Dark Side of the Ring: Why I’m not a fan of the show

The latest season of Dark Side of the Ring started with the three-part episode on Jeff Jarrett and TNA. While I was entertained by the show, I recognized that it is just that—entertainment—as you really get nothing out of it beyond the story it wants to tell.

The reason why I’m not a fan of these types of docuseries, or even documentary films in general, is that they often edit the material to fit a specific narrative instead of sticking to the facts. Let’s take this TNA series, for example. What did we get out of it? That Jeff Jarrett was pushed out of TNA by Dixie Carter, that Vince Russo had nothing to do with TNA’s downfall, and that Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan had all the power during their run and were the reason why TNA lost as much money as it did. That’s the narrative the show wanted viewers to believe, and it pushed that narrative throughout all three episodes.

The thing is, they left out the fact that:

* The big names, including Hulk Hogan, weren’t paid directly by TNA. They were Spike TV employees, as Spike TV was covering their large contracts. That’s why, when Spike TV dropped TNA, the company couldn’t continue paying those big names and ended up losing them.

* Vince Russo, while not directly responsible for TNA losing its Spike TV deal, was still one of the reasons behind it, as Spike TV executives reportedly didn’t like him.

* Jeff Jarrett trying to be the Triple H of TNA was one of the reasons the company had trouble growing its audience.

* Jarrett and Dixie actually tried to sign Hulk Hogan before 2010, but those negotiations fell through.
Eric Bischoff was only hired to handle Hogan’s creative because Hogan was heavily medicated and wasn’t able to manage it himself.

Those are just some of the points that weren’t mentioned at all by the show’s directors because they didn’t fit the narrative they wanted to tell. As a result, those details were left out, and the series became a hit piece against everyone who wasn’t on Jarrett’s side.

But this type of selective editing didn’t start with the TNA episodes. It’s been happening for quite a while. The earliest example I remember was in Season 1 with the Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth episode, where they decided to make it more of a hit piece on Savage and Elizabeth instead of simply telling their story.

They did the same thing with the Ultimate Warrior episode, which was one of my least favorite episodes. I genuinely felt bad for Warrior’s family after seeing how the show chose to tell his story.

By far, though, my least favorite episode was the Owen Hart episode. That’s when I truly realized what the show was all about. It seemed more interested in creating shock value than telling Owen’s story. Nothing against Martha Hart, but it would have been far more interesting to hear both sides instead of presenting only one perspective. The episode made Martha look like the victim and everyone else the villains, when the reality is far more complicated and compelling than that.

Dark Side of the Ring used to be a very informative series, but over the last few seasons, it has shifted away from that in favor of becoming a shock-value docuseries. Sadly, I don’t think that’s helping the wrestling industry or its fanbase, because many fans can’t separate fact from interpretation and end up accepting everything presented on the show as the complete truth.