10 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring's Evan Husney

9. The Reason For Dutch Mantell's Absence

Woman Nancy Chris Benoit
WWE

Bar one Mick Foley-narrated episode, Dark Side of the Ring's first season saw Dutch Mantell as the voice talking us through some of wrestling's most interesting, often tragic tales. For Season 2, however, it's Chris Jericho in the narrator's chair.

Jericho completely knocks it out of the park as the second season's narrator, yet some were wondering why exactly Dirty Dutch and his famous drawl didn't return for Season 2.

As per Evan Husney, the reason for Dutch's absence was down to the second season being a Canadian production rather than a US production, ala Season 1.

Evan details, "They actually looked at financing Season 2 differently. They found they could qualify for different tax credits if they made it a Canadian production, but the main issue with making it a Canadian production is that your narrator voice - who is considered one of your leading actors - has to be Canadian. That put us in an unfortunate situation, because obviously Dutch Mantell couldn't be any further from Canadian. We loved what Dutch brought to the show. His voice was always a voice that we just loved for that. Unfortunately, the way the show was set up, we had no choice but to find someone who was Canadian to narrate this."

The way that Jericho ended up getting the narrator gig actually came during the filming of the Benoit Tragedy two-parter. Having interviewed Le Champion for his thoughts on that whole situation, the question was casually posed to Jericho as to whether he'd have any interest in narrating the season.

With both parties keen on this idea, a deal was quickly struck and now we have the dulcet tones of the inaugural AEW Champion guiding us through the stories of Dark Side of the Ring's second year.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.