Matt Hardy Recalls Infamous WWE “Plane Ride From Hell”
Matt Hardy has shared his memories of a WWE flight that is remembered fondly for the chaos that occurred.
It was in May 2002 when WWE chartered a plane to fly their roster home from a grueling European tour. There were many stories told about that flight over the years with the flight being known as the “Plane Ride from Hell.”
In September 2021, there was an episode of Vice’s “Dark Side of the Ring” where people told stories about that flight. Ric Flair got a lot of heat after allegations from a female stewardess claiming that Ric forced himself on her. Ric denied her allegations saying that it never happened.
Tommy Dreamer also appeared in that episode of Dark Side of the Ring and was criticized heavily for blowing off the allegations against Flair as if it was nothing. A lot of people didn’t like it. Impact Wrestling even suspended Dreamer over it.
Matt Hardy was about four years into his WWE career at the time of the Plane Ride From Hell and he talked about that experience on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast. First, Hardy spoke about the Dark Side of the Ring episode about the flight and why he declined to participate.
“I was on it (the flight), and I have a ton of memories. I’ll never forget, they worked really hard to get me on that ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ episode of Plane Ride from Hell. I very politely declined because I knew no good was — well, too, if you speak the facts and how things really went down in society and you’re showing you’re a good-natured person and you have to say these terrible things about people you may genuinely like. Or maybe people who have done good things to you.”
“It’s like a lose-lose situation in many ways, and I thought we saw many examples of that, like with Tommy Dreamer, who is one of the sweetest guys in the world and really wants what’s best for everyone, but he was just kind of put in an impossible situation.”
Brock Lesnar fighting with Curt Hennig was a fond memory for Matt Hardy
As for his memories of the flight, Matt recalled Brock Lesnar’s tussle with Curt Hennig. It wasn’t a real fight, but more of a challenge for Hennig to try to take down Lesnar, who was a rookie on the WWE main roster and a former NCAA Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.
“When it comes to the Plane Ride from Hell, my most fond memory that I can say, which won’t get me in trouble one way or the other, is that I remember sitting, talking with Undertaker, being right by that emergency exit, Curt Hennig was being hilarious. He just kept, with Brock, ‘Look, I’m so sorry I did this, I’m so sorry I’ve been ribbing you.’ He said, ‘Hey, can we make it okay? Here, shake my hand, Brock. Let’s shake hands like men.’ And I remember Curt Hennig stomped on his toes and he had on shoes and Brock didn’t and he went running down the aisle.”
“Then eventually when he caught up to him and they came back, he (Brock) picked him up like he was driving him into the turnbuckle and drove him into the emergency door there. We’re at the highest elevation flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Like, ‘Holy s***.’ It was terrifying. I remember them hitting and me making eye contact with Taker like, ‘F***,’ and it was just like, ‘What if this would’ve opened?’ We would’ve all died. Pretty much impossible to open the thing at that height and whatnot, but it was just so crazy. You would never, ever see that on a plane in this day and age.”
Matt Hardy currently works for All Elite Wrestling. Matt teamed up with his brother Jeff Hardy on Saturday night’s episode of AEW Collision. Unfortunately for fans of The Hardys, they lost to the Righteous duo of Dutch & Vincent in tag team action.