Zach Gowen wanted nothing to do with Dark Side of the Ring when producers first came knocking. The former WWE star only changed his mind after they promised his episode wouldn’t be another wrestling tragedy with the good part of his life left on the cutting-room floor.
Speaking with Bryan Asbury on Developmentally Speaking, Gowen said his first response to the documentary was a hard no.
“They approached me. I initially said no.”
His wife pushed him to reconsider. She isn’t a wrestling fan and hates the business, but Dark Side of the Ring is her favorite show.
“I talked to my wife about it. She said, ‘Well, you have to do it. You absolutely have to do it.’”
“It’s my wife’s favorite show. My wife is not a wrestling fan—not one percent. She hates the wrestling business.”
The producers told Gowen that filming would require around two days of work. Gowen gave them his price for that commitment, and they accepted it.
“They told me, ‘It’ll be about two days’ worth of work for you.’”
“I said, ‘This is what two days’ worth of work looks like to me, and this is what it costs.’ They said, ‘Okay, we can do it.’”
The money and time commitment weren’t Gowen’s biggest concerns. He refused to sit in front of a camera, tear open the worst moments of his life and then watch the episode end before reaching the recovery that followed.
“I’m not here just to open up old wounds and cry about it.”
Gowen told producers that his current life had to be part of the documentary. If the episode was going to show his darkest moments, it also needed to show how he fought his way out of them.
“If I’m going to agree to do this episode with y’all, then there has to be the redemption piece at the end about what my life is like now. There has to be.”
An episode built only around his past mistakes held no interest for Gowen.
“We’re just sitting there talking and rehashing the horrible stories and bad things that I did as a young person. I’m not really interested in that.”
The producers agreed and told Gowen that his recovery was not some optional happy ending. It was the entire reason they wanted to tell his story.
“They said, ‘We’re not interested in telling this story unless we have that redemption piece at the end. That’s the whole point of it.’”
Gowen ultimately spent two long days filming for the documentary. His mother and wife were also interviewed, giving the episode a closer look at the people who witnessed both his collapse and recovery.
That didn’t make revisiting the past any easier. Gowen admitted that parts of the interview forced him to reopen wounds he had spent years healing.
“For the interview part, it was uncomfortable for me at certain points because I had to revisit and open up some old wounds.”
Gowen no longer carries anger toward the people or events from that period of his life. He wanted viewers to see that the man discussing those painful memories is no longer trapped inside them.
“After all these years, everything is healed. I hold no grudges or resentments.”
Zach Gowen: Against All Odds aired on August 25 as the Season 7 finale of Dark Side of the Ring. Gowen nearly turned it down, but the promise of showing what came after the darkness convinced him that his story was finally worth reopening.
Do you think Dark Side of the Ring handled Zach Gowen’s recovery and redemption properly? Leave your feedback in the comments.
