Dark Side of the Ring

TV SHOW TITLE: Dark Side of the Ring
PRODUCER: Viceland
YEARS: 2019-2020
GENRE: Wrestling Documentary
RATING: TV-14 for language and violence
GRADE: Extra Credit

Is it any wonder why Dark Side of the Ring was voted Best Wrestling Documentary in the 2019 Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards? I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the first ever two-time winner in the 2020 awards, whenever they come out. Viceland might rack up an undefeated streak if they keep putting out new seasons, which they should if they haven’t already. There isn’t a single bad episode in this entire series. Every story will fascinate you whether you remember that particular generation of wrestling or not. I’m not old enough to remember Bruiser Brody and the early days of The Fabulous Moolah, yet I was engrossed in their stories all the same. Dark Side of the Ring might even invoke those same feelings within non-wrestling fans. The episodes are dour and depressing enough to milk even the toughest eyeballs dry. Are these sixteen episodes of pure sadness and anguish appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic? Will they worsen the world population’s already strained mental health? Well, that’s the biggest knock on this show, but I would argue that feeling sadness is part of the human experience and it beats being numb all the time. But that’s just me talking.

If it’s sadness you’re looking for, check out the first two episodes of season two, which deal with the Chris Benoit double-murder-suicide. There’s no clear explanation as to why Chris did what he did, but the documentary does a good enough job of exploring every avenue there is to consider. Wrestling was his first and last profession, which means lots of concussions along the way, especially when chair shots to the head were commonplace in the 90’s and 2000’s. Chris also had substance abuse issues, particularly with steroids. He also had wear and tear from being on the road all the time. And he lost his best friend Eddie Guerrero in 2005. It wasn’t just one thing that sent him over the edge. It was life in general. Murdering his wife and son before killing himself was disgusting enough, but his other son David Benoit had to bear the brunt of it all. Watching David fall to pieces as he was being interviewed was heartbreaking to watch. He needed those shoulder squeezes from Chavo Guerrero (the last person Chris Benoit texted before he died). David needed that long embrace with his aunt. He wanted to feel good about going to wrestling shows again. The emotions of everybody interviewed in these two episodes were like a punch to the stomach from a loaded boxing glove. I came so close to crying myself.

Another time when I almost lost it was when I watched Owen Hart’s episode. Owen was portrayed as a friendly guy who made everyone around him happy, including his family. But in the ring, he was a technical wrestling genius who could also fly through the air. Think of the possibilities that could have been if he hadn’t fallen to his death at the Over the Edge pay-per-view in 1999. This wasn’t just a tragic accident. This was blatant negligence on the part of not only the riggers who hooked Owen up to the harness, but also on the part of WWE in general for making Owen go through with his unnecessary stunt. It’s bad enough that the world lost a loving human being, but it’s made even worse when Vince McMahon, the owner of WWE, continued the Over the Edge show anyways and tried to screw over Owen’s wife in court when she wanted to sue. The cesspool of emotions you will feel from watching this will range from sadness to anger to depression to borderline insanity. This death didn’t need to happen and Viceland did a great job of making sure that point came across and that Vince McMahon looked like the scumbag he was and still is today. He just discarded Owen like a piece of meat. If your blood isn’t boiling after this episode is over, you don’t have a soul.

Want a completely different emotion to haunt your mind? Try fear. You’ll get all the fear you came for when you watch New Jack’s episode. He has a permanently angry face made even more hideous by the scars on his forehead from busting himself open for his craft. New Jack wasn’t just a wrestler. He legitimately tried to hurt and kill his opponents if he didn’t like them. He legitimately felt anger towards the all-white crowds when he used racism to draw heel heat. When he talks about incidents such as slicing Mass Transit, throwing Vic Grimes off of a scaffold after tasing him, and beating Gypsy Joe’s face in with a bladed baseball bat, he does so with the attitude of either a psychopath or a sociopath. If New Jack did these things in an ordinary job setting, he would be in prison for the rest of his life. He came across like an uncaring murderer, which was further fueled by his back story of growing up in an abusive home. New Jack legitimately terrifies me and Viceland’s documentary on him intensified that feeling tenfold. Now that he’s a bounty hunter, this would be a good time to pay your bail before he beats the daylights out of you and drags you to justice that way.

There is a chance that you’ll become disillusioned with wrestling by the time you’ve watched all sixteen episodes. It’s a sliver of a chance, but a chance nonetheless. Whether you do or not, you’re not walking away from your viewing experienced unscathed. You’ll be angry, terrified, and sorrowful for a long time to come. I don’t want to say you’ll get PTSD from watching Dark Side of the Ring, but you’ll definitely have a lot to think about, probably when you’re lying awake at night or crying yourself to sleep. Dark Side of the Ring seasons one and two get an extra credit grade from me for not only keeping my interest as a wrestling fan, but opening my eyes to the sick world behind the scenes. I’m happy I never became a professional wrestler. I’ve considered it in my high school days, but I’m glad I never followed through on those dreams, or should I say nightmares.

"Gone Too Soon" by Ian Hamilton

As you can guess from the title of this book, you won’t be expecting a happy ending…or middle…or beginning. What this 90-page summary implies is that it actually took tragedies in order for the wrestling business to change. These changes should have taken place a long time ago, but it’s an ugly side of life we all have to live with at some point. Take for instance the first person this book talks about, Owen Hart. He was a fun guy to be around and a great performer in the ring. The fact that he’s never won a world title before is a sacrilege. He would have had a lifetime to do it, but in order for that to happen, he couldn’t have performed a stunt from the top of the rafters and fallen to his death. Unfortunately, that’s how Owen’s life came to an end: the harness he was wearing broke and he plummeted to the ground below. It actually took that accident for the writers to realize that dangerous stunts like those should be kept to a minimum and closely monitored. Or not even done at all, that would be even better. You know who else could have used close monitoring? Eddie Guerrero. For a while, he was heavily into drugs and alcohol and it got so bad that he had to be released from WWE. Upon completing rehab and getting himself clean, he came back to the company and ended up winning the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar. That would end up being his only world title reign as a year later, he had a heart attack from all the drug abuse he put himself through. Because of that horrifying death, WWE put into place the Wellness Program, where superstars can be suspended for testing positive for drugs of any kind. It seems good on paper until you consider the case of Chris Benoit, who passed several drug tests despite having a high ratio of testosterone in his body. Because of his own problems with performance-enhancing drugs and several blows to the head, he went into a rage and murdered his wife and child before hanging himself on exercise equipment. I’ve said it before and it bears to be repeated: it shouldn’t take a tragedy for regulations to be in effect, let alone three. And the sad part about all of this? These three wrestlers, Owen Hart, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit, are not the only ones who died under such circumstances. If you look near the back of the book, you’ll see an entire list of people who died prematurely. It’s depressing to see your heroes go so soon. It really is.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“These wounds won’t seem to heal. This pain is just too real. There’s just too much that time cannot erase. When you cried, I’d wipe away all of your tears. When you screamed, I’d fight away all of your fears. And I held your hand through all of these years. But you still have all of me. I’ve tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone. But though you’re still with me, I’ve been alone all along.”

-Evanescence singing “My Immortal”-