The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries

[Brian Fowler]

@Elsalvajelocomy favorite Heenan bit from that show:

Heenan: I'm also a legend in this sport. If you don't believe me, just ask me.

 

Tony: Are you a legend in this sport?

 

Bobby: Of course I am, I just told you, don't you listen to me?

[southofheavy]

13 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

You forgot about my all-time favourite Eric Bischoff: I think highly of myself as a martial artist, so let me talk about this guy's kicks. 

...so let me talk about everyone's Back Leg Round Kick. FTFY. 

Say it one more time, Bischoff. 

 

[NoFistsJustFlips]

On 2/25/2021 at 8:35 AM, Technico Support said:

Hey man, we're just going to agree to disagree on this.  It's cool.  It's not just about "selling some shirts."  I've tried to get it across but you're ignoring my point or not seeing it, and that's fine.  My point was that Conrad comes across as a guy always looking for an angle, something to sell, which feels disingenuous to me.  I can't personally enjoy a show when I feel like the show is secondary to the host's need to sell me some shit.  Everybody needs to make money, but don't be so overt about it.  That's my whole point.  I'm not begrudging the guy for trying to make money.  I'm begrudging the guy for being so artlessly obvious and distasteful about it.  YMMV. 

There's nothing wrong with not enjoying Conrad or his style. You're allowed to like what you like. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, rather just add a perspective I don't think is getting represented in the discussion.

The inorganic catch phrases you hate. If every post you made on this board were super popular to the point you sold 10,000 shirts every time you made a catch phrase... you'd probably keep doing it too lol. Right? I mean it would be one thing if they did all this inorganic shit for nothing. But they are rolling in bank. When people stop buying the shirts he will stop hawking catch phrases. I can't begrudge him for that. And agreeing with your main point, he *is* a carny salesman. He runs a mortgage company. That's only like half a rung under insurance salesman lol. But he will never try and get a job with WWE or AEW. Because he would have to take a six or seven digit pay cut. He's super successful with the mortgages and the podcast stuff. So that, I don't think, is his goal.

Just trying to maybe give you a different pov to view it from. Not trying to change your mind. I didn't jump on Conrad podcasts until a few years in. So I probably missed the worst of it. I also avoid the Schivonne podcast all together because I don't find anything useful there. Its three hours of small dick jokes and not a lot of wrestling knowledge added. So I see where you're coming from. I do Love 83 Weeks & STW tho. Arn & JR are hit & miss for me.

[Elsalvajeloco]

IMO Schiavone is much better when he's watching Crockett or something he's never seen before. That said, since he's been with AEW for the last year and a half, he's cut a lot of the juvenile humor out just because you cannot do that working for the company the size of AEW. A lot of the corny stuff they did early in the podcast (back when Tony was with MLW and when you had adverts with Sean Mooney doing MLW updates), they have since dropped cold turkey. I did notice, however, that from a few shows last year that he (Tony) seemed be out of sync with Conrad and Conrad couldn't get much out of him (much like when they first started the podcast years ago). So when Conrad said he had an announcement late last year and it would probably piss folks off, I thought he was ending WHW because Tony's workload in AEW was too much (since then, they've routinely talk about Tony filming Dark until 2 or 3 in the morning).

Turns out going to 1986 JCP, which was the announcement, revitalized the podcast to me because now both guys are invested. I would like for them to look through a variety of stuff, but it's clear that honeymoon phase is over as they've already went through a bulk of WCW and surprisingly a lot of ECW high (and low) points. 

[Johnny Sorrow]

The Crockett 86 WHW shows are super fun, and instead of Conrad's Observer and Torch bits, he's using the great Richard Land's History of the WWE site for research. 

[odessasteps]

23 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

he's cut a lot of the juvenile humor out just because you cannot do that working for the company the size of AEW.

Also, working for AEW already means getting your fill of juvenile humor. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

Also, working for AEW already means getting your fill of juvenile humor. 

I dunno if it's funny or just an overall indictment about the state of wrestling that stuff he does drop (the button on the fur coat, glass bottom boat ride, talking about Flair's dick, etc.) he could probably get away with if he knew how to walk that line. However, anytime one of the attractive female from wrestling hits the screen on a watch along or Conrad talks about one of the pornstars he knows, it always goes into some creepy old man territory. That should be the time someone superkicks him in the face.

[Peck]

Don't remember if this was mentioned previously, but looking like a possible "Plane Ride From Hell" episode this season.

https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/03/07/jim-ross-interviewed-by-dark-side-of-the-ring-covering-plane-ride-from-hell/

[odessasteps]

This popped up in my YouTube feed. Looks like the Gino episode but with new ? Wraparounds with Conrad and the EPs. 

[PetrolCB]

Yeah, they're doing that for all of last season's episodes, leading into the new ones in a few months. 

[The Green Meanie]

On 3/15/2021 at 11:47 PM, odessasteps said:

This popped up in my YouTube feed. Looks like the Gino episode but with new ? Wraparounds with Conrad and the EPs. 

This was the first time I saw this particular episode. It's certainly changed my view on a lot of points about the subject, and now I'm not so sure what I believe. Anyone else feel the same way?

[Casey]

On 3/16/2021 at 8:20 AM, PetrolCB said:

Yeah, they're doing that for all of last season's episodes, leading into the new ones in a few months. 

They aired one for The Montreal Screwjob from S1 too.

