Dark Side of the Ring

[WrestlingPower]

Based on what Cornette has said, it sounds like the Bedlam episode was practically done as a favor to him.  He said he had been trying to sell them on doing it since season 1 and they finally did it.  Yeah I wasn't that into it either even as a big SMW fan.  I thought the story could have been told in 15 minutes.

For a network that hardly anyone would have heard of except for this show, it's funny that Vice would try to dictate what's mainstream enough.  They are already into season 3, I'm not sure what more they can cover without getting into fringe people.  XPW and Nick Gage are certainly as obscure if not moreso than FMW.

[Robert S]

What is the target audience for that series? I can't be (just) current and maybe lapsed fans. And if you take that away, almost everything they have done and could do is obscure. If the ratings on Wikipedia are somewhat reliable (both regarding the source and the metric itself), than there is not a big correlation between notoriety of the topic and the rating. In season 1, Gino Hernandez got the biggest rating, in season 2, the Jimmy Snuka - Nancy Argentino episode had less viewers than Herb Abrahms or David Schultz and this season, the Ultimate Warrior had one of the lesser ratings. The Benoit and Owen Hart episodes got good numbers, everything else just looks like white noise, depending on the statistical errors of the system and what else is on TV.

[ButchReedMark]

I guess it's the true crime stories maybe? I know Channel 4 in the UK is moving the series into that genre on their on demand service. 

 

What kind of numbers does it do in North America? Are they generally strong for its genre? 

[El-P]

Probably not that much of a hardcore pro-wrestling fan audience since apparently, MLW's ratings following the show totally sucked.

Next episode is Luna, right ? Now, this one I look very much forward to. I had been a Luna fan since the very first time I saw her (at Mania 9).

[sek69]

Man it's just so sad to see how Luna cared so much about the business and women's roles in it in an era where the business gave zero shits about women in wrestling.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Shame really, in a different era she would've been a star. 

[sek69]

It really is criminally forgotten how Luna (and Jacqueline) put in all the work to make Sable look like a star. All she ever wanted was someone to notice her efforts and no one in charge could be bothered.

[El-P]

Things that we knew already : Moolah was a piece of shit. Dick Slater was a piece of shit. The WWF Office were pieces of shit (the anecdote about the Mania post-match is just disgusting and heartbreaking).

Things I did not knew : that she actually was adopted. That she may or may not have been abused by her Aunt. That Dave Heath was not a real vampire !

I thought Dave Heath came off like such a good guy, and I can empathize so much, including when he talks about how he kinda felt guilty after he ended the relationship because he thought it was selfish of him to not take care of her anymore, because who would... It's crazy thinking (like he said, at some point you have no other choice but to leave), but this kind of relationship absolutely leads your there, I know first hand (on a less extreme degree of course, but still, to some pretty bad degrees).

One interesting bit in term of WWF culture that was absent in the doc is that when she went to WCW after ECW, she wasn't made a manager and they had her as a worker, at a time when WWF had no women's division left. So again, while the culture was bad, some places where worst than others... 

The whole Sable debacle is well known, and although Sable probably was over her head and got the big ego and was a bitch about it, it was the office responsibility to acknowledge Luna's work, which they did not do. Of course it was easy to put the blame on Luna's mental issues. Thankfully we've made a lot of progress, although not nearly enough. Also, that Royal Rumble's swimsuit stuff, with Lawler doing the intros and the bunch of old guys (and fucking pimp Moolah) giving notes is cringe as fuck now, on many levels. Pretty striking take that after all of these years of making her ugly, now they wanted her to be sexy, yet basically shamed her during the thing (well, I for one always thought she was beautiful and sexy, but that's way beside the point). Mick Foley's eulogy was quite touching I thought, and it was nice to end with that hilarious impersonation !

Yeah, Luna in 2021 would be a big star, no doubt.

[Al]

I've known about Luna being adopted but that's always a huge WOAH because she really had the Vachon voice down. 

[sek69]

To me the WOAH was the suggestion Vivian abused her, which was a shocker to me since all I've ever heard was how she was the reason Luna wanted to be a wrestler. 

I just happened to do a ECW binge in the ol' Cock when they finally updated, and it really did stand out how much she was enjoying herself. The crowd loved her and it was the one place at the time where she could do her thing and get recognized for it. 

[Strummer]

Poor Luna. She was famously included as part of the roster for the original WWF RAW game for SNES. But by the time the game was released she was already gone from the company.

[sek69]

Man XPW was such a wild story even at the time I remember how even at the time I couldn't believe this shit was actually happening. 

[Blehschmidt]

I love how a guy who did all of that crazy shit, called himself "The Messiah" and got his thumb chopped off in a half assed hit.... is now like the most normal looking, well spoken, happy to be a Dad dude that you could ever see. Good for him!

[El-P]

That shit was crazy. I basically only knew about the ECW invasion and the Vic Grimes murder attempt. And the fact Rob Black was a piece of shit, even for a dirty porn producer. But I had no idea about the other stuff. That Messiah story is insane.

