VICE has revealed the full list of topics covered and confirmed Chris Jericho will return as narrator for the third season of Dark Side Of The Ring.
The new season premieres on Thursday, May 6 with a two-hour episode about the tragic story of Brian Pillman; the trailer can be seen via the video above. Chris Jericho will also return as the series’ narrator for a second consecutive season, and he is joined by a cast featuring Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, Jon Moxley, Mick Foley, Diamond Dallas Page, Eric Bischoff, Jim Ross, Jim Cornette, David Arquette, Antonio Inoki, Rob Van Dam, Terry Funk, and the former wife of Ultimate Warrior, Shari Tyree.
“With this epic, fourteen-episode season, we’ve had the opportunity to push the series to new heights and dig even deeper into a world that has captivated us our entire lives,” said executive producers & co-creators Jason Eisener and Evan Husney. “We’re excited to unveil a season that encompasses a whole new spectrum of stories, ranging from legendary icons of the past, to contemporary snapshots from wrestling’s underground, to mind-blowing sagas overseas.”
Following the premiere episode, the weekly, one-hour episodes that make up the third season will be split into two parts. Full details can be seen below:
In the subsequent weekly, one-hour episodes, the third season of Dark Side of the Ring will dive into a new slate of wrestling stories including: Collision in Korea, where, in one of the most bizarre acts of political theatre ever, professional wrestlers were deployed to North Korea faced a terrifying ordeal that had them fighting for their lives; the self-proclaimed king of deathmatch wrestling Nick Gage; the divisive force in and outside of the ring known as Ultimate Warrior; The Grizzly Smith story, which will detail how Jake “The Snake” and his siblings have struggled to reconcile their past after surviving horrific abuse at the hands of their father and the mysterious abduction of their sister; and The Dynamite Kid, whose riveting, self-sacrificing style earned him global fame but violent confrontations outside the ring would destroy his family, his body and his legacy.
The second half of the season, which will kick off in late summer, will continue to explore some of the darkest stories from the golden age of professional wrestling, which will notably include The Steroid Trials, where, in the mid 1990’s, wrestling titan Vince McMahon was accused of a plot to provide his wrestlers with performance enhancing drugs. With a guilty verdict threatening to force the WWF to consider running their business from a prison cell, McMahon assembled a powerhouse legal team to dismantle the prosecution’s case. Other gripping installments will cover the story of FMW, created by Japan’s Atsushi Onita, which featured spectacular matches and gratuitous gore but took a dark turn in the hands of Onita’s protégé; the groundbreaking talent known as Luna Vachon, who faced immense personal loss and battled addiction while making her mark in wrestling history; The Plane Ride From Hell, the infamous party onboard a private 757 charter high above the North Atlantic that spiralled dangerously out of control, forcing the WWE to reprimand some of its biggest stars; XPW, which merged Rob Black’s passions for porn and wrestling, but a fallout with a young wrestling upstart started a chain of events that led to a jealous rage and a terrifying amputation; and, in a wrestling world that celebrated machismo and used gay stereotypes to label characters as quirky or immoral, the incredible story of Chris Kanyon, who kept his own sexuality a closely guarded secret for decades.
Update: VICE also confirmed to WrestleZone that The Johnny K9 Story will be part of season three; the episode details his double life as an in-ring brute and the leader of a biker gang implicated in drug trafficking, the bombing of a police station, and a gruesome double murder.
The third season of Dark Side of the Ring marks the launch of VICE TV’s ‘Dark Side’ programming nights, with new episodes from the Dark Side franchise airing every Thursday evening. The network will also premiere the first franchise spinoff, Dark Side of Football, on Thursday May 13th @ 10 PM ET/PT. The series will “explore the tension between America’s undying love of the game, and its ability to corrupt and damage those who live and die for it.”
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