploration that we would have done on its own.

Um, and then maybe we could've done ECW and it could've kept going as sort of like a promotion by promotion sort of doc, you know, miniseries after miniseries.

But, um, you know, for whatever reason Vice didn't wanna do that, and so our only chance to really, you know, 'cause we had done all this research and preparation and talked to a bunch of people about doing a TNA-focused thing.

She was just, the wardrobe was outnumbered.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This was a, a show that I want...

I had totally forgotten that.

[laughs] But this was a show that I had pitched and wanted to make probably dating back to like 2014, 2015, and so, uh, this is something I wanted to do then, but of course, I'm glad things came together now because I think sorta with the pedigree of Dark Side of the Ring under our belts and, you know, knowing a little bit more what the hell we're doing, now is a good time to do it.

But yeah, the, uh, it was basically just this whole thing came about of us wanting to tell these very human stories in the world of metal, very similar to Dark Side of the Ring, sorta taking these larger than life, you know, personas in the world of metal and also these kind of folklore, mythological tales of the world of rock and roll that we've heard growing up and kinda bringing them down to Earth- You know, grounding them in a sense rather than living on as this sort of abstract legendary myth, uh, rock story, and just wanting to kind of right the wrongs of a lot of, you know...

I mean, sure, there's a lot of really great metal documentaries that have been made.

Mm-hmm.

That experience of interviewing Tony as our first interview for the show was just super unreal.

Do you know the story about us interviewing Tony Atlas Chris? I don't I don't think so.

Oh man, so We've been telling it now because, you know, we, you know, Tony, if you're listening, we love you.

Don't worry.

Eight years have gone by.

And so this this show was basically could have died the day it was born, basically, because there was a lot of build up, you know, to getting Dark Side of the Ring on the air, you know, navigating the execs, getting the green light, you know, all the budget, all that stuff, probably about a year and a half build up.

Jason and I were immersing ourselves in Bruiser Brody and that and just every because we had the opportunity to make the pilot.

How did you tell his story in that lengthy time?