Post by Toronto Maple Leafs on Sept 18, 2021 12:40:58 GMT -5
This show is great and I love it, but it's not a show you're supposed to "love". I love it for how brutal you really learn all the behind the scenes dirt is/was/always will be in promotions, the carny-esque attitude of wrestlers that still carries through to today, the shocking side-lives these guys live outside of their kayfabe characters. The person on the screen they want you to believe vs. the person they are on the road vs. the person they are at home vs. the person they are when no one is watching.
Summation: People are complicated.
It doesn't mean they can't be held to their faults though. You can absolutely love Jimmy Snuka and also be aware that he murdered his wife. You can think Chyna was a tremendous talent that propelled the women's wrestling movement while also hating that her addictions led to her demise. You can think Vince McMahon is a perfect heel boss, while also hating how he treats his talent fairly and unfairly, seemingly at complete random.
In the words of Vince McMahon, on that front, "he's gonna puke!"
And that leads us to one of the most eye-opening, catch-all, everyone is to blame episodes of Dark Side of the Thing/Documentary on wrestling as a whole that will leave, what Jim Ross called, a serious "black eye" on the industry for a very, very long time. Until it heals. And it's that "healing" part that draws in so many questions about the character of specific individuals on this episode.
If you have not seen this episode, I strongly suggest that you do, as the following will be spoilers, likely trigger-warning in effect on some of this stuff, and it's better to see how it was presented and talked about by the people who were actually there than it would be to read it fresh from my account below.
What Happened On the Plane?
Well, before we get to that, there's a pretty big event that occurred before we even hit the runway. Teri Runnels told a story, using her ex-husband Dustin Rhodes as a suggested witness, that while Dustin and Brock were in a dressing room, Brock (allegedly) exposed himself to her and Dustin ran after her telling her "not to sell it." The latter term being a means of "letting it go, don't react to it, pretend it never happened."
And that, according to Teri, is what she did, and was a staple of a term thrown out to girls often anytime they were approached sexually by male wrestlers. At one point, Teri kind of makes a shitty/understandly strange comment that if she were to go to court with everyone that's made an unwelcomed advance on her, she would be in court for the rest of her life. That's pretty sad. The comment, where placed in the episode, sort of gets dropped just as we are learning about another flight attendant (who's story was NOT told on the episode) that did take an event to court. So while the comment comes on those heals (which is why I found it to be a weird remark until you process the intent of what Teri was saying - to me, it initially came across as a slight at the attendant that DID take it to court) it's just a very depressing quote as a whole.
So Then What Happened On the Plane?
Here is the bullet points of what happened on the plane:
- Plane has weather delay, is grounded for 7 hours
- First alcohol cart is depleted, they order a second one, depleted, order a third one, and as that starts to go, it's suggested that at this time, drugs start getting dropped into drinks, specifically Halcion, and this is known as "H-bombing" someone
- At that point, former referee Mike Chiodo says that wrestlers can get drunk within an hour, and Rob Van Dam makes a comment that a lot of guys he worked with would definitely slip drugs into girls drinks and date rape them and it was basically a common thing
- Michael Hayes is suspected as being H-bombed, and he spontaneously gets up and walks over to a sleeping John Bradshaw (JBL) and punches him in the face; JBL then reacts by knocking out Hayes, rendering him unconscious for the rest of the flight
- X-Pac (Sean Waltman) takes this opportunity to cut off Hayes' ponytail, later puts it in a sandwich bag and staples it to the locker room door at RAW the following night
- Curt Hennig, known as the class clown/prank artist master general, sprays shaving cream on the top of Brock Lesnar's head and slaps it down
- Lesnar reacts by chasing Hennig, tackling him, brawling throughout the plan, breaking seats and overhead bins in the process, before colliding into the plane's emergency door; while the attendant (Doyle, our primary narrator for the episode) gives her account that they couldn't have crashed through the door, it could have broken the aircraft's fuselage:
Extra Note for this part: it's important to know that planes pressurize themselves to be a tolerable ride for everyone inside. If a plane loses its pressure, it prevents oxygen in your blood from reaching your brain, and can almost immediately lead to hypoxia. A major effect of this is known to make you feel "loopy, drunk or dumb". Things are happening around you but you can't logically think, you just feel euphoric. This has been determined to be the cause of some major plane crashes and disasters, including the missing Malaysia Flight 370. It's pretty fucking scary.
