If you were hoping to get a ‘Dark Side of the Cage‘ episode about Dana White and the meteoric rise of the UFC, I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news.
Earlier this month, VICE TV debuted its latest ‘Dark Side’ series, this time focusing on the gritty world of mixed martial arts. The series, appropriately titled Dark Side of the Cage’ kicked off its 10-episode first season with the rise of backyard brawler Kimbo Slice. This week, fans got an inside look into the career of Diego Sanchez and his tumultuous relationship with self-described ‘guru’ Joshua Fabia.
During an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda MMA, series producer Tim Healy offered some insight into why they opted not to feature White or the story of the UFC.
“No, we know enough about the UFC and Dana to know not to waste our time, right? Really, back to one of my original points is, it’s not a series about the UFC,” Healy said. “There’s no avoiding the UFC, the UFC is the UFC, right? They’re the pre-eminent promotion, and all the fighters spent their time in the UFC and crossed paths with Dana White and the Fertittas… We didn’t reach out to Dana and we didn’t reach out to the Fertittas because we weren’t telling the UFC’s story.”
Another reason Healy decided to exclude the MMA juggernaut from the series is that he’s already had the chance to cover the UFC’s emergence as part of his ‘Dark Side of the 90s’ mini-series which was also produced for VICE.
“My production company, Railsplitter Pictures, we produced ‘Dark Side of the 90s’ for Vice, and when we were brainstorming episodes, we came up with let’s tell the story of the UFC,” Healy previously told MMA Fighting. “So we did a two-parter, we did 2 hours on the dark side of the UFC, and it did really, really well. It was received really well.”
The success of his UFC two-parter is what ultimately led Healy to develop ‘Dark Side of the Cage.’
‘Dark side of the cage’ will take a closer look at TUF
While the UFC won’t be explicitly covered this season, an episode focused on the promotion’s long-running reality TV series, The Ultimate Fighter, is scheduled to air on January 29.
Check out the full season one lineup of episodes below:
