Grilling JR - Plane Ride From Hell [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Plane Ride From Hell

The “Plane Ride From Hell” happened on May 5th, 2002 when WWE employees were returning back to the United States after they did a pay per view in London called Insurrextion.

Before we get into that, on April 28th, the legendary Lou Thesz passed away. Do you have any memories and stories atbout Mr. Thesz that you'd like to share?

Also, on May 6th, Scott Hall was released.

Meltzer reported - Hall, 43, was officially let go after Raw on 5/6 due to misbehavior on the European tour, in specific, going on a binge the entire tour and being in even worse shape on the plane going home. This finalized the decision to hire him as the latest in a scarily predictable series of bad decisions by management over the past 17 months. This was worse than most of the other bad decisions because the odds were so great against it working out. Hall had already failed with New Japan Pro Wrestling just prior to his signing. 

His lengthy track record of problems in WCW, which the WWF attempted to pin on the horrible working environment in the company, conveniently ignored that New Japan has a well structured system and he flopped there as well. Many of Hall's problems, including a prison stay and other legal problems were long after leaving WCW. He even has an abbreviated stay in ECW where he was said to have turned over a new leaf that ended rather spectacularly with an arrest for kicking in a taxi door when they wouldn't take a credit card for payment.

Hall's problems started before his first night in, making a spectacle of himself in Las Vegas, the night before he was scheduled for his first TV taping. Despite stories that he was taking annabuse, a drug that would make him violently ill when coming in contact with alcohol, he was still used in skits where Steve Austin poured beer on him after house show matches. He had his problems in Toronto leading to Wrestlemania and put on a poor performance in his match with Austin. Before the show started, with bad reports on the condition Hall showed up in, Austin insisted on doing a blow-off of the feud on that show rather than working a style of match that would leave people wanting to see the two in there again. Ironically, Austin, who at first had refused to work with Hall, thinking he wouldn't last until Mania, and then insisted on the blow-off at Mania rather than doing something to keep the program going, was locked in with him since Mania because of a lack of potential opponents with the brand split and the company's lack of confidence in creating new stars for him. 

Hall's performance at Backlash against Bradshaw was an embarrassment, as was his behavior when the agents had to get him back to his room the night before the show because he was stumbling around making a fool of himself, and nothing was done again. On the European trip, things got so bad that the feeling was Hall needed to be fired because of how blatant his problems had become. There was not even an attempt at hiding them from the other wrestlers early in the tour. Hall was 45 minutes late for the bus to the PPV in London, and then fell asleep in the locker room before the show. 

As it turned out, he was the odd man out on the crew and wasn't booked to wrestle on the show, only showing up for outside interference spots. On the flight coming back from England, Hall was messed up, started play fighting with people, before again passing out to a degree that there was fear he'd gone too far. He was passed out in the dressing room at Raw, but was allowed to go out for his appearances. There was some thought he wasn't ready for television. He did his scheduled main event match on Raw. It was a terrible bout although he shouldn't take the full blame for that, and after the match was over, was fired.

According to friends of his, they now realize that Hall simply can't handle the pressures of wrestling and him being let go by the company was the best thing for him.

Hall had signed a two-year contract with the WWF on 1/18. The terms were believed to have been in the neighborhood of $600,000 on a downside guarantee with a maximum of ten dates per month. Hall had actually worked more than he needed to by contract since going on the road. 

Credible has said that he had to wheel Scott off the plane on a wheelchair, did that happen?

Is the reason that Scott was so pilled up on the flight why he was fired?

You've said - It was a bunch of guys making a lot of money, and a few millionaires on the flight, they were acting like they were on a ninth grade field trip to the zoo. We had a full bar just like you would have on any flight, except they weren't paying for it." Ross recalled, "I remember doing RAW after this 'plane ride from hell' and I had to call [Hall] at home and let him go." 

Scott has said about it - I was so unhappy, I said, 'cool, effective immediately?' and they said, 'well, if that's what you want.' I said, 'well, you're the one calling me.'" Hall added, "it wasn't fun, so the money starts to mean less. It's like, 'I can be miserable at home. I don't need to be on the road and be miserable.' That's the way it ended." 

A few unnamed wrestlers said - He’s the most annoying person I’ve ever been around,” says one wrestler. Another says: “He thinks he’s funny all the time, and most of the time now he’s not at all; he’s sad” Because of his regression in lifestyle, WWE management was unwilling to invest in his character any further. Hall’s out–of–ring problems also affected the quality of his work in the ring, also.

First, let's talk about the flight over to London. Did anything out of the ordinary happen on the flight over?

What was a typical flight internationally like with all the wrestlers together like that for such a long period of time? Were there stories being told? Ribs being pulled? Cards being played? Large amounts of alcohol being consumed?

