10 Best WWE Tales From Wrestlers' Court
8. The Hardys Steal Kane's Seat
On 29 June 1999 in Fayetteville, North Carolina (broadcast on RAW Is War on 5 July), the Hardy Boyz would make history by winning the WWF Tag Team Championships from the Acolytes, Bradshaw and Faarooq. Matt and Jeff Hardy were hometown heroes, having been born and raised in Cameron, only 40-odd miles away. That feelgood moment sent the crowd home ecstatically happy, and put their kayfabe manager, the legendary Michael Hayes, in a remarkably good mood too.
The trouble was, Hayes' good moods were also legendary, and often for the wrong reasons. A former member of the Fabulous Freebirds, Hayes was raised in an era when wrestlers partied every night like it was the night before Prohibition came in, and that night he was loaded. On the plane to New York, Hayes decided that the Hardys and he deserved first class seats as they 'collectively' were the Tag Team Champions, and grabbed the first three he found, ordering Matt and Jeff to sit down.
Unfortunately, the seat that Hayes gave to Jeff belonged to Glenn Jacobs, also known as Kane. He'd been waiting at the gate for D'Lo Brown, as he had his plane ticket, and when Jacobs boarded to find his seat, found the younger Hardy Boy sitting in it. Jeff realised his mistake and tried to give the seat up again, but the Big Red Machine genially waved the kid off, going to sit back in coach.
Kane may have been okay with it, but word got around quickly and the locker room veterans definitely weren't happy: Kane was close to seven foot tall and had trouble getting comfortable on planes. The new kids on the block should have offered him their first class seats, not stolen his own. Upon arriving at the Westchester County Civic Center for the next house show on the loop, the Hardy Boyz were informed by Bradshaw that wrestlers' court was set for the following week.
Scuttlebutt (like gossip with a rep for hazing rookies) says that the Undertaker was well aware that Michael Hayes was to blame, but that an example had to be set: the Hardys were punished by being tasked with ribbing Don 'the Jackyl' Callis (who apparently had 'nuclear heat' backstage) on behalf of the veterans, jamming the locks of Callis' rental car with toothpicks and other such juvenile antics. Whether that's really the case or not, who knows - we hear that Hayes wasn't allowed anywhere near first class for quite a while afterwards, though.