Andrew Goldstein, a former WWE writer who currently serves as showrunner for Dark Side of the Ring Confidential, recently joined the Wrestling-Wrestling podcast, and he discussed how the series is able to use WWE footage. Here are some of the highlights (via Fightful):
Andrew Goldstein on Dark Side of the Ring using WWE footage: “WWE owns so much of wrestling history. Those guys do such a great and creative job of finding other ways to use B roll. There are certain legal loopholes and you can make fair use of arguments since VICE is a news channel and there are ways to skirt the laws of copyright and you can license footage. Those guys do such a great job of finding all the best stuff that WWE doesn’t own or finding ways to use stuff WWE does own in a legal way.”
On the process of securing footage for the series: “In terms of stuff we wanted to use, there were little things. In hours I’m doing work, I’m on the phone with our lawyer and rights and clearances person being like, ‘Is there a chance we can get away with using this picture of Heidenreich?’ I wanted to show the different versions of LOD after they had broken up. There’s not a lot of pictures of Animal and Heidenreich or Hawk and Sasaki in Japan as that version. That stuff is hard. Another one is, I had these knockdown dragout situations, begging to use the actual footage from Starrcade 88, the scaffold match with Road Warriors and Midnight Express. The guys at the table specifically reference the spot where Jim Cornette hangs from the scaffold and falls. Big Bubba is supposed to catch him and Cornette drops like a sack of potatoes and destroys both of his knees because Big Bubba whiffs. I wanted to match that footage with what the guys were specifically talking about. Eventually, we got it in, but that was a struggle.”
