The Plane Ride From Hell is one of the most infamous stories in wrestling history. The event took place as the WWE roster was returning from a European tour on May 5th, 2002. One of the many stories to come from this commute was Vince McMahon deciding he wanted to wrestle the Olympic Gold Medalist, Kurt Angle.
On the latest episode of his Kurt Angle Show podcast, Angle recalls the Plane Ride from Hell as being the \'longest night of his life.\' There was a lot of rowdiness on board, but things got dangerous when Angle and McMahon were wrestling near the door of the airplane.
\"The thing was, I was on the plane and Vince had a few glasses of wine in him,\" Angle began. \"He was feeling frisky and thought if I’m gonna wrestle someone that’s the best, might as well wrestle an Olympic Gold Medalist. You have to understand, Vince is the type of guy who would say to Mike Tyson, ‘Knock me out. Go ahead, hit me in the face. I want to feel what it’s like.’ He wants to feel what it’s like to be with the best person. I totally get it, but Vince is crazy.\"
Angle further explained McMahon\'s affinity for roughhousing. He\'s an alpha male and wants to test himself by mixing it up with the best athletes in the world.
\"He would have somebody come get me and he’d jump me from behind and we’d wrestle. We did this for five hours. We’d wrestle for a few minutes, and I’d hold him down and say, ‘Are you good?’ He’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re good.’ I’d go back and lay down and he’d jump on me again. It went for five hours, and it just became very irritating.”
\"Tell the pilot to go...\"
While some would expect the boss to assume control of the situation, it sounds like McMahon was as much to blame for things getting out of hand than anybody.
“The crazy thing, there were wine stains all over the floor – there’s white carpet and wine stains everywhere,\" Angle said. \"Vince and I were wrestling near the door, and there’s the latch. You open the latch and the door is open and you fly out of the plane. We kept hitting the latch while we were wrestling, so the flight attendant came and said, ‘The pilot said if you don’t sit down and stop, he’s gonna land this plane right now.’ Vince says, ‘Go tell the pilot to fuck himself. I’ll buy the fucking plane.\'
\"Here we are wrestling on the plane and we’re getting ready to land and they finally get Vince to calm down. Jericho is sitting in front of me and he says look who’s coming up the aisle. While we’re hitting the ground landing, Vince is army crawling up the aisle to jump on me again. I’m like, ‘Holy shit, this is the night that will never end.’ It was a frickin’ nightmare.”
This infamous trip will be covered in Season 3 of Dark Side of the Ring.