[NotJayTabb]

1 hour ago, Blehschmidt said:

I love how a guy who did all of that crazy shit, called himself "The Messiah" and got his thumb chopped off in a half assed hit.... is now like the most normal looking, well spoken, happy to be a Dad dude that you could ever see. Good for him!

Messiah was always my guy in CZW. I think because, given that a lot of the top card guys seemed like degenerates and fat guys in metal t-shirts, he just came across as a normal guy, who just happened to be a decent wrestler with only one thumb. I also remember seeing a clip on a Botchamania where he messed up a move, and responded to the subsequent abuse by telling the audience "Sorry, I've not been wrestling much lately". Glad to hear he's doing well.

[Laz]

Messiah was, far and wide, the only positive about XPW in terms of the product. I may have had a soft spot for Johnny Webb and Homeless Jimmy, but Messiah was the only one I thought could've gone places.

I need to find a way to watch this ep. It's been the one I've wanted since the show started.

[Blehschmidt]

13 hours ago, Laz said:

Messiah was, far and wide, the only positive about XPW in terms of the product. I may have had a soft spot for Johnny Webb and Homeless Jimmy, but Messiah was the only one I thought could've gone places.

I need to find a way to watch this ep. It's been the one I've wanted since the show started.

No idea how long it will stay up, but here you go....

https://dai.ly/x85100b

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Truly a horrible company.

[Al]

Usually the episodes end up on YouTube through the official vice channel. Might take a few days.

[Laz]

Caught it yesterday (thank you, @Blehschmidt).

There wasn't much new to me being brought up (though I somehow didn't know Kaos was Supreme's nephew), but it was worth it to expose Rob Black as the subhuman shitstain he is. I hope that we get some actual evidence that Rob was behind the Messiah attack and he gets sent to a federal penitentiary. Or that somebody who works his renewed XPW attempt knocks him down a few (hundred) pegs.

Jessica Darlin came off really well, too. She was just kinda there in XPW, from what I remember, but her disillusionment with everything Rob Black really shines through, even if she admits she had a blast for a while.

One thing I would've liked, though, would've been how Black transitioned from his "feud" with Heyman/ECW to the very real rivalry with Zandig/CZW, so much so that Justice Pain received death threats for leaving CZW and working for XPW. This was also when Shane Douglas took over as booker and put together some actually good shows, and XPW signed an exclusivity deal with the ECW Arena. Maybe not integral to the story being told, but this was all happening right around when the federal obscenity investigations were occurring, so it added to the "Rob Black is a shithead" story because he really did abandon the talent he convinced to kill themselves for him the moment things got hot.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

XPW really was the scuzziest of the scuzziest in pro-wrestling, and that covers a lot of ground - an ECW rip-off that substituted any attempt at storytelling for increased/mindless violence and a sprinkling of porn stars. I guess given the owner and his outlook when it came to his primary career, it was never going to be anything but the product it turned out like - I'm pretty sure there was a whole series of their TV show that had no wrestling whatsoever and only skits - but there was that brief period, which wasn't touched on in the episode where it was booked by Shane Douglas (who in standard wrestling booker style made himself the champion) and was something more resembling an actual wrestling company. I understand why it wasn't covered, given time, but it would've been interesting to get something on that period where they moved to the East Coast and we had the Philly wrestling wars when they got exclusivity on the ECW Arena. From the interviews with the people involved, you could sense they were trying to get across that ECW vibe of being 'a family' all working for a cause, but from the outside it just seemed like it was a place that took all the worst elements from two seedy industries and created a perverted mess.   

[sek69]

I distinctly remember when Rob Black was threatening to kill a dog live on the internet, and at first everyone was like "yeah ok whatever dude" until it looked like he was actually going to do it and there was a mad scramble among the community of the time to find out where he was and contact authorities. IIRC cops were able to locate him and his response was basically "it's just a prank, bro" before that was a meme. 

[The Thread Killer]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

I distinctly remember when Rob Black was threatening to kill a dog live on the internet, and at first everyone was like "yeah ok whatever dude" until it looked like he was actually going to do it and there was a mad scramble among the community of the time to find out where he was and contact authorities. IIRC cops were able to locate him and his response was basically "it's just a prank, bro" before that was a meme. 

I remember that too. He was threatening to feed a puppy to a boa constrictor live online. A guy named Jay Bower who wrote for Scott Keith’s website kicked up a huge uproar and ended up getting the police and the SPCA involved. In true Rob Black fashion, Black turned around and somehow managed to blame Bower for the whole thing, and threatened him, IIRC.

[Laz]

I remember Bower most for being a tool when he was made a mod on the Smarks/TSM forums, but at least he did some good. 

[sek69]

Man, this latest episode convinced me Jerry McDevitt is the slimiest lawyer of all time and 100% the guy I would want representing me if I was ever facing serious charges.