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00:07After a sellout European tour, the World Wrestling Federation's top stars and management boarded a private 757 jet in London
00:16to return home.
00:17Every seat on the plane was a first-class seat. It cost us a lot of money, but it made
00:23it more convenient for the talent to travel.
00:27What was supposed to be a triumphant flight in decadence descended into a nightmare at 30,000 feet.
00:34The party starts when you get on them flights and you just start drinking, but that night it was too
00:41much.
00:43When you have an open bar and you're sitting there for seven hours, of course these things are going to
00:48happen.
00:50Naked men with robes, guys passing out, drinking, busting each other open, cutting ponytails off. Sounds like hell to me.
01:00Like, I just knew, okay, the boys are being boys and I'm not going back there at all.
01:04I remember thinking, like, is somebody going to say that this has gone too far?
01:11The talent was just crazy. I mean, they were great guys, don't get me wrong.
01:16They act like asses. Children.
01:18The mid-air collision between intoxicated wrestlers and a flight crew determined to prevent an all-out disaster would erupt
01:27into one of wrestling's most infamous scandals.
01:30I think people have no idea what really goes on sometimes, especially back then in pro wrestling.
01:37And this is just like a capsule of what pro wrestling was like in that era.
01:42It was just a normal occurrence for a crazy bunch of wrestlers on a plane.
01:47It seems like a crazy story to probably everyone who was watching this outside of professional wrestlers.
01:56If I never talked about the f***ing plane ride from hell again in my life, I would be very happy.
02:07The deal is finalized with WCW.
02:11However, the contract reads Shane McMahon.
02:16Oh my God!
02:17By the early 2000s, the WWF is riding a wave of unprecedented success with a roster of breakout stars and
02:25sellout crowds across the world.
02:27Business was going really well for the WWE.
02:30Selling tickets, pay-per-view buy rates. Everybody was making money.
02:36The crowds were there every night. You're selling houses everywhere you go.
02:40Europe, the States, Canada and everything. I mean, our show was booming.
02:44During this surge in popularity, CEO Vince McMahon acquires his competitors WCW and ECW, consolidating the industry's biggest players into
02:55an undisputed monopoly of the wrestling world.
02:58I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition.
03:02The bubble had burst in wrestling. There was literally the WWE, nothing else.
03:05If you want to make a full-time living in professional wrestling, it was the only place to be.
03:11My name is Tommy Dreamer, and I'm known as the innovator of violence.
03:15It was a much different time. There was holdovers from ECW and WCW, and we're all just trying to find
03:23our way into WWE.
03:30You've got to wonder how long he had been planning this ECW assault on the WWF.
03:39I'm Jim Ross, and I was the Vice President of Talent Relations.
03:42My job, in a nutshell, was the overall management of the talents that appeared on television.
03:52The WWF's roster exploded in size and stature by securing talent from their former rivals, while also welcoming back returning
04:01legends.
04:02There's a nature boy!
04:05We're partners!
04:07Flair and McMahon are partners!
04:09Yeah!
04:09Ric Flair's a legend.
04:11So many of our younger guys grew up watching him, idolizing him, and trying to take things from Ric's game
04:19and add to theirs.
04:21So yeah, having Ric in the locker room was a positive thing.
04:24I love my job. I love helping build that talent roster.
04:29Because I think that having those talents was a great reason, perhaps we could say the only reason, that the
04:36business went crazy.
04:38It blew up.
04:40Everything was getting better.
04:41Millions upon millions of dollars.
04:44Thanks to the men and the women that came to work for us on that team.
04:51As the momentum in the States grew, so did the momentum in the UK grow.
04:57In May 2002, the company travels to Europe for a four-day tour, concluding with a sold-out pay-per
05:04-view event in London.
05:06It's probably one of the best crowds when we go overseas, so we're always amped up.
05:10We're always looking forward to it.
05:11And to be honest, the pay's pretty good when we go overseas, because the crowds are so big.
05:15So yeah, I'd say the morale was high, and we were stoked to have some good times.
05:21My name is PJ Polacco, and you may know me as the hardcore icon, Justin Credible.
05:27Some of the big names on that trip were certainly Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker was on the flight,
05:32Scott Hall, Kevin Nash.
05:35Brock Lesnar was on the flight, Ric Flair was on the flight, and many others, so it was stacked.
05:40It's a long flight, and we thought that by chartering a customized jet that we were being as talent-friendly
05:51as we could.
05:54Unfortunately, it didn't work out well.
