This past week, Jim Ross was a guest alongside co-host Conrad Thompson on the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch. During the discussion, Ross shared that he recently sat down for an interview with the team from Dark Side of the Ring covering the May 2002 “Plane Ride from Hell”:
Yesterday, I spent four hours with the Dark of the Ring guys here in my home in Florida and talked about the plane ride from hell. I told them in the beginning, I said, “I don’t like this topic, I don’t like remembering this bullshit”. It was a bad day at the office, it was one of the more darker days during my tenure as head of talent relations but it’s going to make a hell of a special for Dark Side of the Ring that was spawned by what they heard Conrad and I talking about on this podcast (Grilling JR).
Presumably, this will be part of the third season of the series, which has not announced a premiere date. Subjects that have been announced by Vice to be covered include Brian Pillman and the Collision in Korea shows from 1995. PWinsider.com has reported that other episodes will focus on Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington, The Smith family (Jake Roberts, Grizzly Smith, Sam Houston, and Rockin’ Robin), Nick Gage, FMW, Chris Kanyon, and Johnny K-9.
Among the stories that have emerged from the infamous flight after a U.K. event included a scuffle that got tense on the plane between Brock Lesnar and Curt Hennig, Ric Flair disrobing and appearing naked on the flight, Michael Hayes having his ponytail cut off, and other issues stemming from the alcohol on the chartered flight. The fallout included the release of Curt Hennig and Scott Hall several days later. A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by two of the flight attendants that was ultimately settled out of court.
In 2002, Ross made the following comments in a WWE.com article about the incidents:
The flight was about 7 hours in length and at times was lowlighted by a handful of people who consumed too much alcohol and consequently acted like children whose parents were away and left the liquor cabinet open. The conduct of this inebriated minority was unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Procedures have been put on place to ensure such conduct does not occur in the future. The bottom line is this folks, yours truly is the person in charge of the talent roster and the buck stops with me. We will do all we humanly can to solve the problem.
