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Ahead of tonight's Dark Side of the Ring season seven premiere, I sat down for an extended interview with series creator and producer Evan Husney. Here is the conversation related to tonight's premiere episodes on Jeff Jarrett and TNA.
Mike Johnson: Hey, everybody. It's Mike Johnson in the audio section of PWInsiderElite.com. It is Tuesday, June 23, 2026, as we are recording this, and next month, in July, the most successful series in the history of Vice TV returns: Season 7 of Dark Side of the Ring, which chronicles the good, the bad, and everything in between in the world of professional wrestling. It has showcased a number of very interesting topics. Some are sad, like the Benoit situation. Some, while sad, also have uplifting elements, including the Owen Hart story and the passing of Gino Hernandez. The series also delves into the legacies of several professional wrestlers who are no longer with us, as well as some who are still with us. Very happy to be sitting down with one of the creators of the show, one of the lead producers of the show, Evan Husney, who's been with us before. Sir, did you ever think, when you were filming that pilot for the Bruiser Brody episode, that perhaps you'd end up with seven seasons of this and countless spinoffs?
Evan Husney: Not by a long shot. Thanks so much for having me back.
Mike Johnson: No, thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
Evan Husney: But no way. When we set out to do the Bruiser Brody pilot for this show, it wasn't even really a pilot at first. We just wanted to make a documentary about Bruiser Brody, and then it somehow just snowballed into, "Okay, could you do other stories and make it a season of a show?" And then it just took on a life of its own. I definitely never would've thought that, because I think next year will be my 10th year working on this show, which is crazy. So no, I never would've thought it. We're just completely humbled by the fact that people still want to see the show. This is a dream job for me, being able to tell stories from the world that I love and grew up loving as a kid. I feel very fortunate, and I'm very grateful that we've been able to do this for so long and that people are still interested.
Mike Johnson: I do want to ask you: when people hear the title Dark Side of the Ring, I think someone who doesn't know what the series is truly about initially assumes, "Oh, it's about the negatives," or, "It must be about terrible things that happened." And sometimes the series does go into those things, but I feel like a better descriptor for the series is that it's more of a deeper discussion and psychological breakdown of these very eclectic personalities and the twists and turns of a very weird, strange subculture. I'm pretty sure either with me or with somebody else, you noted that Dark Side of the Ring was never intended to be the final title of the series. Looking back now, seven seasons in, do you still wish the title had changed, or do you feel like it's become apropos for what the series is?
Evan Husney: It is complicated because it's definitely the element of the series that we find ourselves having to overcome the most: the title. The title does overshadow the show because,n one end, people see it or hear about the series in passing and think, "Oh, this is going to be an exposé. It's something that's going to make the industry look bad. It's going to glorify negative stereotypes. It's going to be exploitative," those types of things. That's very antithetical to how we approach the show. We're fans, and we have a sincere passion for wrestling. On one hand, it's a catchy title, and it works. Of course, there have been all these successful spinoff shows, and that's been great for us. But it is the number one thing we run into. Sometimes talent we're trying to get for the show is put off by the title because of what they think it implies. It's something that, even 10 years later, we're still dealing with. On the flip side, you have fans and viewers who put limitations on what they think this show can be. "Why are they doing this story? That's not dark enough. That's not tragic enough."
Mike Johnson: I heard that about the John Tenta episode. I had that very email about the John Tenta episode: "Why would that be on Dark Side of the Ring? He was a nice guy. Why would you put that out there?"
Evan Husney: Exactly. To me, that has never entered my way of thinking: "Oh, this story isn't dark enough. We can't do it." The whole reason we started this show was because we were fans of wrestling. Whether it's WWE owning the documentary space around wrestling or whatever it is, there was always this desire to get to the bottom of who these larger-than-life characters really were on a human level. That's really what the show is to me. It's the human side of the ring. We're going to humanize this industry. We're going to humanize the people in it and bring everything back down to earth. We're not going to play into the storylines. We're separating fact from fiction, kayfabe from reality—whatever you want to call it. That's the way I look at it. The title is the title. It's been great for us in many ways. But at the same time, it's been something we've had to fight against many times.