06:01My name is Heidi Doyle, and in 2002, I was a flight attendant on the European charter for the WWE.
06:09I worked for a company called Sports Jet.
06:11It was a private airline that flew many of the different sports teams out of the Phoenix area,
06:16the Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Coyotes.
06:18We also flew the Utah Jazz and the Mariners.
06:21A normal commercial Boeing 757 would have 190 seats, and our flight had 50 leather seats and bigger carpet than
06:28I've ever had in my own house.
06:29There's couches and lounge areas. It's just not a very bad way to travel.
06:33It costs a lot to do it privately, but you also get many benefits.
06:37You get to order your own food, you know what you're going to eat, you know you're all going to
06:39be comfortable.
06:40You know that you don't have to deal with anybody of the general public on the airplane.
06:45You're just amongst the group that's your people.
06:48It's just nice to know that we're not going to offend anyone.
06:51Like sometimes when the boys are on flights, and they're a bit obnoxious, it's kind of like you go, like,
06:56Oh gosh, are we going to, you know, sorry.
07:01Hi, I'm Terry Reynolds, and I was a passenger on the plane ride from hell.
07:10I remember sitting in the first class section.
07:12I think Jim Ross was up there, Linda, um, and Vince.
07:18The front had a lounge area, so it was kind of like your first class of the first class, I
07:22guess, of the airplanes.
07:23And generally the coaches and the managers sat up there.
07:26And in this case, Vince McMahon and his wife, they were up there, and then the wrestlers were in the
07:30back.
07:31So I was in the back with the majority of the wrestlers.
07:35My responsibility in the very back was getting them the drinks, getting the meals out to them.
07:40They were hungry, they wanted to try all the different meals that were on the airplane.
07:44Ric Flair had talked to all of us a lot.
07:46He was very chatty, and he was kind of like the captain of the team, I would say.
07:50He had that kind of feel, and he was very, very nice and personable to us.
07:54He was a little flirty, I think.
07:5999% of the time we had men, that's who we were working with.
08:03You just had to be aware of getting too comfortable, I think, because that can always just create a situation
08:07that different people can have different thoughts of the level of comfortableness.
08:13But on the flight to Europe, there's no problems.
08:18After an uneventful eight-hour flight across the Atlantic, the Charter arrives at its first stop on the tour, Cologne,
08:25Germany.
08:33My name is Rob Van Dam, WWE Hall of Famer, and the whole damn show.
08:42It's cool to see how you affect these other cultures, you know, in other countries.
08:50RBD made it almost, yeah.
08:53They had some die-hard fans, let me tell you what.
08:56The Germans were very into the WWE, and it was very, yeah, it was an intense, enlightening experience, the match
09:02was.
09:03Our flight attendants, they were with us almost every day.
09:07Some came to the show, some were partying at the hotels with the wrestlers at the bars.
09:14In the 80s and 90s, these flight attendants, they kind of would party with you, hang out with you in
09:19the back, drink with you.
09:21Hello, I'm Michael Kioda.
09:23Worked for the World Wrestling Entertainment for 35 years.
09:27WWF referee, Mike Kioda!
09:31Yeah, you used to go out, meet up with some flight attendants down at the bar.
09:35They might be staying at the same hotel, or you'd go to their hotel and five-minute camp ride.
09:40We went downstairs and had drinks when the wrestlers came back from the first match in Germany.
09:46We chatted a little bit with them that first night.
09:48It was my first trip back to work after having a baby, and I was so enjoying my time, resting
09:54in my room.
09:55And getting to order room service and not have to wake up at all hours of the night, that I
09:59only went to the one match in Germany.
10:01You literally will wrestle in Germany, and the next day you wake up, you're in Scotland.
10:06You wake up the next day, you're in London.
10:09By the time we got to London, usually everybody's really stoked.
10:13I remember it being a Saturday night, because that's when the pay-per-view aired traditionally over there.
10:18And it was WWE's pay-per-view Insurrection.
10:22The city of London is on fire! This is Insurrection!
10:26It was a packed house. European crowds love us.
10:29All the tickets for this event sold out in 21 minutes!
10:33I remember the show being solid. The talent seemed to be happy with their performances.
10:38And they were even more happy to get back on the plane and go home.
10:42Well, I had been away from my daughter for the first time, and I was more than excited to go
10:47see her again.
10:50The excitement to return home is quickly deflated as the passengers are delivered troubling news.
10:57Everyone took their seats, and we taxied out onto the tarmac, and we got advised that we were on a
11:02weather hold from Connecticut.
