Dark Side of the Ring

[Greg2600]

Nick Gage - I suppose you can say they made a semi-compelling episode out of an outright psycho, who most people have never heard of, including most wrestling fans. Gage is pretty good on camera, with Jon Moxley putting him over.

North Korea - Worthwhile from a historical "CNN" perspective. Scott Norton definitely is the star here, though it's tough to take anything wrestlers say without a grain of salt. Regardless, it's a story that had to be told and I was enlightened by it. The Scorpio/Hawk stuff was nonsense.

Warrior - Good one, the ex-wife was very believable. Shame they didn't have Sting on it, but the others picked up the slack. I mean, I always knew that he was a terrible in ring performer, but the self-absorbant craziness. Destrucity!!! The Vince letter to fire him in the early 90s was hilarious. Frankly Cornette ripped him a new one, and deservedly.

Grizzly Smith - Good Lord, was there a more despicable piece of human shit in wrestling history than this guy? Most of this stuff has been written about, but when the family retells it, boy very rough.

[crowbar]

Nick Gage - I suppose you can say they made a semi-compelling episode out of an outright psycho, who most people have never heard of, including most wrestling fans. Gage is pretty good on camera, with Jon Moxley putting him over.

North Korea - Worthwhile from a historical "CNN" perspective. Scott Norton definitely is the star here, though it's tough to take anything wrestlers say without a grain of salt. Regardless, it's a story that had to be told and I was enlightened by it. The Scorpio/Hawk stuff was nonsense.

Warrior - Good one, the ex-wife was very believable. Shame they didn't have Sting on it, but the others picked up the slack. I mean, I always knew that he was a terrible in ring performer, but the self-absorbant craziness. Destrucity!!! The Vince letter to fire him in the early 90s was hilarious. Frankly Cornette ripped him a new one, and deservedly.

Grizzly Smith - Good Lord, was there a more despicable piece of human shit in wrestling history than this guy? Most of this stuff has been written about, but when the family retells it, boy very rough.

I enjoyed them all except the North Korea episode. I expected to hate the Grizzly Smith episode because Jake Robert's was involved but I was surprised by a lot of it

[Greg2600]

Well Nick Gage actually worked his Dark Side "fame" into a match with Chris Jericho next week.

[lanza218]

Plus his match with Cardona in AC. Good for him

[WOODMO]

Pillman episodes were phenomenal. They truly make you like BPJ even more, he really had a rough life after his father passed.

[Greg2600]

Saw the last few "explosive ones," with the first being on The Dynamite Kid, who I loved growing up, and was always puzzled why he vanished, leaving only Davey Boy Smith. Certainly a sad, sad, story.

Next up is the "plane ride from hell" that took place almost 20 years ago from London to New York. There was a ton of drinking, roofies slipped into drinks, and whatnot. Brock Lesnar nearly brought the flight down by beating on Curt Hennig. During the show, the flight attendant accuses Scott Hall of grabbing her, and Ric Flair of waving his cock at her, and also grabbing her. Rob Van Dam seemed to confirm all this, but then was forced by others to admit he NEVER saw Flair assault the women, and that the editors had edited in a way that seem like that. Why? Well clearly Van Dam did not see it, and I guess has a beef with Flair and others and tried to pile on. Tommy Dreamer was ridiculously fired by Impact for backing up the "boys" during the episode. Let it be known that the flight attendants settled out of court for a sum of money. Whether there was a NDA or not I do not know. Flair has apologizes for the nude stuff, admitting he was often far too drunk as he was an alcoholic who nearly died 5 years ago from it.

Frankly I felt the most explosive revelation was Terri Runnells claiming that Lesnar sexually assaulted her, and they told her to keep quiet. Where are the righteous wrestling fans on that one? They're silent, can't touch their precious Brock. Hypocrites. Meanwhile the legendary Curt Hennig was fired and then went downhill and died, all to protect the chosen boy Brock Lesnar. In addition, many want Flair "canceled" for a 20 year old incident that has no witness corroboration.