How many people in total were usually onboard a flight like this?

Who was the officials on the flight? Was Vince on the flight over?

Let's review the Insurrextion pay per view.

It drew 10,500 fans to the Wembley Arena

Dark - Mr. Perfect pinned Goldust with the perfect plex. Goldust got heat doing the gay mannerisms. Crowd was very hot early.

Rob Van Dam beat Eddy Guerrero in 11:23 via DQ so Guerrero kept the IC title. Virtually every report listed this as the best match on the show, and it was said to be far superior to their Backlash match. Lame finish as Guerrero hit the ref with the belt for a DQ, after which Van Dam laid him out with a frog splash.

Trish Stratus & Jackie beat Molly Holly & Jazz in 7:40. Crowd was into that. Stratus pinned Jazz after the Stratusfaction while Jackie pinned Molly at the same time. Jim Ross tried to get Jazz over as the female Mike Tyson. Said to have been a bad match.

X-Pac pinned Bradshaw in 8:47 with a low blow and the X-factor. Hall interfered, but it had nothing to do with the finish. Bradshaw juiced after X-Pac undid the turnbuckle padding and smashed Bradshaw's head into the exposed metal. X-Pac vowed that if he lost, he'd never wrestle in England again. I guess this proves Russo isn't ghost booking, because he'd have lost and then come back on the next show.

Steven Richards ended up with the hardcore title in 10:32. Started off as a singles match with Booker T. Crowd was hot into Booker as a babyface. He won the title with the rock bottom. Crash Holly ran in and pinned Booker. Booker came back and pinned Crash. Tommy Dreamer and Justin Credible hit the ring to attack Booker but he fought them off. When Jazz ran in next, she hit Booker with a low blow. Richards went to put Booker through a table, but it didn't break. So he did it a second time, and then got the pin. 

Booker actually kicked out right as the ref came down for three on the spot where the table didn't break, probably figuring after the blown spot, it wasn't a good idea for the finish. Ref counted three, but after some words from Booker, changed his mind. One of those things that with the luck of the Irish, usually happens on Smackdown when it can be post edited

Hardys beat Brock Lesnar & Shawn Stasiak in 6:54. Kind of a comedy deal where Paul Heyman told Stasiak never to tag in. So Stasiak started and got killed. Lesnar tagged in and destroyed the Hardys until Matt moved out of the way on a spear attempt. Stasiak tagged himself in, and got pinned after Jeff's swanton. Lesnar beat up the Hardys and Stasiak after the match.

Spike Dudley pinned William Regal to retain the European title in 4:56. They did a spot where it appeared Dudley injured his ankle and they showed a replay and it looked like he planted his foot very badly. The match was stopped and Spike was carried out. Regal attacked him on the stretcher and they re-started the match. Regal dominated until Spike hit a small package. The injury was done well enough that most reports bought it, but it was 100% storyline.

Steve Austin pinned Big Show in 16:00 in a match with Ric Flair as one of two referees with Nick Patrick. Nick Patrick was bumped and Austin hit Show with a stunner. Flair wasn't looking, waiting for a run-in so never counted the fall. Hall & X-Pac then came out and Flair attacked both of them after they had pulled Flair out when he was counting on another pin. Kevin Nash then did a run-in (no explanation why he was there since he's suspended on television) and Austin gave Nash a stunner and Show two stunners and got the pin. Flair ran out and hit Nash with a chair to keep him from making the save. 

Austin and Flair then drank beer together until Austin gave Flair a stunner. Flair was a big-time babyface to the crowd, but they still popped when Austin hit the stunner on him. Fans were chanting "fat bastard" at Show, and Jerry Lawler asked if they were chanting that at Show or at Jim Ross.

HHH pinned Undertaker in 14:29. Makes no sense that they pin the guy who is in the next PPV main event, unless they are planning on HHH being the challenger for Undertaker if he wins the title. Crowd was dead for this match. The top rope was very loose and eventually snapped. Small "You screwed Bret" chant at Earl Hebner before the match. A whip into the corner snapped another part of the ring and something flew into the crowd and missed the head of a young boy by very little. After the stipulations on Thursday where nobody could be on the other show, this main event was explained by Jim Ross by saying HHH requested to be with the Raw brand to get away from his father-in-law. HHH won clean with the pedigree under bad circumstances with the ring falling apart.

That takes us to the infamous plane ride back.

First, talk about where on the plane you were sitting, and who you were sitting with?

When do you first recall seeing moments of trouble? How long into the flight did the first incident happen, and what was the first incident?

Meltzer wrote - There were numerous problems on the flight back from England's Insurrextion PPV, most not even related to Hall. Several believe it is due to Vince not making the trip and wrestlers believing they weren't going to get in trouble because of late, discipline has been not taken seriously because of everything Hall has been allowed to get away with.