11:04When we were told it was a weather delay, I bet we probably all thought maybe 20 minutes, 40 minutes,
11:09an hour tops.
11:10Well, we were delayed for seven hours before the plane takes off.
11:19So we sat on the tarmac for a little while.
11:23Commercial airlines, you would all be familiar with the small little mini bottles that we serve.
11:28We had just normal bottles.
11:30And the liquor cart ran out of alcohol.
11:35And another liquor cart was ordered at their request.
11:39And that was also drank until that liquor cart ran out.
11:45And then a third one was ordered.
11:47And how common is it to, like, go through a cart before a plane takes off?
11:51I've never ever done it ever before and never again.
11:54Never, and we went through three.
11:57Imagine your varsity football team.
12:01They've just won a game, except they can't get up at the parking lot.
12:05And there's cases and cases of beer.
12:08That's what it's like.
12:09A bunch of high school guys.
12:12To say it's high school is really like giving it too much.
12:16It's more like fifth grade.
12:17Even though it was their plane in a sense, we served the drinks still.
12:23But that became not the case.
12:25They started to serve themselves the drinks and they didn't want our help.
12:29I was very concerned about the carts being replenished on the ground.
12:36If they were to try to cut us off, we would have gotten to that booze.
12:40Somebody would have.
12:41Flair probably could have thrown a couple thousand dollars at them and said,
12:45Here, take this. We're going to get that liquor.
12:48We would have got the liquor.
12:49Absolutely.
12:51I think the relief that they're finally going home was cause for celebration.
12:56And they only got a small window now to really let their hair down and become stupid.
13:03And that's a lot of choice to do.
13:13After spending several grueling hours grounded on the tarmac and indulging in an unlimited supply of alcohol,
13:19the passengers aboard WWF's private charter are relieved as the jet is finally cleared for takeoff.
13:26I don't remember how long we've been up in the air before.
13:29It was very, very evident that we had a lot of drunk people.
13:33Oh, shoot. The boys, they could get drunk in one hour.
13:37When you're doing GHB or pills or anything like that, Percocets or Vicodins and stuff that were around,
13:43you could do a lot of damage, period, in one hour.
13:46But it was always booze and pills in the WWE because we had doctor's prescriptions.
13:51And as long as you had a doctor's prescription, it was okay.
13:54Of course it wasn't because, you know, we'd have doctors write us whatever we wanted.
14:00Halcyons, GHB, Placidil.
14:03Now, the Placidils, I think, were in the early 90s.
14:06But I know there was some GHB and Halcyons on the flight.
14:09Halcyons were some things that we took sometimes just to go to sleep for a long period of time.
14:15And sometimes you use them for a rib, too.
14:19Way back in the day, it used to be called H-bombing and it was Halcyons.
14:23And I've seen so many guys drop in these H-bombs in the drinks in order to get the mark
14:29to pass out.
14:30They shave his head, you know, whatever they do.
14:33Girls, local girls, you know, were put out so the boys could have their way with them while they're out.
14:40I mean, this was...
14:44It was kind of normal in some of the places that I've been.
14:50You never leave your drink exposed.
14:53Because the boys think to see somebody froth at the mouth and slur their speech.
15:00They can't stand up, manage their own faculties.
15:04It's funny.
15:06The story was out that Michael got H-bombed.
15:09What was his role at that point?
15:12Michael Hayes worked at Creative at that point in time.
15:14I don't know if he was officially an agent, a coach, a producer.
15:18They've gone through several names. They all did the same thing.
15:21With the Halcyon in his body.
15:23And I don't know what else could have been in there.
15:25He was not himself.
15:27And he made bad decisions.
15:30Bradshaw had gotten split open the night of the pay-per-view.
15:34Oh, yes! He did!
15:37As Bradshaw is sleeping, Michael Hayes just knocked him in his head and reopened the wound.
15:43So now JBL is bleeding all over his shirt.
15:47So JBL slapped him and knocked him out.
15:51He knocked out Michael Hayes.
15:54We're like, holy shit!
15:57Then I hear, like, chant for X-Pac.
16:00X-Pac was one of the sweetest guys in the world. He really is.
16:04Jay Strongbow used to call him the Trailer Hitch.
16:07Because he's always following the big load of Hall and Nash.
16:11I want to know how to get my hands on Austin.
16:15But he wanted to be accepted so badly and proceed as a main event guy.
16:20Michael Hayes had been marrying me in the booking meetings.
16:23He's got that f***ing ponytail, that mullet.
