Dark Side of the Ring nearly died before it ever got rolling, and according to Evan Husney, AEW’s early rise played a big part in saving it.
While speaking to POST Wrestling, the show’s co-creator and executive producer said Vice was not exactly convinced a serious wrestling docuseries could work on cable back in 2019. Husney said the first season had already taken a ton of work, but there was still a real chance the whole thing would be stuck on the shelf.
“It’s funny going back to 2019 because… there wasn’t a lot of belief that a show like ours could work on cable TV at that point in time because, yeah, wrestling… there wasn’t a lot of faith in that and it actually… our show was going to be shelved for a very long time. That was a very possibility that was about to occur in 2019. And we were very disheartened by that because we had put so much work into the first season and we thought we hit it out of the park.”
Then AEW started making noise. Husney remembered seeing the news that AEW landed a TV deal, and he used that as proof that wrestling was not some dead cable genre. His pitch was simple: if two wrestling companies were about to fight for viewers on cable, Dark Side of the Ring needed to be part of that moment.
“I remember when… there was some big press release that came out that they had landed a TV deal. And then I remember taking that and literally going to the company… and we brought it to them and we’re like, ‘Look guys, first time maybe in a very long time, years, decades, where you’re going to see two wrestling companies effectively competing for fans’ attention on cable. This is our time. It couldn’t be a better time for us to be in the mix on this.’ And that’s really a huge part of what pushed the show to finally get on air.”
Husney also said they had to fight ugly stereotypes about wrestling fans. Some TV executives apparently viewed wrestling viewers as useless to advertisers, but AEW’s early audience helped show the exact opposite.
“Demonstrating… I think it was that first AEW show where… I think we used the metrics of their All In show. Like people flew in. This is an affluent… because there was a lot of negative stereotypes about wrestling watchers on cable—that they had no money, they were worthless to advertisers. That was another stigma we had to fight against.”
His point was that wrestling fans were already proving their value with their wallets. They were traveling, buying tickets, paying for events, and showing up in ways that made it harder for executives to dismiss them.
“No, it’s the opposite. Look how much money people are spending going to these shows, you know? And so all of that helped us get to where we are and to now know how popular and prevalent still wrestling is on all types of different media now. I think it only helps each other. I think we all kind of help each other in some weird way.”
So yeah, Dark Side of the Ring did not just magically become a wrestling TV success story. It had to survive corporate doubt first, and AEW’s timing helped give Husney the argument he needed. Wrestling was hot again, fans were spending money, and Vice suddenly had a reason to believe the show could work.
Now, years later, Dark Side of the Ring is still going, and that early panic makes the story even wilder. A show that almost got buried before fans ever saw it ended up becoming one of wrestling’s most talked-about docuseries.
What do you think about AEW’s early momentum helping Dark Side of the Ring get on air? Did Vice underestimate wrestling fans back then? Let us know in the comments below.
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