Mike Johnson: I want to talk about the new season. Full disclosure: you were kind enough to provide me with advance copies of the first two episodes—the Jeff Jarrett/TNA episodes that are going to kick off the first night of Dark Side of the Ring. What was interesting is that when you announced the Jarrett episodes, I don't think people truly understood this was going to be more about his journey in founding, protecting, running, and eventually losing TNA. Was there ever any consideration given to doing an episode about his life before TNA? Because I'd say within 15 or 20 minutes of the first episode, we're already at the point where the business has contracted, WWE obviously isn't bringing him in, and he's made the decision to create his own opportunity with TNA. When you started putting this together, what made you lean toward the TNA saga as opposed to Jeff's life before TNA?
Evan Husney: I remember going as far back as the first season, when we were batting around ideas, and I think it was Conrad Thompson who suggested Jeff Jarrett to me. This was well before Conrad had done a podcast with Jeff. At the time, during the TNA years, I really wasn't paying much attention to wrestling. During Jeff's heyday there, I wasn't very familiar with the story. Conrad was telling me about all the drama, the financial shenanigans, the backstabbing, the cloak-and-dagger politics behind the scenes at TNA, and how fascinating it really was. He also told me Jeff was such an underrated, fascinating personality in wrestling. I think Conrad refers to him as the Forrest Gump of wrestling—someone who's always there during these pivotal moments in the business.
Mike Johnson: ...and always lands on his feet despite everyone's best efforts.
Evan Husney: Exactly. He's always there at these pivotal turning points in the business. I remember Conrad saying, "You should really do a story about him." At the time, I was thinking back to my childhood and remembering him as "the 'With My Baby Tonight' guy." That was basically my frame of reference. So I wasn't that familiar with him. Then, years later, we got to work with Jeff. I became much more familiar with the story of TNA and, of course, his entire journey. It was one of those moments where I thought, "Wow, this really could be something." Then, maybe a few years ago, when we were putting together the miniseries Who Killed WCW?—which was a four-part look back at how WCW imploded—we started thinking that maybe we could keep doing this. We could look at TNA, examine everything that happened behind the scenes there, what went wrong, and maybe even do ECW. We thought we could create these little documentary miniseries. That was the original idea. At some point, when we pitched TNA as its own standalone documentary series, for whatever reason Vice didn't go for it. Instead, they said, "Why don't you do it as Dark Side of the Ring?" Going back to our earlier conversation about the title, being part of that franchise and carrying that name instantly gives it an audience. We've built seven seasons of people who save the show on their DVRs, and it's developed a loyal fan base. So the suggestion was, "Why don't you just do it as Dark Side?" I hadn't really considered doing something like that, but it's such a huge story to cover, and we'd never done anything like it before. At first we looked at it as a two-part story—a two-hour presentation. If it had been a standalone documentary series, it would've covered everything: the Jeff Jarrett era, the Dixie Carter era, Billy Corgan coming in, Scott D'Amore, the whole saga. We probably would've made it a six-part series or something along those lines.
But once we shifted it into Dark Side of the Ring, we realized we had to narrow the focus. So the idea became: what if we just told the story of the company's creation? We could tell it through Jeff Jarrett's point of view—as someone who created the company, tried to keep it afloat, dealt with all the drama, worked alongside his father, came into conflict with his father, and ultimately lost control of the company. On paper, that sounded great. In practice, though, it was impossible to fit into two hours. We had to go back to the network, basically beg for a third hour, and fortunately they gave it to us. That's how we ended up with this unprecedented three-hour story. Honestly, I don't think there was any way to tell it properly in less time.
Mike Johnson: We'll talk about Jeff in a second, but I want to ask you about Dixie Carter. I had already reported a couple of weeks ago that she wasn't involved in this project at all. How much does that help or hurt you in the editing process when you're missing such an important voice—someone who would naturally provide the counterbalance to what Jeff or others might say? For a large portion of this story she's the owner of the company, and later she becomes the primary owner. When she's not involved and doesn't sit down in front of your cameras, how difficult is it to craft that story without opening yourself up to criticism that you didn't give her the opportunity to present her own perspective?
Evan Husney: You could definitely make the argument that she literally saved the company at several different points. It was always our intention to include her voice. We wanted this to be as comprehensive as possible. Going into it, we already knew from our research—and just from talking to people—that everyone would have very passionate opinions about Dixie and her time in TNA. We knew the documentary would be stronger if she were able to express her own perspective. We also knew it was going to be difficult to get her. From everything I'd heard, she doesn't really do interviews about TNA anymore. She's moved on. It's in the rearview mirror, and it's not something she's particularly interested in revisiting. So we expected it to be difficult.