16:26So as he's out cold, I grabbed that f***ing tail and I lifted up my tongue and I just went
16:31whack.
16:33I remember the big pop.
16:35And it was like him holding up the title, but he had the ponytail.
16:42Back in the day, you were not allowed to sleep on those flights.
16:45You would end up with a shaved eyebrow.
16:48You always had to have one eye open, so to speak, when you're on a plane full of the boys.
16:53I had my hat on, my sunglasses, even though it was night time.
16:57You had to wear all that stuff because you didn't know who was coming by with shaving cream.
17:02If somebody went to lift your shades up, you had a chance of waking up or take your hat off.
17:06You have a chance of waking up and kicking out real quick.
17:12The roster is especially on guard for any potential hijinks, finding themselves in the presence of one of the industry's
17:19most legendary pranksters.
17:21What else would you expect from Mr. Perfect?
17:24Kurt, boy, he knows how to rib. He was one of the best ribbers in the business.
17:29Ribs started happening once Kurt came back into the company.
17:33Kurt would always play with Brock.
17:37Brock was sitting in his chair, and Kurt Henning put shaving cream on his head.
17:46He went splat and splatted on his head.
17:50Next thing I know, Brock is chasing Kurt like a full sprint.
17:55You know, like wham, wham, Brock went right behind him.
17:59And then Brock just swoops him up.
18:02So now you have Brock Lesnar, who's 6'4", and he's picking up Kurt Henning, who's about 6'4".
18:07They went into one row, like a bunch of the guys had to move.
18:11So they would go from one side of the fuselage, and then into the other, and overhead bins got broken,
18:16and tables got broken, and armrests got broken off.
18:18Things started to break, yeah, because they're just so big.
18:21Like, I do remember one of the seats, like the middle of the seat came completely off.
18:28And as a safety professional, there's not a damn thing I can do to stop these two men.
18:32Like, there's not a damn thing I can do to get them to hear my voice.
18:36One of the wrestlers had commandeered our PA.
18:38So, in the middle of the fight going on, we have someone yelling into the airplane,
18:41we're gonna die, we're all gonna die.
18:43So here comes one of the pilots at the back of the airplane,
18:46trying to get these two men to stop slamming each other against the fuselage.
18:50And they wouldn't even listen to him.
18:53One of our illustrious agents said, you need to come back here.
18:58So I go back there, and they're play fighting.
19:01It's just they're play fighting in the emergency exit room.
19:06Brock picks Kurt up, and then they hit the emergency door.
19:11This was a big boom.
19:14Everyone jumped up, and we're like, stop, stop.
19:17It was their own teammates that finally got it to stop, because they were scared.
19:21I'm not a mechanical engineer.
19:22I don't know what all it takes to pop that security door.
19:25But I didn't want to find out at 30,000 feet above the air.
19:28You have all these people, could you imagine what happens if that door opened?
19:32If you think about it, it's physically impossible to open that door.
19:37They would have no idea of knowing the door couldn't pop out.
19:40But they were throwing each other against the fuselage.
19:42And if that fuselage breaks, the airplane could depressurize it now.
19:45You're doing an emergency landing.
19:47And where are you going to land if you're over the Atlantic?
19:49The weight and the size that they are of wrestlers.
19:51I mean, they could go through a wall in a house.
19:53Why couldn't they go through a wall in an airplane?
19:55Because just the banging, you know, was, you know, Brock is so big.
20:00He was just thick, solid, big bear is right, man.
20:04He was a solid boy, young.
20:08He was getting a big push.
20:10Brock Lesnar is an animal.
20:11Brock was very new to the business and he exposed himself to me at the insurrection pay-per-view.
20:18Like a real dick.
20:20I remember that night, I was doing interviews.
20:23Trish and Jackie in a tag team match.
20:27I was backstage.
20:28And I hear my name called.
20:31And Brock was in this room.
20:33Dustin was in the room.
20:34My ex-husband at the time.
20:37And Brock did the whole thing.
20:41I no-sold it.
20:43Went to my dressing room.
20:44Dustin came and he's like,
20:46Don't sell it.
20:47I'm like, I'm not selling it.
20:49I didn't sell it.
20:50Not gonna.
20:51In other words, let it lie.
20:53Leave it alone.
20:57I had complaints about Brock Lesnar's behavior on the plane.
21:03And, but I don't recall any advances or reported advances from Brock to Terry Reynolds.
21:13Could it have happened?
21:15Of course it could have happened.
21:17It could have happened.
21:20I did my job to the best of my ability to look out for the talent.