Now as for the Chris Kanyon episode, was compelling, and I was very intrigued to see that younger guys like the Bucks and Brian Cage trained/worked and were friends of Kanyon. This was not a kind piece to Kanyon, but if the allegations by "Van" are even partially true, man he was a maniac. I'm sure he experienced a lot of ribbing and even bullying during his career, but seemed like his mental illnesses were his main downfall. Towards the end, there's a replay both John Cena and later Ric Flair basically telling Kanyon his beef with the WWE was bogus. Honestly, my take was that is was. They told him like it was, and of course the Cancel Cops out there want to arrest Cena and Flair again for being MEN and telling him how it was. Trust me I am not McMahon apologist, but it was clear Kanyon could no longer perform in the state he was in.

Don't have a lot of interest in the remainder of the season though.

[AJLe]

I have no idea what RVD did or didn't actually see, but he clearly CLAIMED that he saw Flair try to force the woman to touch him. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like "I saw him crowding her against the back wall, and he was trying to make her touch him and stuff.", and he said it in a single take, so there was no "editing" of various other sentences together. Maybe it was a lie and he later regretted saying it, or maybe for some other reason he wanted to walk it back, but the idea that the producers "edited" it to make it look bad was a CYA by Rob.

The editing I did find really strange in that episode was regarding Goldust. In the episode, he was portrayed as doing nothing worse than drunkenly singing to Terri on the plane's PA system, and spitting tobacco in the seatback, and was made to look like a babyface for being the only one to assist the attendant when Flair was bothering her. In reality, he was named in the same lawsuit that the allegations against Flair and Scott Hall were in. In it, he was accused of telling a flight attendant (not the same one interviewed in the episode) that "you and me are gonna f---", grabbing her ass, and rubbing his crotch against it. The producers talk about other things Dustin did on the plane, talk about the lawsuit in depth, but somehow no-sell all of Dustin's allegations, why discussing the other two wrestlers named?

I really hope it was just a poor editing job, and not the producers wanting to preserve a relationship with AEW by deliberately not smearing a guy who's still actively wrestling with them. But if you read the lawsuit documents (which are easily available online with a simple google search), it's mind-blowing how the producers could not only miss Dustin's accusations of serious wrongdoings, but paint him out to be a total babyface in the whole situation.

[Greg2600]

In the episode, RVD seems to claim he saw the entire Flair incident in the back of the plane. I believe others, including some on that flight, after watching the show, questioned RVD's account. When asked by fans, RVD point blank says I saw nothing (re: Flair).

When questioned again if the thought this was a problem, he chalks it up to the TV series editing for "effect." In other words, not all that different from a pro wrestling "shoot" interview in which you can believe all or none of what is said, and are probably right half the time! For these alone, I think Dark Side really effed up on this episode, and the backlash on Flair and Dreamer is unwarranted.

Good question AJ on Dustin, don't know the answer to that, but Dark Side is not exactly PBS Nova here. It's just a cable show which clearly doesn't seem to be fully interested in reporting these stories as journalists should.

[AJLe]

I honestly don't know what Rob is trying to say about "editing"- he literally said the words attributed to him about Flair, on video. I don't know what other "narrative" or "context" he ever would have said that Flair "had her crowded against the back wall and was trying to make her touch him". I could understand him retracting his version, or adding context to it, but to try to pretend like he never really said it and the producers "edited" him doesn't seem to wash when you watch his segment.

With Dustin, I honestly don't see how they could have just "missed" his allegations when they covered the rest of his lawsuit in detail with regards to Flair and Hall. The fact that the very next episode saw participation from multiple active AEW talents, including what appeared to be officially licensed AEW clips (as opposed to the low quality YT/public domain stuff they use for WWE clips), makes me a little suspicious that the producers maybe didn't want to risk damaging a business relationship by painting a still-active member of the AEW roster as a sexual predator. I would hope that is NOT the reason, but I'm having trouble coming up with a more innocent reason why Flair and Hall's allegations were exposed, and Dustin somehow ended up getting completely babyfaced by the producers.

[Greg2600]

Show has been canceled despite good ratings. Meltzer cites the backlash from Plane Ride From Hell as a reason.

https://movieweb.com/dark-side-of-the-r ... eled-vice/

[AJLe]

It appears Meltzer was wrong about the cancellation: