On This Day: Curt Hennig fired following WWE Plane Ride from Hell in 2002
Curt Hennig was fired from WWE on this day (May 8) back in 2002, following the infamous ‘Plane Ride from Hell’ incident. Talent were making their way back from the Insurrextion PPV in the UK, and without Vince McMahon on the plane (which is what many believed started the trouble), things got chaotic.
The Plane Ride from Hell in WWE
Here is what our own Dave Meltzer had to say about the situation in the May 13, 2002 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
“There were numerous problems on the flight back from England’s Insurrextion PPV, most not even related to Hall. Several believe it is due to Vince not making the trip and wrestlers believing they weren’t going to get in trouble because of late, discipline has been not taken seriously because of everything Hall has been allowed to get away with.
“Among the incidents, and while incidents on overseas flights involving wrestlers are not uncommon, the number on this flight made it just about the worst flight anyone could remember.
“Dustin Runnels was on the p.a. singing love songs to his ex-wife (Terri Boatright), who was terribly uncomfortable. She asked him to stop and he didn’t. Jim Ross had to sit Runnels down.
“There was also heat on agents Gerald Brisco and Arn Anderson for how out of hand things got, and the heat on Anderson and Michael Hayes was strong, particularly Anderson because as an agent, it’s his job to keep the boys from getting out of control and he was more like one of the boys. Flair started to get wild, but eventually calmed down when Ross told him to.
How Curt Hennig got fired from WWE
“Curt Hennig was spraying people with shaving cream, and kept egging Brock Lesnar into fighting (the two know each other from Minnesota and when Hennig was between gigs and before Lesnar started with OVW, they trained together at Brad Rheingans’ camp) . Lesnar didn’t know how to handle it as a newcomer not wanting to get in trouble, but reportedly was told that if he didn’t stand up to him now, he’d get a bad rep in the business. Lesnar took Hennig down in the aisle way, actually more than once, until David Finlay told Lesnar to stop. Hennig tried to get him to do it again, but Paul Heyman told Lesnar to ignore it. Another report said that Lesnar first grabbed him and bulldozed him against the door and people on the plane freaked because they were afraid the door would open.
“Michael Seitz (Hayes) was out of control, got into either a serious or a not serious brawl with Bradshaw and started cutting wrestling promos on everyone. Hayes tried to halfway pick a fight with Hall, although it was also said Hall had that one coming by his own behavior, as well as others, and was generally really nasty. When he finally fell asleep, someone, believed to be Sean Waltman, cut lots of his hair off. The next day at Raw, his mullet was pinned to the wall backstage as a trophy by Waltman. When he woke up on the plane and found his hair cut off, he started wanting to fight several people.
“Everyone is waiting to see how Vince handles all these various situations, although he did immediately make an example out of Hall. Hayes really got chewed out by Vince, Stephanie and Ross at Raw. There was a feeling that as a writer and an agent, he should be leading by example. Undertaker was said to be furious at how out of hand this got.“
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