21:24I can't follow everybody around to see if they're acting like an adult.
21:28That should not be my job.
21:31It really shouldn't.
21:40After the terrifying brawl at 30,000 feet, the passengers try to settle in as the WWF roster is due
21:48to perform on live television the following day.
21:51I got TVs tomorrow.
21:53You know, it's like, let's get some rest now.
21:55I'm leaning against the window, you know, sleeping.
21:58All of a sudden, I hear this very familiar voice.
22:04And Dustin, my ex-husband, starts singing a David Allen Coe song called Pledging My Love.
22:13Forever, my darling, my love will be true.
22:16Always and forever, I'll love only you.
22:20I immediately am, like, mortified.
22:23Everyone that's just drifted off to sleep is now woken up by, yeah.
22:29I was about to get up and go back there and tell him to stop.
22:32But Polly was across the aisle, and he looked at me, he's like,
22:38Don't sell it. Don't sell it.
22:40So I left it alone.
22:42It seems like whenever somebody does something to you, people say, Don't sell it.
22:47Don't sell it.
22:47Because that's just the smartest way to deal with our business.
22:51Just don't sell it.
22:54If Dustin could sing, it would have made it a little bit easier.
22:59But he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
23:01I did not like his behavior.
23:03I genuinely felt for the guy in the sense, he was obviously hurting, you know.
23:08That pain was real.
23:09No, I don't like to see anyone hurting like that.
23:12However, he still should have given me my microphone back.
23:17It got uncomfortable.
23:18It got uncomfortable.
23:20Like, you know, JR had to stop that.
23:23You know, he literally went up to Dustin and said,
23:26Set your ass down.
23:28Go to sleep.
23:30You know, give us all a break.
23:32Eventually he passed out, and that's how we got our PA back.
23:35He fell asleep, and I got the microphone from him.
23:38If I was a flight attendant, to be on that flight that night would have been probably one of the
23:44worst experiences of my career.
23:46Some young ladies just trying to do their job and just trying to get home.
23:51You know, I could imagine it being very disheartening for them and scary in some ways, I'm sure.
23:58Hours into the flight, the mid-air chaos shows no signs of slowing down.
24:04There was another situation that occurred with Ric Flair for me that was very uncomfortable.
24:12Sometimes, as a joke, Ric Flair would put on his robe, not wear anything else, and walk that aisle like
24:21Ric Flair and then open it up and...
24:23Woo!
24:24That's the big high spot. I wanted to see Ric coming out naked in his robe, so he did it
24:28on the airplane for everybody.
24:30And that's what the guys want to see. That's what makes them laugh.
24:35He could move his hips and twirl it, and so his well-endowed penis spins around like a helicopter.
24:44So, hey, he's the nature boy for a reason. He's got a hammer on him.
24:49He's the life of the party. And if you know him, you know where to exit the party and go
24:58to your own safe place.
25:00Or you don't know the rules and you find yourself in deep water. And that may have happened.
25:09And I was in the galley. The galley is where our little kitchen area on an airplane.
25:15Ric Flair was naked, in a cape only, and then he decided to come back to the galley to get
25:20a coke.
25:21And then he wouldn't leave the galley.
25:23He had me up back against the back door.
25:27And I couldn't, I couldn't move. I couldn't get away from him. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't move.
25:35He was spinning around his penis and he wanted me to touch it.
25:39He, he took my hand and, and put it on him.
25:45Ric Flair is not going to try to impose by force any sexual stuff onto anybody.
25:54Um, he's just flaunting, styling and profile and doing like the Ric Flair stuff where everybody's going to laugh about
26:02it.
26:03Um, but obviously someone took offense to it.
26:08I remember him crowding the, uh, the flight attendant, like in the, in the aisle way back there by the
26:13bathroom where it's like real skinny and you can't fit two people through there and stuff.
26:16I remember him like crowding her and, uh, you know, trying to, uh, make her, uh, touch him and stuff.
26:22And he kept me back there for, I don't, I don't know how long. Um, but it felt like a
26:26really long time. It wasn't short. Like it was, it was minutes.
26:31And I asked him to please stop and he didn't, he wouldn't.
26:39I don't remember somebody really helping me except one, I believe, Gold, Gold Dust, who had the mic.
26:46I do believe he should, he told Ric Flair he should leave me alone eventually. He should, he should leave
26:52me alone.
26:53And maybe that's why I didn't get as angry about the mic as I maybe I should have, you know.
26:58I think he did try to help me and he was the only one that did.
