A terrifying childhood encounter with a wrestler forever changed N.S. filmmaker's career

When filmmaker Jason Eisener was around 10 years old, he went to a World Wrestling Federation show in Halifax. An encounter that night terrified him and changed his life.

As the wrestler Skinner made his way to the ring, Eisener and the cousin leaned over the guardrail and chanted "You suck" repeatedly to the wrestler. Skinner was billed as an alligator hunter from the Florida Everglades.

As the two screamed, Skinner locked eyes with the boys, came over and grabbed them by their shirt collars.

"I could see the chewing tobacco, like, oozing out of his mouth," Eisener, 42, said by telephone from Hollywood. "And he pulls us right up to his face and he's just like, 'I'm going to skin you.'

"And we sat down. We were so scared. We didn't make a peep the rest of that show that night. But that definitely had a huge impact on me."

Meanwhile, Eisener's godfather who took the two boys to the show didn't have the same reaction.

"Oh, he's laughing his ass off the whole time," said Eisener. "He thought it was so funny."

The Dartmouth, N.S., filmmaker is known for movies such as Hobo with a Shotgun and Kids vs. Aliens, but turned a childhood fascination and love of wrestling into the long-running television series Dark Side of the Ring, now in its sixth season on Crave.

"Had my godfather not taken me and my cousin to that match that night, who knows if I would have gone down the trajectory that I did?" said Eisener.

Dark Side of the Ring takes viewers inside the world of professional wrestling, retelling well-known and not-so-well-known stories that sometimes involve elements such as a wrestler's rise and fall, crime, substance abuse, relationship problems and catastrophic injuries.

To do that, Dark Side of the Ring usually interviews the people at the centre of the stories, loved ones and people from the wrestling world.

"They're like the best storytellers I've ever heard," said Eisener. "And that I find really inspiring, how they're able to tell a good yarn."

Eisener said the idea for the show was rooted in he and series co-creator Evan Husney's shared passion for wrestling.

They wanted to do a scripted drama, but found no interest, so they turned it into a documentary-style show instead.

"The more we looked into [wrestlers], we realized how tragic their stories were," said Eisener.

The show's name is fitting, both for the subject matter it covers, but also because when not using interviews or archival footage, the show is shot using silhouetted figures who are backlit.

Given the subject matter sometimes delves into true-crime topics, it's not surprising that Eisener said he's received death threats. He's even had his identity stolen.

Despite the show's often dark subject matter, Eisener said the families of the wrestlers are often very willing to talk about the tragedies.

"They're always pretty open and their perspectives are, I find, the most fascinating and seeing how they kind of navigated the world of wrestling and saw what their loved ones went through," he said.

Wrestler Maddison Miles has been wrestling for close to a decade and has done matches in 11 countries, including Mexico, Germany and Australia.

The 25-year-old lives in Dartmouth and recently watched the show for the first time. She was impressed.

"It's not put out there to make the industry look God awful ... all these performers are people just like you and me," she said.

"You know, everyone has lives, everyone goes through difficult times, and it's just kind of showing the fans what really happens on the other side of the curtain."

Where the themes of the show are universal, Dark Side of the Ring can be enjoyed by non-wrestling fans.

Eisener said that when he started working on the show, he never thought it would last six seasons. But he said he and Husney are not running out of ideas.

Skinner was interviewed for one episode. Eisener wasn't there, but the crew asked Skinner if he remembered the encounter in Halifax. Skinner said he did — and he had a message for Eisener.

"They filmed him cutting a promo on me now being like, 'I remember you from back then and I'm still going to skin you,'" said Eisener.