We did have a couple of conversations with her. At first she was very receptive. She was thinking about participating and seriously considering it. Then we got closer to the point where production schedules start becoming very real. We sent several follow-up requests, and those eventually went unanswered. At that point, we took that as our answer and assumed she didn't want to participate. I think that's unfortunate because it would've been great to have her perspective and hear her version of everything that happened. Instead, viewers are going to hear everyone else's opinions about Dixie Carter and her time running the company. That does create a challenge because you always want to be fair to someone who isn't there. But these are the authentic feelings of the people who lived through those events. When you've genuinely tried your best to include someone's voice and they choose not to participate, that's really all you can do.
Mike Johnson: One thing that really stood out to me while watching these episodes is the sheer number of personalities involved. Normally you have a lot of talking heads, but this feels like an entirely different level because you're telling the story of a company instead of one individual or one incident. You've got Jeff Jarrett, Scott D'Amore, Dave Sahadi—who comes across incredibly passionate—and so many other strong personalities. How difficult is it to sort through all of those different perspectives and decide what the finished story should ultimately look like?
Evan Husney: It is challenging, especially when you're dealing with episodes that involve people like Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, and others. There are always going to be completely divergent, completely contrasting viewpoints about what really happened. For us, it's about trying to stay authentic to people's individual experiences while also representing, as closely as we can, what the quote-unquote "truth" is. But we know that's very difficult to do in the wrestling business. Our show has never tried to be this overarching "voice of God" that tells viewers, "Here's definitively what happened." Our style of filmmaking has always been to present different viewpoints and different experiences, then let the audience decide how they feel. For whatever reason, that's always felt like the better way to tell these stories. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting it wrong and telling people, "This is the journalistic truth," when you weren't actually there yourself. I think that's also part of the reason we settled on doing reenactments from the very beginning of the show. The reenactments are very subjective. They're faded memories. They're interpretive. That's the way wrestling lore survives, too. A lot of it is exaggerated. A lot of it becomes distorted over time when people look back. We wanted to lean into that because it's such a huge part of wrestling storytelling. I think the best way to present these stories is simply to say, "Here's Side A. Here's Side B." Then the audience can make its own determination. That's always been our approach.
Mike Johnson: How much did having the third hour help? There have been episodes where I've thought, "Man, if they just had another half hour..." Maybe it would've been easier to get everything across. There's one episode in particular I'm thinking of, but we can talk about that later. Having three episodes here gives you the opportunity to present a much fuller version of the story. In the same way that having multiple episodes on Brian Pillman allowed people to really understand Brian's rise, his fall, and the aftermath of his death for his family, how did having three episodes for Jeff Jarrett and TNA change what you were able to do compared to what you otherwise would've been forced to cut?
Evan Husney: At first, when we made the decision, it was honestly a little scary. We'd done Who Killed WCW?, but that was its own project with its own look and feel. This was different. We were basically saying, "Okay, we're going to do a third hour of Dark Side of the Ring." The fear was, "What if it's too much? What if we don't actually need that much time?" To your point, another half hour would've been great, but that's just not how broadcast television works. Everything is rigid. You've got 44 minutes of actual runtime in a one-hour television slot, and that's a very difficult framework because almost every episode we make could easily become a feature-length documentary. That's always been one of our biggest challenges. When we originally pitched and budgeted the show, we all believed these stories deserved that kind of treatment. Instead, we've learned to work within television's limitations. Could we make feature-length films instead? Maybe. Who knows whether that would've been as successful? But you could certainly make that case for many of these stories.
Going back to your question, though, there was simply no way we could make the TNA story work in two hours. We tried. We had a two-hour cut. It was extremely condensed. We were skipping over major events. Everything moved at the speed of light, and we weren't giving the audience enough time to understand or process what was happening. It just didn't feel right. One thing that was really important to us was that, at the end of the second hour, Jeff loses the company. Then you have the new regime coming in—Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan—and that's a huge part of both TNA's history and Jeff's personal journey. That portion of the story needed room to breathe. Without the third hour, we simply couldn't do it justice. I was worried people would think we were stretching the story just to fill time. That's honestly one of our biggest fears as filmmakers. But in reality, it's usually the opposite. We're almost always trying to cut things down. Even with three hours, there were still major pieces we had to leave on the cutting-room floor. If we'd really wanted to tell every side story, every tangent, every interesting subplot involving other people along the way, we probably could've done a fourth hour. But we kept bringing it back to Jeff. That gave us the strongest, most personal, and most emotional version of the story, because that's always the goal.
