The acclaimed VICE Studios series "Dark Side of the Cage" returns Tuesday with a deep dive into the career of Don Frye.
"Don Frye: The Predator and the Pain," the third episode of the show's second season on VICE TV (9 p.m. ET), cuts through the chaos of the early UFC and Pride FC days to take a look at what it cost Frye outside the cage and ring.
Frye became legendary from his all-brawl refusal to quit, including a Fight of the Year war in 2002 with Yoshihiro Takiyama at Pride 21 that largely is regarded as the catalyst for Frye's struggles with pain, addiction, the loss of his family and financial security and more. The episode talks to Frye and those closest to him about how the iconic fighter dealt with the fallout of the violence he became famous
for.
A clip provided by VICE, above, has Frye recall the time his wife called the police and his family life imploded, and a truck accident led to complications that put him in a medically induced coma.
Frye won the UFC 8 single-night tournament in 1996 when he submitted Gary Goodridge. He reached the finals of the UFC 10 tournament later that year, but was knocked out by Mark Coleman. At Ultimate Ultimate 96, he won a second UFC single-night tourney when he submitted Tank Abbott.
"Dark Side of the Cage" episodes air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on VICE TV. Future episodes will feature the marble-mouthed imbecile Tito Ortiz, Chael Sonnen and Mark Coleman. Additionally, the season "will shed new light on one of the most heated feuds in UFC history: Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov." The seven-episode season will close with a show about the rise and fall of the Affliction clothing brand, which launched a promotion to compete with the UFC, but found itself calling it quits after two events, and a third that was canceled.
The show's season premiere went inside the career of Jason Miller, whose “Mayhem” nicknamed proved to be prophetic when it came to not just his in-cage personality, but his outside-the-cage issues – which were plentiful for more than a decade. And the second episode took a look at the tragic downfall of Phil Baroni, who is in prison in Mexico charged with murdering his girlfriend. You can watch those full episodes below.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Video preview: The cost of being Don Frye on VICE's 'Dark Side of the Cage'
