10 Dark Secrets Wrestlers Accidentally Revealed
3. The Plane Ride From Hell: Hardly An Isolated Incident
If you go back and watch the Plane Ride From Hell documentary on Vice, or read various interviews conducted years later by the principals involved, the theme, mostly, is contrition.
Most involved recognise the gravity of the situation and blame the free bar. Emptied trolleys of booze thrown back during a seven-hour flight delay heightened the celebratory atmosphere of the end of a slog of a tour of Europe. The agreed line is that it all went too far, and that the ramifications of the incident - firings, sexual harassment lawsuits - added up to a reckoning of the backstage culture.
This isn't exactly true - while it was amongst the most scandalous stories of the era, WWE was only forced into a real clean-up years and years later - and some people didn't get the memo that this was all too crazy even for the road warriors of a bygone era.
Tommy Dreamer - no stranger to putting his foot in his mouth on Vice - said before the credits even rolled that "This was just a normal occurrence...it seems like a crazy story to probably everyone else watching - except professional wrestlers."
Former WWE referee Mike Chioda talked of the wrestlers' fondness for the drug Halcion, and the "H-bombing" culture. Rob Van Dam (who expressed his disgust at the practise, it should be made clear) also revealed that women in similar situations would be drugged so that the "boys" "could have their way with" them. This is a euphemism. He is talking about r*pe and sexual assault.
The real dark side of the ring is that, were all of pro wrestling history covered, the series would run longer than the Days Of Our Lives.
Marty Jannetty was not in the WWF at the time, nor was he on the flight - but he was on another flight, one that confirms the 'Plane Ride From Hell' was not an aberration...