Among the incidents, and while incidents on overseas flights involving wrestlers are not uncommon, the number on this flight made it just about the worst flight anyone could remember.

Dustin Runnels was on the p.a. singing love songs to his ex-wife (Terri Boatright), who was terribly uncomfortable. She asked him to stop and he didn't. Jim Ross had to sit Runnels down.

What's your memories of that incident?

Dustin's contract would expire not long after this, but the WWE didn't offer him a new deal. Was what happened on this flight a big reason for that?

There was also heat on agents Gerald Brisco and Arn Anderson for how out of hand things got, and the heat on Anderson and Michael Hayes was strong, particularly Anderson because as an agent, it's his job to keep the boys from getting out of control and he was more like one of the boys. Flair started to get wild, but eventually calmed down when Ross told him to.

Curt Hennig was spraying people with shaving cream, and kept egging Brock Lesnar into fighting (the two know each other from Minnesota and when Hennig was between gigs and before Lesnar started with OVW, they trained together at Brad Rheingans' camp) . Lesnar didn't know how to handle it as a newcomer not wanting to get in trouble, but reportedly was told that if he didn't stand up to him now, he'd get a bad rep in the business. 

Lesnar took Hennig down in the aisle way, actually more than once, until David Finlay told Lesnar to stop. Hennig tried to get him to do it again, but Paul Heyman told Lesnar to ignore it. Another report said that Lesnar first grabbed him and bulldozed him against the door and people on the plane freaked because they were afraid the door would open.

This has been talked about over the years, it's been said they slammed into the emergency exit door, like Dave wrote...Did that happen?

Curt ended up being fired right after this. What's your memories of that? How much did this have to do with it?

Sean Waltman said of it - Curt Hennig was always really competitive, you know? Him and Brock…we all hung out because we all lived in Minnesota 

Obviously management made a big deal out of it…the fuckin door – it’s impossible for it to open at that altitude. So it was real stupid. [The flight before] Vince and Kurt Angle had a take-down tournament in the aisle – but as soon as it happened with [Hennig and Lesnar] they made a big deal out of it…” 

Justin Credible said of it: 

They weren’t fighting…at first.

But they’re very competitive so they’re just scraping along, like messing around – then something happened where it got serious. It didn’t come to blows – but you know the opening that they have on planes – those openings are the emergency exit rows. 

Now Brock’s a wrestling shooter – and Curt’s a shooter kind’a too – so they took it seriously. They didn’t wanna give in to each other. They went at it so hard [Lesnar shot in and drove Hennig so hard into the side] that they almost popped open the emergency exit – twenty-five, thirty thusand feet in the air…people [among them: Dave Finley, Triple H, and Paul Heyman] had to separate them

Michael Seitz (Hayes) was out of control, got into either a serious or a not serious brawl with Bradshaw and started cutting wrestling promos on everyone. Hayes tried to halfway pick a fight with Hall, although it was also said Hall had that one coming by his own behavior, as well as others, and was generally really nasty. When he finally fell asleep, someone, believed to be Sean Waltman, cut lots of his hair off. 

Sean has admitted to doing this. Did you see it happen? What was Michael's reaction when he realized it?

Waltman said: So [Hayes is] out cold…and he’s got that fuckin’ thing in a fuckin’ ponytail…that mullet – you know, he was still rockin’ the mullet – and I said, ‘Somebody get me a pair of scissors!’

I remember Lawler over there just giggling. Everybody is like, ‘No, no, no – you’re not gonna do it…’

I grabbed those scissors like I was pulling a pair of taped brass knucks out of my tights [over-exaggerated reach down the front of his jeans and everybody’s looking and they don’t think I’m gonna do it. I grab that fuckin’ tail and I lift it up and I just went whack and the whole plane just erupted,

Credible said: I’ve never seen anyone so drunk and pilled-up, look at himself as we’re going through security and saw the mirror’s reflection…it was like something out of a movie. He sleepily raises a hand to fluff up hair at the back, only to find nothing. He popped out, like stone-cold sober ‘muthafucker– this is going through customs. Now, Michael Hayes he’s fuckin’ red wants to fight people in customs. You’re talking U.S agents

And nobody stooges ‘Pac…nobody snitches on him. Because nobody liked Hayes

The next day at Raw, his mullet was pinned to the wall backstage as a trophy by Waltman. When he woke up on the plane and found his hair cut off, he started wanting to fight several people.

Triple H has said of it: "I remember distinctly Michael Hayes being very upset at the fact that his ponytail was gone. I remember [Sean Waltman] thinking it was extremely funny because he was the one that had cut it off. I remember Scott being involved in that." Triple H said, "it was out of control and control was right around the corner." 