27:11Let's talk about Scott Hall for a second. What's his state at this point?
27:15Scott's issues have been well documented. He's documented. He had issues with substance abuse.
27:24We were not doing him any favors putting him back on the road so he could resume his, uh, routines.
27:30But we didn't do justice. But we didn't know how bad it was.
27:34Uh, and, and for those that think we should have known.
27:39Yeah, well, we didn't.
27:41You don't know until you see it. You interact with it.
27:47We were quite close to landing. And I came to Scott Hall who had just woken up.
27:53I had offered him breakfast and...
27:57He grabbed my shirt and pulled me down and my shirt buttons got ripped.
28:03And he had told me what he was gonna do to me.
28:07Do you remember what he said?
28:10Yeah.
28:11He said a number of things, but other what I do remember is as my shirt ripped, he told me
28:15he was gonna lick me.
28:17And then he proceeded to, to try to do that, which...
28:22Uh, I don't wanna say scary cause that might sound too dramatic, but...
28:25It was a moment of...
28:27Grief.
28:31Violation, discomfort to...
28:33Have a, a person put their hands on you without...
28:37You wanting them to do that and to not let go when you ask them to.
28:40And to create a, a level of fear when you're there to do a job.
28:43And you're doing your job and now you have to be afraid that...
28:46You're gonna get hurt.
28:48It didn't feel to me that he...
28:50Was gonna let go anytime soon.
28:52Um, and then he passed out.
28:54And I, I was able to, you know, dislodge him from...
28:59Me.
29:01I think that Kurt H-bombed me.
29:04Because I've been taking pills and drinking for a lot of years at that point.
29:07And I was out.
29:09After that happened with Scott Hall, I never left the galley.
29:13I didn't serve anyone.
29:16And they got angry at me for that.
29:17They wanted more food and drinks and I was done.
29:20I didn't come out of the galley again.
29:28After spending a total of 14 nightmarish hours on the plane, the weary passengers and crew finally touched down on
29:35American soil.
29:36When they landed and I heard the door open.
29:39Yeah.
29:40It was a very, very excellent feeling to not be over the Atlantic anymore.
29:44It was a long flight.
29:45It was a very long flight.
29:47The plane was trashed.
29:50Blankets, pillows, drinks, cups, food stepped on.
29:54A normal flight, they're passing by three or four times with trash bags and this and that.
29:59Well, this wasn't a normal flight.
30:01So, I think Scott was passed out.
30:04I think they were actually worried he was dead, you know.
30:07So, they were all stressed like they got a dead person on this flight now.
30:11And I'm like, oh boy, don't worry.
30:13He'll kick out.
30:15It's like, he'll kick out.
30:17He wouldn't wake up.
30:19So, I'm picking him up and I had to get him a wheelchair and literally take him through customs myself.
30:27I put the sunglasses on him, laid him there and he's just kind of, you know.
30:33I had to get his passport, had to say that he had some kind of condition.
30:39And there I am, wheeling Razor through, you know, customs.
30:45And there's Jim Ross.
30:47He had the black hat on and just looking at me with disgust and I'm like, I'm here, I'm wheeling
30:54him.
30:54I didn't do anything.
30:56Once we landed, Michael Hayes woke up and his ponytail was missing.
31:02And Michael Hayes was pissed off about it.
31:06He was hell-bent to find out who did it.
31:10You know who did it, you know who did it.
31:12Would have fought the entire plane if he could have.
31:15He was really angry.
31:16He was really angry.
31:24And when we landed, we started to pick up the airplane and there was vomit.
31:29And there was blood.
31:32There was syringes found in seat back pockets in other places.
31:35And I'm going, oh no, we're not cleaning this airplane.
31:38We're gonna get off right now.
31:39And my superior said, no, you need to clean the airplane.
31:45And me just walking off the airplane, you know.
31:48That happened on Delta or America or whatever.
31:52When we got back to the States, the FBI would have been waiting on us.
31:58There should have been more repercussions for sure.
32:00There should have been some...
32:02I don't know, they did have repercussions, I learned later, but...
32:06They were only, I think, because they knew they had to do something, you know,
32:09because it didn't look real good for Vince McMahon's organization, I don't think.
32:14For better or for worse, I'm taking ownership.
32:18But it was a...
32:19It was a black eye.
32:22Good thing about a black eye, you heal.
32:34Shortly after landing, Vince McMahon and Jim Ross urgently meet to discuss repercussions for the flight's most egregious acts.
