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

6. New Jack Wasn't Familiar With Dark Side Of The Ring

Woman Nancy Chris Benoit
VICE

After the two-part opener focused on the Benoit Tragedy, the next story told in Season 2 of Dark Side of the Ring is that of New Jack.

The real-life Jerome Young is one of the most intense, aggressive, outright violent, fascinating individuals seen across North American wrestling on any sort of even semi-major platform. As New Jack, Young's time in ECW is the stuff of legend and also the stuff of infamy.

Following the series' first season, the minds behind Dark Side of the Ring took to Twitter to poll audiences on which people and stories they'd like to see showcased in Season 2. And one person whose name frequently came up, was New Jack.

As a long-time ECW fan himself, Evan Husney was the one who reached out to this hardcore icon. The thing is, New Jack hadn't even heard of Dark Side of the Ring.

"Once we got going for Season 2, one fo the first things I did was cold-call New Jack and try and get him on board with the show," Husney reveals, "He wasn't really familiar with the show or with VICE, so I don't think he quite knew what he signed up for. I actually wasn't going to tell him, I wasn't going to give him much context for it. His shoot interviews are so incredible. When he's the most candid is when he's the best on camera, and so I didn't want to influence that in any way. I wanted him to just be himself. It was a wild experience, definitely."

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

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.