Who Killed WCW creator and executive producer Evan Husney has explained how The Rock became involved in the upcoming docuseries.
Husney and Jason Eisener are best known for their work in the docuseries Dark Side of the Ring which focuses on some of the most tragic and controversial stories from the history of professional wrestling. Their latest project was announced back in November 2023 and was described as “a docuseries investigating the mysterious demise of World Championship Wrestling (WCW), once the biggest wrestling company in America” that would air on VICE, the home of Dark Side of the Ring.
While the announcement itself piqued the curiosity of fans, the excitement only grew when it was revealed that The Rock’s Seven Bucks Productions was the studio behind the project and that the Hollywood star would also be interviewed as part of the series. Husney and Eisener had also previously produced the Tales From the Territories docuseries, which was produced by Seven Bucks.
Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about the upcoming docuseries, Husney first explained how the idea for the project came together:
“We thought maybe we could do it like, you know, the final years of WCW as a subject and it started, we just got so excited with this idea that we’re like, wait, maybe this could be its own series for television,” he recounted. “Then we’d done Tales from the Territories with Seven Bucks, Dwayne Johnson’s production company, and VICE wanted to continue that collaboration.
So just kind of these two perfect things like, ‘Well, what about this? Would you guys be interested in doing this doc about the sort of the last years of WCW?’ Seven Bucks was all on board, VICE was all on board and then we were off to the races and we only started filming it in December. So it’s a very quick turnaround.”
Continuing, Husney added that there was not originally a plan to have The Rock feature in the series but wanted to be involved and was cast as someone to discuss the more positive side of WCW:
“It was nothing we really planned on, per se, in terms of having The Rock sit down for an interview. But it just, as we started sending him cuts of the episodes, he was so enthusiastic about them and he loved that first episode, and he’s like, I wanna sit down for this. We’re like, ‘Awesome.’ It actually worked out more so in a practical way, because most of the people we interviewed for this had lived through the demise of WCW, and that was the whole point of this, by the way.
The whole point was to not go the WWE framework because, you know, victors rewrite history and we didn’t want to go down that path. It doesn’t really get into—like it touches on it, but it doesn’t really get into how—the WWE fought back in the Monday Night Wars and stuff. It touches on that briefly. So it doesn’t get into the DX invasion and all that stuff. But anyway, we needed somebody to speak enthusiastically about the good days of WCW, and nobody involved with WCW these days is gonna speak enthusiastically about it. They’re all kind of dejected, you know?”
“There’s Nobody Better Than The Rock To Do That”: Evan Husney
Concluding, Husney added that Rock served as the perfect hype man while also offering his own perspective on the events that took place while he was in WWE:
“So we needed a hype man. We needed somebody to put all this over and to talk about when it was good, how great it was and there’s nobody better than The Rock to really do that. He also did touch on what his perspective was from the other side seeing how when WCW was kicking their ass like, ‘Whoa, we need to be inspired by this and we need to go more in that direction. I think it all worked out.”
Although The Rock never wrestled in WCW he did hold the promotion’s World Heavyweight Championship when he defeated Booker T for the title at SummerSlam 2001.
Who Killed WCW? will air on VICE on Wednesday, June 3rd.
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