32:42I just couldn't believe everything was getting out of control with Vince on a flight, you know.
32:47But it did, it got out of control.
32:49I don't know, I don't know what Vince was doing during this whole time.
32:52I wonder what.
32:54Vince was well aware of it.
32:55But it was my job to handle.
32:59That's why I'm still embarrassed about it this very day.
33:02It was my job to handle.
33:05Vince McMahon makes the decisions, but Jim Ross is the one who has to execute them.
33:10Jim Ross is the guy who has to fire you as well.
33:12Jim Ross is the guy who has to tell you, hey, you're messing up.
33:15He's the guy who has to fine you.
33:17That's that position.
33:19It wasn't a tough decision on my part to cut some guys from the roster.
33:25Because it's what Vince McMahon told me to do.
33:27And the guy that writes the checks has the last say.
33:32I was troubled by Kurt's firing.
33:35I just thought he had a bad night with the boys.
33:39He had a reputation of becoming a practical joker.
33:44And Vince had enough of it.
33:46And he kind of figured maybe, okay, Kurt got fired, but then he's going to come back and circle his
33:50way around at some point.
33:51Which he would have, I'm sure.
33:53But he passed away not too far after that.
33:58And Razor, I think it was just his drug addiction that kind of maybe just his career kind of slipped
34:05away there.
34:06We let Scott go within hours after we got back to the States.
34:13I was told to cut him now.
34:16And so I called him at home and, you know, I just said, I think we made a mistake.
34:21You're not ready to get back on the road.
34:23And until you're better suited to handle your dealings, we need to put you back in your comfort zone.
34:28Which meant at home, primarily.
34:32Dustin Rhodes is one of my favorite people in the world.
34:35We go back a long way.
34:37I don't know if it was just the rebound of his divorce with Terry, what it was.
34:42But he was in a tough place.
34:45But no excuse.
34:48So, you know, he was dipping his snuff and using the seat back cushion as a spittoon.
34:56I had two options.
34:58Find him, and I'll get his attention, or fire him.
35:03Which I thought was extreme, and did not need to happen.
35:08That was my call.
35:10He learned from his mistakes.
35:12He was immature.
35:13He had substance abuse issues.
35:16And sometimes he controlled them, and sometimes he didn't.
35:20But the bottom line is, is that we have to stop in our society letting other transgressions go without punishment.
35:30How is it that Ric Flair evaded any sort of suspension or anything like that?
35:41Good question.
35:45Uh, I guess, for lack of a better term, he was a made man.
35:53And he was such a high-level made man that he got a pass.
36:01Was it the right thing to do?
36:02I don't know.
36:04You're listening to it, folks.
36:06You decide.
36:07He got a pass.
36:10As the WWF deals with the fallout from the flight, Heidi is forced to consider her next steps.
36:18I remember walking off the airplane on the tarmac, and we went to a hotel that was quite nearby and
36:22talking about how horrible, like, and the girls from the front saying they didn't know that it was that, you
36:30know, that it was that bad.
36:32Um, and then I just went to my hotel room and I took a shower and I cried.
36:38I called Sports Jet.
36:40They said that was unfortunate, that that had occurred on the airplane.
36:43They preferred that we kept it to ourselves, the story, because we work with professional athletes and things happen on
36:48airplanes.
36:49And they let us know that it was expected that we would, um, respect the privacy of our clients.
36:58So then you have to figure out how you tell your husband, how was your trip?
37:02Well, it wasn't excellent.
37:04Um, what do you tell your husband?
37:06Um, it can even create situations where they say, well, what, why did that happen to you?
37:13Well, what did you do to make them do that to you?
37:16And I would say that might be the worst question you could ever ask somebody who's been hurt.
37:22Because you already feel a sense of, what did I do?
37:25Did I smile?
37:26Was I, was I too nice to him?
37:29And, man, you feel almost like you'd done something wrong.
37:33When I hadn't.
37:36Um, but I know another girl, there was another girl on the flight that was very upset about things that
37:41had, similar things that had occurred to her.
37:45She went to a lawyer and then she contacted me and said, I should do that as well.
37:52If I filed a lawsuit for every time something like that happened to me, dear God, I would be in
37:58court for all my adult life.
38:01My sense of it was that the company wanted to address this matter, take it off our books, uh, do
38:14the right thing by those that had complaints, and then move on.
38:21There was an agreement that was reached and, and, um, you know, they offered us a settlement.
38:26My husband just didn't want the story told to the public, um, maybe just to protect our daughter or him,
38:32us, I don't know.