[PetrolCB]

9 hours ago, Casey said:

They aired one for The Montreal Screwjob from S1 too.

I watched that and it didn't register. I guess they're cherry picking the best episodes?

[Casey]

Oddly enough, my recordings for the Confidential episodes end after this coming Tuesday's Last of the Von Erichs. Nothing on 3/30 for Dark Side of the Ring.

 

[RIPPA]

Deadline has a story that says they will do a Confidentials for 8 episodes in total from Season 1 and Season 2

The only three mentioned in the story are the two they already did and the one for the Von Erich episode this week.

So to address Casey's point - it is possible they haven't finished shooting them yet

https://deadline.com/2021/03/vice-dark-side-of-the-ring-franchise-deep-dive-talkshow-1234704091/

[DreamBroken]

 

Season 3 Premieres May 6

so the official listing in there is: Pillman, Nick Gage, Ultimate Warrior, Collision in Korea, Grizzly Smith, and Dynamite Kid.

[zendragon]

A couple of cool docs I watched last week on Tubi

 

[Technico Support]

LOL @ "Can you do the happy side of the ring once in a while???"

Still pining for the return of The Wrestlers.

[RIPPA]

Reminder for folks that Confidential permanently moves to Thursdays starting this week (since they are avoiding NXT)

[Curt McGirt]

Vice is also doing Dark Side of Football and Dark Side of the '90s. Which lends a lot of credence to Steve Albini's rant about them being cultural vultures who sell programming based on the worst life has to offer. 

[Technico Support]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Vice is also doing Dark Side of Football and Dark Side of the '90s. Which lends a lot of credence to Steve Albini's rant about them being cultural vultures who sell programming based on the worst life has to offer. 

That's their one formula.  Their other formula is "take a normal show genre like cooking or whatever, then add weed."

RIP interesting Vice shows like Cyberwar and Abandoned (and the aforementioned The Wrestlers, which I guess was too positive or they couldn't figure out a way to creatively add weed and B/C level rappers.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

Not for nothing, I would be all over a show that spotlights a particular wrestler, era, promotion, feud or whatnot and just waxes enthusiastic about it. A bunch of old workers and historians and celebrity fans just gushing & kvelling and explaining why *such&such* is ssooo great, with references for further study. I am sure that there are podcasts like this (don't listen to them, I am on one) but a streaming show with a budget would be festive.

- all about thee positivity,

RAF

[Log]

The Wrestlers was that positive show, but with current wrestlers. I agree with others here who’ve said they’d like to see more episodes of that one. 
 

in defense of Dark Side, they do tend to try to show something positive or uplifting that came from the tragedy. The Benoit episodes, which were probably the most bleak, ended with his Nancy’s sister reuniting with her nephew. Owen’s episode showed that his kids have, by all appearances, grown into good people. I honestly don’t know how they can do that for something like the Grizzly Smith episode, but that show’s not 100% doom and gloom. 

[Technico Support]

16 minutes ago, Log said:

in defense of Dark Side, they do tend to try to show something positive or uplifting that came from the tragedy. The Benoit episodes, which were probably the most bleak, ended with his Nancy’s sister reuniting with her nephew. Owen’s episode showed that his kids have, by all appearances, grown into good people. I honestly don’t know how they can do that for something like the Grizzly Smith episode, but that show’s not 100% doom and gloom. 

Sure, but that's just the same old tried and true shit that TV news has pulled forever.  Sometimes you do it inside a story, where it's 90% doom and gloom and then end the story with how this thing isn't as bad as we just spent a whole package telling you it was.  Sometimes it's the whole newscast, where you get three murders, a rape, arson, and all manner of man against man atrocities, then end with a story about pet adoption.  Finishing a horrible story with a token uplifting bit is right out of the cynical TV producer playbook.

[Log]

14 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Sure, but that's just the same old tried and true shit that TV news has pulled forever.  Sometimes you do it inside a story, where it's 90% doom and gloom and then end the story with how this thing isn't as bad as we just spent a whole package telling you it was.  Sometimes it's the whole newscast, where you get three murders, a rape, arson, and all manner of man against man atrocities, then end with a story about pet adoption.  Finishing a horrible story with a token uplifting bit is right out of the cynical TV producer playbook.

Yep, that's called the "kicker".  I did 15+ years in tv news.  I don't think the Dark Side endings are quite the same thing.  The Benoit episode made Nancy the focus.  Then it wrapped up with how her family was currently doing.  The Snuka episode focused on the victim.  That is one thing that sets this series apart from a lot of true crime shows.  I get uncomfortable with how much those shows glorify the killers.  It seems like this series has taken an effort to focus on the victims and tell their stories.  I had to knock on the doors on many, many victims and families of victims of horrible crimes.  What I'd tell them is that I'd rather see a story about the person that was lost or wronged and see the positives about them than see a story about someone who did something awful.  Maybe that's how I justified it to myself, or maybe it was true?  I can honestly say as fact that it did help some people deal with a tragedy by telling others about the person they loved, that they weren't just some body found or a statistic in the city's homicide numbers.  I think this show does that to an extent.  That may be why they've had such good luck getting interviews with people who usually don't do them?

I mean, at the end of the day it is Dark Side of the Ring.  They put it right out there in the title. 

I do agree with you, though, that it would be nice to have a show celebrating pro wrestling.  I mean, WWE has their docs, but most of them are so full of BS that it takes away from actual good stories.