- After they slam into the door, this sort of scares the other wrestlers into pulling them apart and settling down, and everyone starts to slowly fall asleep in their seats
- Goldust then takes the plane's PA mic and starts to sing, badly, to Teri Runnels (as they are in the midst of their divorce) and is drunk and this is perceived to be a pretty sad moment, and Jim Ross wanders over and takes the plane microphone from him; flight attendant Doyle is sympathetic here to Rhodes (we will come back to this) for looking like he was heartbroken and in pain; Runnels says this was a pretty embarrassing and all around "please don't do this" kind of moment, but his singing has now woken people back up, which is great because all of these people being drunk/drugged/conscious is so far a pretty great mix (sarcasm)
- At this point, Tommy Dreamer talks about how Flair is really great at being the life of a party, and that it usually devolves into Flair taking all his clothes off, putting on his legendary robe outfit, and marching around before doing the "Woooo" and exposing himself, helicoptering his penis, and generally just having a great time being naked and around people dancing and strutting
- The flight attendant is back getting people food and drinks when Flair corners her in the galley, robe open, and pushes her up against a wall, then takes her hand and starts forcing her to touch his penis; at this point, Dustin Rhodes intervenes and stops Flair from continuing, and shows Dustin as being a good guy in this moment (more on this later)
- Doyle then goes near the front of the plane (but not first class where Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and possibly even McMahon's wife are sitting) and she is either getting food for Scott Hall or she's checking on him, but either way, Scott grabs her by the shirt, ripping buttons in the process, pulls her toward him, and tells her he's going to lick her
- The flight attendant staff refuse to engage or provide any services on the flight for the remainder; the flight takes a total of 14 hours I believe to arrive to their destination, at which point Scott Hall is so fucked up that Justin Credible has to help him into a wheel chair and wheel him through the airport customs to leave, disguising Hall in sunglasses and pretending he has a disability to get through everywhere
- Throughout all of this, Jim Ross is the VP of talent relations and it's his job to stop these guys from being the biggest assholes on the planet, and Jim tells us "it shouldn't be my job to tell adults to behave like adults" except that it is his job...
The Aftermath
A lawsuit was filed by both flight attendants (Doyle, and the other unnamed as she did not wish to participate in the episode). In this lawsuit, they claimed Flair "wore nothing but a jeweled cape" and "flashed his nakedness, spinning his penis around." They claimed that he grabbed their hands and placed them on his crotch, and "forcibly detained and restrained" one of them from "eaving the back of the galley of the airplane while he sexually assaulted her."
Remember when I said I would come back to Dustin Rhodes, who was made to look like the "good guy" from stopping Flair from forcing Doyle to grope him, and was just a sad sack of shit singing to his ex-wife with tears in his eyes? Well, the attendants claimed that he sexually harassed them, grabbed one of the flight attendants, starting rubbing her crotch through her outfit and said "you and I are gonna fuck!"
Scott Hall was also mentioned in the allegations, as one of the attendants said he told her he "wanted to lick her pussy" and "told her to suck his dick."
Hall maintains he doesn't remember anything from that night due to likely being H-bombed. Flair denies all the allegations to this day, and the WWE eventually settled with both flight attendants out of court.
Jim Ross on the events:
"The flight was about seven hours in length and at times was low-lighted by a handful of people who consumed too much alcohol and consequently acted like children whose parents were away and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. The conduct of this inebriated minority was unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Procedures have been put in place to ensure such conduct does not occur in the future."
Before the episode aired, Flair went on Renee Paquette's podcast and said "we'll see how it plays out, because I was there and I don't care whose name I gotta drop if the heat falls on me. I know who was where and what and who and what took place. I know the whole story."
Maria Kanellis on events that were depicted in the episode: "It was always 'don't sell it, don't let them see you cry, you are lucky to be here, boys being boys, it's funny, etc. etc.' all lies to hide the grossness of it all. It was a culture that some people still try and uphold today. 'Back in my day...' is part of that lie."
