TNA Dark Side of the Ring

Nearly a year and a half after the sixth season of the the fascinating, controversial, and at times disappointing Dark Side of the Ring series debuted on Vice TV, the seventh series was back on the network. This time, the producers tackled the complex and intriguing narrative of Total Nonstop Action, the upstart league that was created out of the ashes of World Championship Wrestling by Jeff Jarrett and his dad Jerry, the longtime promoter of the Memphis territory.

In truth, I was somewhat surprised when another season of the series was announced a few months ago because while the sport unfortunately does have way too many tragedies, at some point enough often depressing programming is enough, or the producers rehashed topics that were covered ad nauseam previously. Nobody needed another 45 minutes on Montreal or The Brawl for All. On the flip side, the episodes on Bruiser Brody, Owen Hart, Chris Candido, and others were more than worthwhile.

The biggest criticism of the series might be that too often it tries too hard to find the "red meat" of a subject, regardless of is the topic justifies it or not. After the three-part presentation, the story they told of TNA falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

It goes without saying that 44 minutes of runtime after commercials makes it tough for editors to cover every aspect of each show. It's one of the sacrifices that has to be made for a more mainstream, albeit smaller, cable platform. Last week when the new season kicked off, the first two episodes of TNA aired, covering more or less the first seven years of the company's existence. As a result, the timeline jumped around a lot, summarizing large periods of time in ways that weren't exactly accurate, even if the intention wasn't for the presentation to be misleading. One of the biggest pieces of the TNA puzzle that was completely skipped over was Jay Hassman's involvement in the earliest stages of the organization. Hassman worked on the pay-per-view side of WCW and was hired to do the same for NWA-TNA when the group tried to secure the critical pay-per-view distribution that would allow for the concept of weekly pay-per-views to at least attempt to get off the ground. Infamously, Hassman created fake flash reports, suggesting that NWA-TNA sold exponentially more PPVs than it actually did, and in reality, the company didn't have nearly the amount of pay-per-view coverage that he claimed it did. As a result, TNA operated in the red without knowing it within the first month of the promotion, which led to Jeff Jarrett looking for the investment from Health South.

It was mentioned in the episode that early funding from Richard Scrushy ended relatively quickly after he was charged with fraud, eventually serving about five years in federal prison on more charges that were filed after Health South's original line of credit for TNA ended. With Scrushy under federal investigation, the story was told of how Dixie Carter got involved with TNA after she worked at a PR firm that had the company as a client. Dixie set up the meeting with Jeff Jarrett and her dad, the owner of Panda Energy, Bob Carter.

Despite the extensive debacle that became TNA Wrestling, it's clear that the narrative of Dark Side of the Ring was that Dixie Carter was presented as the heel of the story. Don't get me wrong, TNA did ultimately fail because of Dixie, but there's more than enough blame to go around for the many things that caused the company to collapse. Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and Vince Russo could be equally as to blame for the downfall of the organization as Carter. I'd guess the main reason for this was that Dixie declined to participate in the documentary so it was rather easy for the producers to put together a story that would point the finger at the villain that wasn't there to defend themselves. Ironically, Vince Russo, who is a frequent talking head on the series, wasn't blamed for his involvement in TNA being canceled from Spike TV, which was the main reason that company fell off a cliff in 2014. It was never mentioned that Spike TV executive specifically told Dixie that they didn't want Russo scripting any shows that would air on the network, and it was revealed that Russo was still secretly working for the company when he accidentally sent an e mail to PWInsider's Mike Johnson instead of announcer, Mike Tenay.

It was probably the right decision to include Jarrett's career within a show about TNA because much of the story of his career was associated with the brand. That being said, the show was too soft on him at some points, particularly how his reign as champion, especially after 2003 was completely unnecessary when names like AJ Styles, Abyss, or Christopher Daniels were on the roster. Yes, Jarrett's extended title reign was, at least in part, an ego trip because his tenure in TNA allowed him to be the top guy that he thought he should've been years earlier in the WWF. Still, Double J deserves a lot of credit with what he was able to do with the group under his direction until 2009, the industry needed options, and TNA allowed that to happen. There are numerous performers that went on to have major success in the WWE because they had a chance to make a name for themselves in TNA.

At some points, the documentary episodes overvalued the status that the promotion had throughout its history. TNA had very little mainstream cache until it landed on Spike TV in late-2005. The deal they had for a year on Fox Sports Net on Friday afternoon was minimal. The actual window that TNA had to truly establish itself was roughly from 2006 until 2009. There was no mention of when the company didn't have television in the summer of 2005 with internet exclusive shows until the Spike TV debut in October of that year. Aside from no mention of the Spike TV cancellation, the series didn't include anything about the short stints Impact had on Pop TV, Destination America, or The Pursuit Channel.

The story of the passing of Jill Jarrett was absolutely heart-breaking. When you consider how many people, including the short-fused, Scott Steiner shed tears when discussing her passing, she seemed like a wonderful lady that had a positive impact on those that knew her. One of the biggest revelations of the series was that the narrative around the Karen Jarrett involvement in the company for years was claimed to be incorrect. Karen claims that she was legally separated from Kurt Angle and they were living apart before she started a relationship with Jeff Jarrett. Granted, Kurt wasn't involved in the show so technically there was only one side of the story told, but he could easily post a public rebuttal online if Karen's version isn't accurate. It certainly paints the Angle/Jarrett scenario in a different light if those claims are true.

I'm really not sure if the implication that Dixie used Jeff's relationship with Karen as an excuse to push him out of the company is fair to her. Keep in mind, Dixie worked at a PR firm prior to this, and it goes without saying that it could've negatively impacted the company if the founder had a relationship with the top star's former wife. It's just as possible that Dixie wanted to avoid conflict in the work place, and if I had to guess, I'd say that probably was the case. Furthermore, the third episode of show chronicled much of Hulk Hogan's involvement and how it tanked the promotion. Dixie Carter was definitely a money mark that Hulk worked for major cash. But, she couldn't be a mastermind to plan a way to get rid of Jarrett so that she could takeover TNA and then be so clueless that she would let Hogan take the power that she supposedly schemed to get from Jarrett. Again, she probably wanted to avoid conflict in the work place so she sent Jeff home and was a total money mark for Hulk Hogan. Sure, she enjoyed the spotlight and wanted to play TV star, but she wasn't nearly as conniving as the documentary implied.

Another side note about Kurt Angle's involvement in the company that the documentary didn't specifically cover was the circumstances of his arrival to TNA. Angle was fired from WWE because he had an addiction issue, and at the time that he signed a TNA contract, there was some criticism toward the organization because there was concern about Angle's health.

The third episode was needed to provide a conclusion to the story of TNA up until this point, but it didn't exactly break any new ground either. Yes, taking Impact on the road and the attempt to go head-to-head with WWE were what eventually had the company on the brink of collapse. The infamous Victory Road incident where an impaired Jeff Hardy was on pay-per-view, as well as Jarrett's substance issues are well-documented so most of the audience that would watch Dark Side of the Ring already knew those stories. Thankfully, the conclusion of the third episode was a positive note about TNA, and more importantly, the life of Jeff Jarrett with his current role in AEW.