Professional wrestling is a fascinating business inside and out of the ring. Traditionally, the personas we as fans see on TV or at a night out at the matches are carefully crafted alter-egos designed to sell tickets. Often, the real-life person behind these wild characters is a complete 180 from their actual self. Until the advent of the internet age in the second half of the 1990s, wrestling was real to most fans. Or, to be more accurate, fans weren’t sure what was real and what wasn’t, and it was this uncertainty that kept them enthralled.
I’ve loved wrestling for a very long time. A few years ago, my love for the art form led me to write an extensive piece on it titled “One Punk’s Guide to Professional Wrestling” for Razorcake Magazine. While my research was exhaustive and my existing knowledge of wrestling history vast, print space limitations required that a lot be left out. Most notably were the many tragedies the world of professional wrestling has produced.
Viceland’s 6-part series Dark Side of the Ring dives into some of these tragedies while maintaining the sufficiently blurred lines between reality and storyline, shoot and work, real-life and gimmick. New insights are offered, but concrete conclusions can never be drawn. The industry won’t allow it. And when the main players have been in the business of pulling the wool over the public’s collective eyes for decades, this should come as no surprise.
Dark Side of the Ring is a captivating watch for anyone with even the mildest interest in what goes on behind the scenes of the professional wrestling business. With commentary by insiders like Bruce Pritchard, Jim Cornette, and Jake Roberts – as well as many more who saw these events first-hand – Dark Side of the Ring is a grim look at a crazy world. For someone like me, it’s absolutely irresistible.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… Here is Dark Side of the Ring Season One ranked.
- The Fabulous Moolah
Allegations of physical and sexual abuse as well as financial exploitation and borderline extortion have been hanging over Mary “The Fabulous Moolah” Ellison’s legacy ever since her death in 2007. As presented here, these allegations are pretty damned credible, with Moolah’s defenders offering not much more than the “well she never abused me” line of defense. Moolah’s bad temperament and petty jealousies are evident in other docs like 2005’s Lipstick and Dynamite, so it’s no stretch for me to believe her accusers.
While compelling and insightful, The Fabulous Moolah lacks some of the dramatic punch of many of the other episodes. Featuring stories from Wendi Richter and the children of Sweet Georgia Brown, it’s hard not to get angry at a business that would allow such things to (allegedly) happen.
- The Last of the Von Erichs
There is no doubt that the terrible tragedies that fell on the Von Erich family are among the most heart-wrenching in wrestling history. If you know anything about the business, you know about Fritz Von Erich and the loss of his sons. Over the course of only a handful of years, either by accident or suicide, five of six Von Erich boys would be dead. In The Last of the Von Erichs, the only surviving brother, Kevin, tells of the muddy waters between his brothers’ public personas and real-life demons.
Kevin’s heartfelt and personal re-telling of his family’s tragic story offers some insight into his perspective of events, but much of the info has been covered elsewhere. The dreamlike, ethereal quality of the production certainly adds to the mystique and serves to accentuate Kevin’s acceptance and forgiving state of mind.
- The Match Made in Heaven
Everybody loves the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. Even if you didn’t grow up watching them as I did, they are royalty all the same. This episode chronicles their love, marriage, falling out, and eventual tragic deaths. In addition, like many of the episodes, The Match Made in Heaven is an insightful look at how personal lives and in-ring identities clash. Watch as Jake “The Snake” Roberts tells of Macho Man’s trouble with his in-laws after Jake pushed the beloved Elizabeth down in the ring. You have to remember that, back then, wrestling was very real to its fans, and the secrets of the business were closely guarded.
While there’s plenty of sadness and grim subject matter to go around, The Match Made in Heaven isn’t as dour as some of the other episodes. It’s hard not laugh seeing aging wrestlers attempting an impression of Macho Man’s famous “Ooh Yeah!” It’s a loving tribute to two ring greats that unfortunately can’t be told without some harsh truths.
- The Mysterious Death of Gorgeous Gino
In the early-1980s, Gino Hernandez was a rising star in the Texas-based World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW, owned by Fritz Von Erich). Watching him, it’s easy to see shades of Ric Flair’s “limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing son of a gun” gimmick, but Hernandez made it his own. By the mid-’80s, Hernandez career was taking off, but his partying ran him afoul of a group of shady Texas drug dealers. After his body was discovered in his apartment, speculation and rumor began to fly about his cause of death – or amazingly, if he was even dead at all. Adding to the mystery is the appearance of a man known as “John Royal,” who paid for Gino’s funeral and offered a eulogy.
Out of all six episodes, this is the story I knew the least about. It plays like an eerie episode of Unsolved Mysteries with lots of strange twists and turns. A lot of conspiracies are presented, with each one making an odd kind of sense. Bruce Pritchard’s recollection of Gino’s bizarre funeral adds fuel to the already curious fire.
- The Montreal Screwjob
“The Montreal Screwjob,” as it came to be known, may have happened over 20 years ago, but it remains a turning point in the history of the wrestling business. Discussed at length in the 1998 documentary Wrestling with Shadows, the now infamous event has been covered elsewhere, but not quite like this. This episode makes one thing clear: we will never know what really happened that fateful night in Montreal. Even all these years later, everyone involved has different theories. On top of that, and in addition to what really happened, there is now an argument as to exactly who orchestrated it – thanks to Jim Cornette and Vince Russo. I can’t get enough of this stuff.
Regardless of what happened, or who came up with the idea, I have always been of the belief that Bret Hart needed to lose that match. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to wrestling’s time-honored traditions, so when Hart decided he wasn’t going to lose the belt before jumping ship to a rival company, I condone the extreme measures taken. What makes this episode so great is the back and forth between Cornette and Russo, and the teary-eyed confession of referee Earl Hebner. To this day, there is so much animosity and mystery surrounding “The Montreal Screwjob” that it seems just as hot now as ever. Only wrestling can pull that off.
- The Killing of Bruiser Brody
For me, the story of Bruiser Brody’s death has always been the most intriguing story in wrestling. The Killing of Bruiser Brody ramps up that fascination to exponential levels. In 1988, Bruiser Brody was stabbed in a Puerto Rican locker room by José Huertas González, a wrestler and booker who went by the name Invader I. This has never been refuted, but what The Killing of Bruiser Brody suggests is that the owners of the World Wrestling Council (WWC) orchestrated his death. Apparently, Brody was in talks to buy a stake in WWC off one of its minority shareholders – a development which didn’t sit right with the brass. Tony Atlas and Dutch Mantell’s grisly telling of the events of that night come just shy of an outright accusation.
With longtime Brody rival Abdullah the Butcher very nearly implicating himself in the conspiracy and Atlas’s harrowing tale of the incident and its aftermath, The Killing of Bruiser Brody is chilling and eye-opening. I read about this story years ago, but this presentation will send chills down right down your spine. It’s gruesome and infuriating, made more so by the knowledge that no one was ever held accountable. In fact, González continued in wrestling for decades (including that night!). The jury believed that Brody’s wild-man gimmick was his real-life persona and that González acted in self-defense against this clearly unhinged maniac. Eyewitnesses to the contrary (Atlas and Mantell) never testified. Their subpoenas didn’t arrive until after the trial was over.
I’m not saying WWC owners Carlos Colón and others conspired to have Brody killed (and then used their influence to cover it up), but it’s very easy to draw that conclusion from the evidence presented. But, like anything in wrestling, what you see and what’s real is often intentionally clouded to protect the business.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.