Mike's Thoughts
1. No Hating on the Victim
What is most troubling about the entire episode is, well, lots of things, but the top of that list is watching a woman (who I felt was incredibly charismatic in how she told her story, not really important, but just thought she was an excellent story-teller), Doyle's firsthand account presented to discuss her job. Her Job. This was a private jet, she's paid to work as a flight attendant for professional sports teams, likely earned a pretty great promotion to get this specific gig, and is earning money for her family. She's not there to be a "hot flight attendant" for athletes and celebrities to sexually harass and assault, she's there to work her job and go home to her family. Most of the time when she is talked about by the wrestlers, they don't really even address her as a person, they just say things like "yeah, flight attendants party with us" and shit like that. Doyle instead says she attended the PPV show in Germany, but otherwise spent most of her time in her hotel room getting room service. But she says she settled out of court after consulting with her husband. She and her husband did not want to go public about it as they wanted to move on from it and not have to deal with it on a daily basis or be faced with the court of public opinion, news articles, etc. Doyle said this was her first trip after having a baby and wanted to get home to her daughter and resume her career and be a mom without this lawsuit and court crowding her family. She talks about going home after that "shift" and explaining to her husband what happened, and the most challenging thing for discussing it is the possibility of her husband or anyone saying "well, what did you do to stop it?" And that is the most unforgiving question you can ask a victim. She is not the person instigating a thing, and how she reacts from that point forward isn't really relevant. If I am a 110lbs woman, cornered by a professional body-building wrestler who is naked and he forces me to touch his penis, I don't really see a lot of options on how to get out of that, especially if I fear it can escalate into more violence. Tommy Dreamer was very direct about how low-key he thought all of these acts were.
Doyle was also an endearing and level-headed victim when she summarized her events with Flair. "I don't feel that his intent was to rape me, but what he did was wrong. It was wrong, and he goes to sleep that night and thinks he made it back from his wrestling trip to Europe and maybe he has a headache because he had too many cocktails on the airplane. And yet, that night I didn't go to sleep. My trip to work, my trip to get money to support my daughter, becomes a memory that is mine forever to live with. I get to live with the fact that I had to see a naked man and get my face licked by a man that I was there to make sure got from Point A to Point B safe and they went to sleep and thought they made it home safe and sound."
2. The Plane Was Totally Fucked Up
It's not really mentioned, but as a company I would definitely be sending a massive fucking bill to the WWE for the state they left this private jet in. Doyle said that after the wrestlers left, they started to clean and found vomit, blood, syringes in seats and basically felt this was extreme and wanted to stop cleaning, but her superiors told her to clean it up anyways. Doyle decided to walk off the plane. Jim Ross said that if it happened on any other airline, the FIB would have been waiting for them at the airport to land.
3. The Punishments Didn't Fit the Crimes
When they land, Vince and JR meet to discuss penalties, and boy oh boy are these a fucking disaster to admit publicly. JR was the guy that fired you, gave you a raise, gave you a demotion, fines, suspensions, everything basically. So he gets to be the messenger for Vince's decisions.
- Curt Hennig gets fired. It's believed this mostly happens because he bugged Lesnar and Lesnar was getting a push at a young age. A year later, Curt is dead. Jim Ross felt Curt just had a bad night with the boys and didn't deserve to be fired. Under a complete microscope, I might actually agree with this, but when there's fucked up shit happening and an entire plane of men don't intervene because of "who" they would have to stop (Flair - a "made man" for lack of a better term dubbed by JR) it definitely becomes complicated, but still fucked up.
- Scott Hall is fired within hours of landing, and told him he wasn't ready to be on the road and needs to handle his demons.
- Dustin Rhodes, who again was treated as a sad hero in this episode, is fined instead of fired, because JR felt that firing him would have been extreme, so he was fined a "large amount." But when you learn of the lawsuit and his sexual assault part, it's hard to be supportive of this decision.
- The producer asks how Flair evaded any punishment or suspension, and JR is silent before saying "good question. For lack of a better term, he was a made man. You got a pass."
4. Tommy Dreamer Is Fucked Up
I'm not even going to write going into this. I'm just going to write Dreamer's quotes from the show.
Dreamer on Flair's antics:
"Ric Flair is not going to try to impose by force any sexual stuff onto anybody. He's just flaunting, stylin' and profilin' and doing Rick Flair stuff where everybody's going to laugh about it, but obviously somebody took offense to it."
Dreamer on the Court Settlement:
"If that's how she felt, maybe she should have not taken a payout and went to the fullest extent of the law to then truly put this heinous person in jail."
Dreamer indirectly at flight attendant Doyle:
"I feel this is trying to portray someone as a sexual predtor, and it's not. It's a joke. It's a gag. And today, 1000 percent inappropriate. I've hung out with Ric Flair. I've never seen him try to force his will against anybody."
5. What I Hope Happens Next
Dreamer was suspended from Impact. Cool, whatever. I don't really care about that.
What I do care about is what I hope happens next for Tommy Dreamer. I hope that he has a chance, after saying his peace, and feeling the way he does about Flair, the boys, and the events on that trip... I hope he gets a chance to watch this episode for himself. See Doyle's accounts. See how the story is presented by Vice - who to this point have maintained journalistic integrity as being a big deal to them. I want Tommy to know how he feels and appreciate those feelings, and then see this story from the other account entirely. And then determine if he still has the same perspective. Dreamer comes across as a "defend the business at all cost" type.
