Dark Side of the Ring almost told The Renegade’s story years ago, but not in the way fans are finally getting it now.
While speaking on Talk Is Jericho, co-creator and executive producer Evan Husney revealed that The Renegade was originally considered for the show’s Season 3 episode on Ultimate Warrior. It made sense on paper, since WCW basically presented Renegade as their Warrior-style answer back in the day. Husney said they even interviewed people about it, but the story ended up getting chopped because it was too much to squeeze into Warrior’s episode.
“Back when we were doing season three, we were doing the episode about Ultimate Warrior. And one of the story threads you think would make the cut—but of course it just seems ridiculous in hindsight—we were going to get into The Renegade a little bit in that Ultimate Warrior episode. And we had interviewed people about it. We had interviewed, like, a handful of people about it. But obviously it just got cut for time. It didn’t really make sense to kind of throw in this other guy who wasn’t really related to him in any way. But that’s always kind of been on the back burner as a great story, and people have always been at us to do it.”
Turns out, cutting it may have been the right call. Husney said Renegade’s story stayed in their minds for years, and once they finally found the right people to talk to, the whole thing opened up.
“It wasn’t until, for whatever reason this season, we tracked down his first wife and we tracked down some of his friends, and it just kind of then—sometimes it proves you just got to do a little bit of the work and a little bit more of the research—and then, whoa, a whole story emerges. Honestly, we weren’t sure, could it carry its own episode, its own hour? And then just when you start doing research and talking to people, you’re like, ‘Oh, absolutely it can,’ because his whole life story is obviously very tragic.”
So instead of being a side note in Warrior’s story, Renegade is now getting the full spotlight. That is probably for the best, because his career was always more than just being “WCW’s Warrior knockoff,” even if that is how many fans first remember him. The episode now sounds less like a recycled Warrior chapter and more like a real look at the man behind one of wrestling’s strangest gimmicks.
Do you think The Renegade’s story deserved its own Dark Side of the Ring episode all along? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let us know.
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