38:34So he was very, very supportive of the settlement.
38:37It's sad that money has to be that compensation, like, I think definitely truth and honesty and, and change is
38:43more powerful, but money is, money is what ends up on the table, I think, and, and then it also
38:49buys you silence, which then can add to another layer of the guilt of a victim.
38:54Like, it can, it can be a cycle that's not good, yeah, perpetually bad.
39:00If that's how she felt, maybe she should have not taken a payout and went to the fullest extent of
39:07the law to then truly put this heinous person in jail.
39:12My opinion.
39:13People have their own opinions of what happened, what, what the damage was.
39:18No one should really have a bad opinion when it didn't happen to them, but they do.
39:22They say, you know, it wasn't that bad, you're okay, aren't you?
39:25And now you have to live with a pain or a memory of something that you didn't bring about, and
39:30that takes some work, yeah.
39:39After the exhausting European tour, wrestlers and management report for a live taping of Monday Night Raw, a mere 24
39:47hours after the plane touchdown in Connecticut.
39:49We had TV that day, Monday.
39:52Of course, the talents.
39:54H-A-R.
39:55H-A-R.
39:56What?
39:58Did you see what they did to Hayes' ponytail?
40:03No.
40:03What?
40:05Michael Hayes' ponytail was put into a sandwich bag that was taped to the locker room door at Raw Monday
40:13until I saw it.
40:15And I took it down and threw it away.
40:19Exposure of these scandalous events would mark a turning point for the WWF, propelling it to rein in the public
40:26antics of its performers.
40:27In a symbolic twist of fate, the aftermath of the infamous plane ride from hell coincided on the same day
40:34the company was legally forced to rebrand its identity.
40:38Can you imagine that they are?
40:39Forget the F house!
40:41Young talents coming in the business after that era, I heard all the stories, saw the remnants, saw guys that
40:48had made millions of dollars and not have two quarters rubbed together.
40:54And I think they learned from their predecessors.
41:00Nice job.
41:02It's a different culture.
41:05It's a different era.
41:06I think that's the upshot and maybe good news that incidents like the plane ride from hell smarten some of
41:15these younger kids up.
41:16I want to be in the wrestling business.
41:18I've always idolized this guy.
41:20But I do know I'm not going to pattern some of my career after this guy.
41:26You make good choices that way.
41:29I think that there's definitely a sense of that cliché, never meet your heroes.
41:36The people who have watched for generations and got them through their lives, I don't think that they all need
41:44to see Ric Flair doing the helicopter with his penis.
41:48Like I don't, I don't really think it's good for everybody to know this about their heroes.
41:55You know, some of these guys are freaks.
41:58I feel this is trying to portray someone as this sexual predator.
42:01And it's not.
42:02It's a joke.
42:03It's a gag.
42:05And today, 1000% inappropriate.
42:09My hairstyle is inappropriate right now.
42:11I am somehow offending someone right now with my double ponytail.
42:15How dare I have two ponytails?
42:17And my answer is I'm 50 years old.
42:19I'm happy I have hair.
42:20But if you're asking me, I've hung out with Ric Flair.
42:24I've never seen him try to force his will against anybody.
42:29I don't feel that his intent was to rape me.
42:33But what he did was wrong.
42:35It was wrong.
42:36And he goes to sleep that night and thinks he made it back from his wrestling trip in Europe.
42:41And maybe he has a headache because he had too many cocktails on the airplane.
42:45And yet, that night I didn't go to sleep.
42:50My trip to work, my trip to get money to support my daughter, becomes a memory that is mine forever
42:55to live with.
42:56Like I get to live with the fact that I had to see a naked man and get my face
43:00licked by a man that I was there to make sure he got from point A to point B safe.
43:04And they went to sleep and thought they made it home safe and sound and so goes on the world,
43:10you know.
43:11I was uncomfortable coming to talk about this.
43:14You see some stories get told and then people get ridiculed or they're everything picked apart as what they did
43:20wrong when they're just telling the story.
43:23But if one person that listens to this says, oh my gosh, I might have acted like that towards somebody
43:30and I didn't even realize I did it.
43:32Or if one person hears that they had something happen to them that they didn't like and they didn't feel
43:37they could speak about it because they'd get in trouble or they were made to feel that they created the
43:42situation and might have made it happen.
43:43Like if it could change it for one person, I'd sit and have this conversation 25 times again.
43:50The truth, the truth can be scary and the truth can be ugly and messy, but at the end of
43:55the day, the truth is the thing that makes us better.
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