Dreamer really brought up the whole cancel culture element in relation to what Flair did and that the joke of what he did didn't deserve it, but would be handled that way if it happened today. In truth, Dreamer just looks like a pathetic "truther" who was preserving his heroes and ignoring the reality of what really happened. Accountability is necessary.
Dreamer was suspended from Impact for comments that were "out of line with our core values." Yes, I would think so. So many promotions are trying to move into a women-safe environment for work, and Dreamer is still out here selling us roses on sexual assault/harassment like it's the equivalent of offending someone for having a specific hairstyle:
"My hairstyle is inappropriate right now. I'm somehow offending someone right now with my double ponytail. How dare I have two ponytails? My answer is - I'm 50 years old and I'm happy I have hair. If you're asking me, I've hung out with Ric Flair. I've never seen him try to force his will onto anyone."
6. Flair Is Done
There's no way any promotion could ever consider bringing him out anywhere for a cheap pop. I don't see how he could escape this, but the past will always catch up with us. I've never really been a person to care for comments made that are held against people years and years later (there's a grey area here, but I'm mostly referring to make shitty jokes and losing your job years later for it). But this isn't words, this is literally sexual assault. Flair needs to be held accountable, even if a settlement took that accountability off the table with a price tag. This is a massive blemish on the legacy of Flair and will never be erased. Rightfully so.
7. Potential Inconsistencies?
Since the episode aired, there's been a lot of chatter of one very specific detail:
Why the fuck didn't Vince McMahon get up and walk back and tell everyone to stop of they are fired?
Well, this is where it's weird. We are told at in the front first-class portion of the plane is another attendant, Vince McMahon, his wife, Jim Ross, and Teri Runnels, and a few other people. And there's this massive circus going on in the back, and Jim Ross is kind of bouncing back and forth during the events. And Teri is telling us she is sitting with the McMahon's in the front while Dustin is singing to her on the mic in the back.
Jonathan Coachman on Twitter: "Hey I have gotten so many questions about the “flight from hell” episode on dark side of the ring. Haven’t seen it yet. But someone just told me that is said Vince and Linda were on the flight. That is absolutely FALSE if that is what they said. They were NOT On the flight."
Dave Meltzer's summary on his podcast:
-He was told by multiple people the week that Plane Ride happened that a big reason why this whole mess happened was because Vince wasn't there.
-Dave said he was confused after he watched it when they said Vince and Linda were on the flight, because he remembered them not being on this one. It caused him to both review the newsletter and his notes from the time, as well as reach out to people for clarification.
-He emphasizes that he doesn't think people are lying when they say Vince was on the flight. It's just a situation where if you have to recall something that happened twenty years ago, you're going to misremember things.
-It COULD be a situation where people are conflating multiple flights together, because there were flights that Vince was on that got bad. There were three different flights where bad shit went down. While the Plane Ride from Hell was probably the worst of all at the time, there were other flights that got way out of hand back then.
-He contacted multiple people who were on the flight (after the episode aired). The person who he feels would have the best memory of the whole situation was emphatic that Vince wasn't there. While the ones who told him that he was there, weren't totally sure.
-He said he had one person tell him yesterday that they remembered V&L were on the flight, only to call him back later and say that they weren't.
If this is true, it would make a lot more sense why the front of the plane seems to be sort of non-existent through the whole story, and why no one up there would intervene. But it also would suggest that first class was likely Jim Ross, Teri Runnels, and other higher ups that aren't the McMahons. Also possible. I would chalk this all up to the Mandela effect, where a large group of people misremember something the same way. If there were multiple bad flights at this time, and this one is the king, but Vince is on one or two of the others, it's easy to get this detail confused.
8. Impressed by How Open RVD and JR Were
Look at those two how you will, but both shared very specific details, both talked about people's addictions, and the bad shit the culture would do in the 80s and 90s, but both also did not try and sidestep their own blame in the situations. I was pretty surprised by how "normal" and "we didn't do anything to prevent anything" RVD came across in this situation, and how "it's out of control and I had no idea how to handle it and I'm also part of the problem" Jim Ross came across in the interviews as well. Both refused to find a way to get out of the line of fire, and seemed to have just gave their side of what they saw or did without trying to shield themselves out of criticism (that we know of).
RVD could've ended the show with his excellent, all-time perfect recurring quote:
"Never Meet Your Heroes."
