Dark Side of the Ring is opening Season 7 with a three-part TNA Wrestling story, but the original plan was much bigger.
Series co-creator Evan Husney revealed on The Jim Cornette Experience that the Jeff Jarrett and TNA episodes were first imagined as a six-part standalone project. The idea even had its own name, and it leaned right into TNA’s old identity.
“Originally it was going to be six parts. More as a standalone thing. It was going to be the six sides of TNA, is what we were going to call it.”
That is a pretty wild “what could have been,” because TNA’s history could easily fill six hours. The company launched after WCW was sold to WWE, survived financial disasters, backstage madness, power struggles, talent drama, and plenty of moments that still get fans arguing today. Husney said the plan was to follow up their Who Killed WCW? documentary with another major deep dive, this time on TNA. After that, they even thought about possibly doing the same thing with ECW.
“The idea was to continue in that tradition and do TNA as the next sort of deep dive exploration that we would have done on its own, and then maybe we could have done ECW.”
That did not happen. Husney said Vice did not want to go that route, so the TNA project became part of Dark Side of the Ring Season 7 instead. Even then, the story was still too big for two episodes. Husney said they had to push the network for a third hour so the whole thing could breathe.
“But for whatever reason, Vice didn’t want to do that. We kind of went to the network, begging and pleading for that third hour, so we could let the story breathe a little bit more.”
The final version will now air as a three-part story focused heavily on Jeff Jarrett, TNA’s launch, and the chaos that followed. Husney said the third part gets deep into Jarrett’s addiction struggles and covers the Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff era of the company.
The episodes will include Karen Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, James Mitchell, Awesome Kong, Eric Bischoff, David Sahadi, Vince Russo, and Jim Cornette. Dixie Carter declined to take part, which means one of the biggest voices in TNA history will not be telling her side directly. Dark Side of the Ring Season 7 premieres Tuesday, July 7 at 9 p.m. ET on Vice TV, with the first two parts of the TNA story airing back-to-back. Part three airs July 14.
TNA fans are still getting a major look at the company’s wild history, but Husney’s comments make it clear they almost got something much bigger. A six-part Six Sides of TNA series sounds like the kind of wrestling documentary that could have peeled the whole thing open.
Do you think TNA deserved the full six-part treatment instead of three Dark Side of the Ring episodes?