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Dark Side Of The Ring Creators On WWE ‘Plane Ride From Hell’ Episode: ‘You Will Be Terrified’

May 4, 2021 | Posted by Blake Lovell
Dark Side of the Ring Promo Image, Evan Husney Image Credit: VICE

In a recent interview on The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Dark Side of the Ring co-creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener discussed the upcoming ‘Plane Ride From Hell’ episode, what fans can expect, and much more. Here are some highlights:

Jason Eisener on the Plane Ride from Hell episode in Season 3 of Dark Side of the Ring: “It’s always been a story that’s been on our radar since the beginning. If you are a fan of wrestling and a fan of wrestling history, you’ve had to have come across the Plane Ride From Hell story, and it’s always been the story that has been kind of talked about as if it was just crazy locker room antics or Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, over the top. We didn’t know before how it could really span across 45 minutes for an episode. But with season three, this episode is so demanded. All the wrestling fans have wanted to see us tackle the Plane Ride From Hell story. So being able to really talk to some of the people who were there, not only just the wrestlers but people who worked on the flight. So when you hear a different side of it, the Plane Ride From Hell really lives up to its name. It really does sound like a hellish experience.”

Evan Husney on what fans can expect from the episode: “We have considered it since the very beginning. I actually remember Plane Ride From Hell being in the original pitch materials for the show when we pitched it to the network. I mean, it’s just one of those stories. You always saw the shoot interviews. You always saw the X-Pac’s on certain places talking about it, and so for us, it was always like, ‘Yeah, what’s the deal with that?’ But I’m so glad we waited. I’m so glad we waited until now to really find how we could tell it, and I feel like just making this show now so many times, I mean, it’s almost, I’m not going to say it’s an assembly line because every episode is a major challenge, but we’ve been able to kind of figure out how it works, and how to put it together and how the show functions. I’m glad we waited because I think that this story really benefits with hindsight, you know?

“To tell this story back when those shoot interviews were done, I think that they are done under a completely different — it is kind of looking at it like, ‘It’s a big party in the sky man, and it got crazy brother.’ And I think like now, it’s like, ‘Oh no, this is a f**king nightmare, and we’re trapped.’ And it’s bad, and it was a major moment in the WWE. I mean, you look at how it lines up with the changing of the tide of that company. That’s when they were going from WWF to WWE [and] when they were becoming publicly traded. It is a big sort of marker of ‘okay, we need to button up. Those old-school locker room antics cannot exist if this company is going to grow more.’ It’s an anxiety-inducing episode. You will be terrified.”