Dark Side of the Ring captivated viewers with true stories that showed the grimy underbelly of the wrestling business. Creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener are back with a new show, Tales From the Territories. Their new venture is partnered with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions.
Husney and Eisener are featured on the latest episode of The Sessions with Renee Paquette. Husney recalled during season one of DSOTR that The Rock tweeted him about the show. From there, they had meetings with Seven Bucks Productions to discuss projects and future ideas.
How Tales From the Territories Came About
“The roots of the show actually go back to right after season one in 2019 with Territories and we were batting around ideas. The short version of the story is that Brian Gewirtz who works with The Rock at Seven Bucks. We hit it off with him and had this mutual interest in wanting to do something about territory wrestling. That’s a huge, major fixation of Jason and I. We love that era. We’re huge World Class fans, Jim Crockett Promotions, all that stuff.”
When working on the Chris Benoit episode of DSOTR, they were working with Chavo Guerrero, Jr., who also wanted to do a documentary in “the territory realm.” “It was almost this perfect storm of all of us coming together and saying ‘let’s just do something together.’ And that was sort of developed and pitched as Tales From the Territories.” VICE wanted to do it and they went into production immediately following season three of DSOTR.
“Working with someone like The Rock and what that brings to the production is obviously a huge stamp of authenticity. One of the hardest parts on DSOTR sometimes is calling up wrestlers and getting them on the show. I think for great reason and a little suspect of guys like us that want to make docs about their lives or the darkest periods of their lives and stuff like that. Working with Dwayne has been awesome because obviously, he has all the relationships in the world in this business. And it’s given us the opportunity to work with a lot of different wrestlers that we didn’t have the chance to work with on Dark Side like Jerry Lawler and Michael Hayes.”
They also worked with Ted DiBiase and Kevin Sullivan for the first time. With the new show, they were able to bring back people like Bret Hart.
What to expect from the show
Each episode of Territories is in the roundtable format. Eisener explains that “the show is about one topic or one event.” “But, we wanted to try to recreate that feeling of being around a table with wrestlers when they’re telling stories and kind of bouncing back and forth, like off each other. We bring them all to a table and they sit down and we try to create a good environment for them to have fun telling their stories. And then we do the re-enactments, kind of similar to like we do with DSOTR. Each episode is like, five to six different stories within the territory.”
Husney interjects, “we say it’s almost like Tales from the Crypt format, you know where it’s kind of anthology of stories. It’s not a total history of the territory. It’s literally, you’re a fly on the wall for these four or five wrestlers coming together for the first time. Some that haven’t been in the same room in 35 years when they were working together in the 80s. It’s a cool vibe.”
“I remember several years ago, I think it was maybe STARRCAST, walking into a bar and it was Road Warrior Animal, Scott Norton, Eric Bischoff, and Sonny Oono and a bunch of these guys around a table, a few beers in, and they’re just telling these stories that were just jaw-dropping. Every one. One guy told a story and then the next guy told a story, and they just kind of went down the line. One story turned into 20 stories. I remember even Eric Bischoff at the time leaned over and was like, ‘this could be recreated for television’ and it was like, ‘I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing.’ That’s what the challenge of this was. Can we recreate this naturalistic, old time wrestlers hanging out and telling their best stories?”
Challenges that come with shooting a new series
Husney shared that there was a bit of a concern shooting in a studio, away from the comfort of the wrestler’s home. He also shared that there was a little bit of one-upsmanship with stories and they would maybe “embellish or over-exagerate”. Fans will see “this is the lore. These are the legends, like legendary stories of the road you know have taken on a new life as each decade rolls by. That’s the fun of show. It’s not trying to be journalistically accurate in a lot of ways. There’s no way that these stories could be, but that’s what’s great about them.”
There is a team of researchers to find the best stories and to help book the wrestlers to talk about them. Husney confirmed that the legendary story involving Ken Patera, Mr. Saito, and a McDonald’s is told on Territories.
The biggest challenge of doing a show like this is that many of the people involved have passed away. Bobby Heenan and Roddy Piper are two names Husney wished they could’ve talked too. Another issue is whether certain wrestlers would get along or have chemistry.
Three episodes have been filmed so far, with seven more scheduled. They’ll be delivering the episodes as they air. Husney does say there are talks for season four of DSOTR. Since Territories was on the way, they were focusing on that. “We’re definitely getting back to Dark Side.”
Short stories from Territories has provided story ideas for DSOTR. “In the Mid-South episode, there’s a lot of talk about Junkyard Dog and talking about some of the angles he was involved with,” Husney shared.
Tales From the Territories airs Tuesdays at 10 PM ET on VICE.
If you use any quotes from the article, please credit SEScoops with an H/t for transcription.
