Solitary days, sexless nights, and innumerable hours watching old NWA tapes in parents’ basements — it’s all part of being a pro-wrestling historian, as chronicled by the new VICE series Dork Side of the Ring. 

The eight-part “dorkumentary” series will take viewers behind-the-scenes into the life of a wrestling historian, from the crushing despair of memorizing 1970s house-show cards to the thrill of occasionally meeting Bill Apter. 

“This is the saddest show we’ve made so far,” says Jason Eisner, director of Dork Side of the Ring, himself an “admittedly ashamed” wrestling historian. “These people are almost too depressing to handle.”

Much of the “action” on the show is depicted via silhouetted re-enactments depicting lookalike schlubs sitting in front of their TVs. 

Each episode of Dork Side of the Ring will share tragicomic true story of a different wrestling historian, including Andrew Carswell (a 47-year-old manchild who owns every ECW show on VHS), Carl Sullivan (a retiree, 72, who knows everything about wrestling in Kansas during the 1930s), and veteran wrestling writer Dan Mutzler. 

The common theme throughout the series is that wrestling historians all dorkishly dislike the “current product.”