Credible said: Michael Hayes was getting real bad. And he’s got a lot of heat . Nobody likes him. He was drunk. Rowdy as fuck. Like, being a dick. Loud and obnoxious 

Waltman said: “Hayes almost pissed on Linda McMahon. He was all fucked up – trying to whip his dick out [stooped over, tugging at his trouser zip] He doesn’t know it’s Linda – he thinks he’s at the fuckin’ bathroom. He’s like‘Wait a minute…wait a minute…’ He just keeps saying ‘Wait a minute’, over and over again. Finally, somebody led him away 

What happened with Michael almost urinated on Linda?

It's been said that JBL knocked out Michael on this flight. What's the story about that?

Everyone is waiting to see how Vince handles all these various situations, although he did immediately make an example out of Hall. Hayes really got chewed out by Vince, Stephanie and Ross at Raw. There was a feeling that as a writer and an agent, he should be leading by example. Undertaker was said to be furious at how out of hand this got.

This has turned into something even worse than WCW as ex-WCWers couldn't even compare with with their European trips.

The following week, Meltzer wrote - There was tremendous heat on both Arn Anderson and Michael Hayes, since both were agents and their jobs are to keep the wrestlers under control, and neither was in any condition to do so. Austin was openly angry at Raw that he felt Hayes, who wasn't popular with a lot of the wrestlers going into this situation, was both unprofessional and an embarrassment. Anderson was chastised at television by both Jim Ross and Vince. 

What's your memories of that convo with Arn?

Meltzer wrote - Flair was causing the Flair scene, which is not unusual as he is a partier and it isn't above him to get almost naked on a non-commercial flight, but he doesn't cause danger to anyone, just causes a scene and gets attention. He's been doing it for years. When he was told by Ross to stop, he did.

Memories of the convo with Ric?

Ric ended up having some trouble from this.  

Two flight attendants, Taralyn Cappellano and Heidi Doyle, would compile their allegations into a 2004 lawsuit. Chief among the chronicled misdeeds was Fliehr’s sexual aggression. He wore nothing but a jeweled cape, the flight attendants said, and “flashed his nakedness, spinning his penis around.” He separately grabbed each woman’s hand and placed it on his crotch, and then “forcibly detained and restrained” 

Doyle “from leaving the back of the galley of the airplane while he sexually assaulted her.” Other wrestlers on the flight passed out syringes to the flight attendants with instructions to dispose of them. 

The specifics of the assault aren’t clear. At other points during the flight, Hall licked Doyle’s face, told her he wanted to “lick her pussy,” and asked Cappellano to “suck his dick.” Runnels advised Cappellano that, “You and me are gonna fuck.”

Ric has insisted that there’s no truth to the allegations, but WWE settled with the women out of court.

When Hayes started a similar scene, since he's management, it was considered very unprofessional. Agents are supposed to keep behavior in these situations in line, not contribute to the problems. 

Based on the story you want to believe, before he got his mullet cut off, Hayes either passed out after a fight with John Layfield (Bradshaw), or was knocked out by him. There was definitely a small skirmish between the two that Bradshaw got the better of. 

There's something very bad about wrestlers fighting agents (since they are management), even if the agents may be embarrassing themselves, or are former wrestlers (Hayes, 43, is only a few years older than Bradshaw, even though people wouldn't think that since their peak eras are nearly 20 years apart).

Let's now hear from some guys who were on the plane

Justin Credible - Vince at the time was chartering flights. We weren’t on commercial flights – we’d rent a whole plane. We had a 747 – all ours. Meaning not only all the wrestlers but also the TV crew. So we have every cameraman, all the girls that make the costumes, tour managers, everybody – a full plane of WWE people.

Now with that comes – and I bet you Vince has not done it since – a full and open bar. And what I mean by that is…a plane filled with alcoholic wrestlers at the end of a grueling tour. So think about it…it’s like the last day of school.

Sean Waltman - “It was brewing…everybody had their different little deals they were doing…some people were doing GHB [Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid], getting pilled-up – whatever, you know…

You could buy [GHB] in the health food store. It was legal, so that was the reason everyone was doing it. But it…fucked…you…up…”

Events started out more or less innocently when Curt Hennig and Scott Hall got hold of shaving cream canisters and proceeded to run around ‘tagging’ multiple individuals with the contents. Goofy stuff.

You posted a statement on The Ross Report on the site -

The flight was about seven hours in length and at times was low-lighted by a handful of people who consumed too much alcohol and consequently acted like children whose parents were away and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. The conduct of this inebriated minority was unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Procedures have been put in place to ensure such conduct does not occur in the future.