You can tell a story about a business, and hopefully wrestling fans find it interesting. But if you want to reach people beyond wrestling fans, you have to tell a human story. Jeff's story absolutely is that.
Mike Johnson: After spending so much time sitting down with Jeff, interviewing him, and then literally living with this footage while editing it together, what's your overall tae on Jeff? What do you think were his greatest strengths, and what do you think were his biggest mistakes during his TNA journey?
Evan Husney: Working with Jeff has always been awesome. Going back to Tales from the Territories, when we first got the opportunity to work with him, I'm also so glad we were able to work with his dad, Jerry Jarrett. Having the two of them together telling stories from Memphis was such a great experience.
Mike Johnson: It's my favorite episode of that series, by the way.
Evan Husney: Oh, me too. Thank you. It was such a cool experience, especially now, knowing everything they went through together. Their relationship was fractured for many years, and then they were able to reconnect toward the end of Jerry's life. The fact that we got to document that is something I'm really grateful for. Jeff was great throughout that process. He has a producer's mindset, so he understands what we're doing almost better than most of the people who appear on our shows. That always helps. I don't mean that he's performing for the camera or anything like that. I just mean he understands how productions work. He knows what goes into making a documentary and what we need in order to tell a story. He's great. He was instrumental in helping us put this project together and in helping us get almost everyone on board. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, and it's been great getting to know him over the years. When I called him—whether it was late last year or earlier this year—with the idea of doing this monumental project, he was immediately on board. He understood exactly what kind of story this was. He's talked about it for years on his podcast, but he knows just how significant it is. It's honestly wild that no one had really put TNA under the microscope in documentary form before. There was a lot of excitement on both sides about finally telling that story. Then, when Karen Jarrett agreed to participate and tell her side of everything—which she really hadn't done before—that made it even more exciting.
As far as mistakes go... I don't know. It's difficult to judge. Before AEW came along, nobody had really tried to create a national wrestling company from scratch—one with television, major investments, recognizable stars, all of those things. That's incredibly difficult. I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with every day-to-day decision to point to specific mistakes. When you look back at some of the numbers they were doing and the situations they were facing, Jeff often had to do whatever was necessary just to keep the company alive. When he secured that first round of financing—which we cover in the episode—how could anyone have predicted that company would become front-page news because of a massive financial scandal? The only reason TNA survived was because another investor eventually came along in the form of the Carter family. So I don't know. Hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back, there are probably decisions everyone would change, but considering everything they accomplished—and the amount of talent they discovered and elevated, especially in the Knockouts division—I think there's a tremendous amount to applaud.
Mike Johnson: I honestly feel like you could probably get an entire season out of just TNA if you really wanted to, especially since I haven't seen the third episode yet. Even just the financial wrangling Dixie Carter went through toward the end of her ownership...
Evan Husney: Yeah.
Mike Johnson: The Billy Corgan situation...Eventually losing the company to Anthem. They tried to present it publicly as a sale, but the court documents basically showed that Anthem called in its debt and converted it into ownership. She didn't really sell the company. She didn't walk away with a sale profit, she eventually became a minority owner. There's just so much there.
***
Mike Johnson: After spending so much time researching TNA...Looking at it strictly as a third-party observer...Are you surprised the company still exists in 2026?
Evan Husney: Absolutely. I think it's miraculous. Obviously, the company that exists today is very different from the one Jeff Jarrett started. Different ownership. Different leadership. Different circumstances, but the fact that the brand itself has survived all those different eras...I think that's incredible. We all know what happened to WCW. That story has been told many times. TNA, somehow, just kept surviving. That's one of the central themes of our documentary. Jeff Jarrett keeps bouncing back. The company keeps bouncing back. There's a real resilience there. The fact that TNA still exists today is honestly amazing. I'm glad we were able to capture that because I think it's an important part of the story.
Dark Side of the Ring premieres tonight on ViceTV.
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