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WRESTLING COLUMNS

The Plane Trip From Hell
May 6, 2002 - by Brad Dykens

WWE road agents Gerry Brisco, Michael Hayes and Arn Anderson are in hot water with management for letting things get out of control. Hayes is in particular trouble for being the cause of some of the trouble, as he reportedly was cutting promos on people on the plane and provoked the fight with Bradshaw. Apparently no one will give up the name of the person who cut his hair, because they don't want that person punished, as most wrestlers felt Hayes had it coming. Undertaker is said to have played a part in settling Bradshaw down, much as Fit Finlay and Paul Heyman did with Brock Lesnar after Curt Hennig provoked the fight with him. Hennig also was squirting shaving cream at people, and put some in Big Show's hair whil he was asleep.

Finlay and fellow agents Johnny Ace and Dave Hebner are not in trouble with management, who are reportedly curious as to why Jim Ross didn't make more of an effort to settle thing down. Ross did ask Goldust to discontinue an impromptu serenade of Terri, who was embarrassed and upset by her ex husband singing love songs to her over the plane's microphone. Goldust is in hot water, but is not expected to be fired at this time.

Steve Austin and Debra were seated near the front of the plane, and kept to themselves during the flight, although Austin is said to want no further involvement with Hayes.

As for Scott Hall, his fate was already sealed before the trip back, as he was in poor condition, and behaving badly on several occasions during the trip, and during the Insurrextion PPV. He remained "asleep" during most of the trip, but was also in poor condition when he showed up for Raw. Hall is said to be quite unpopular backstage, and most of the crew is said to be happy that he's gone.

The Raw script had to be heavily reworked on Monday, due to dealing with the fallout from the trip, including wrestlers who were in trouble. Vince McMahon was on hand for the rewrites, and to deal with the guilty parties.

Credit: Dave Scherer

--May 9, 2002: Jim Ross was on Bubba the Love Sponge trying to play down the airplane incident, just saying it was four guys and not the whole crew, and gave the impression that on these overseas charter flights they aren't going to serve liquor anymore.