Dark Side of the Ring Composer Was Surprised By Reaction To ‘Plane Ride From Hell’ Episode

Dark Side of the Ring made waves in season three with their episode on the infamous “Plane Ride from Hell,” and the composer was surprised by the reaction it received. The episode, which aired in September of 2021, looked at the 2002 WWE flight from Great Britain to the United States and saw several incidents involving intoxicated talent including an alleged sexual assault from Ric Flair, a fight between Curt Hennig & Brock Lesnar and more.

After the episode’s airing, Flair found himself removed from WWE videos and his merchandise pulled from Shop WWE, with an ad campaign halted as well. In addition, Tommy Dreamer was suspended from Impact Wrestling for defending Flair in the episode and downplaying the incident.

Composer Andrew Gordon MacPherson spoke about the episode with Steve Fall on The Ten Count for WrestlingNews.co, and you can see some highlights below (per Wrestling Inc):

On being surprised by the reaction to the episode: “When I saw it, I didn’t think there was going to be these repercussions, and people getting suspended, and people’s images getting taken off of billboards or off of title information. The information was all out there, but the effect was when you put somebody who went through something traumatic against, in the case of Tommy Dreamer, kind of like standing up for his friend, Ric, when he may not know the facts of what she went through, or never had seen her, never heard her speak.”

On Dreamer getting backlash over it: “The audience is just, you’re getting bombarded by the weight of something from one person, and then somebody’s attitude that is totally uninformed by what is being intercut with his perspective. I hope that everything has worked out for Tommy Dreamer. I mean … I don’t think anyone set out to harm him or his career. I think it was just … he ended up taking on the role of the voice of Ric Flair, because I’m sure they tried to get Ric Flair to talk about it, but he wouldn’t for whatever reason.”