Kurt Angle Recalls What Vince McMahon Told Flight Attendant On "Plane Ride From Hell"

On the latest episode of The Kurt Angle Show, the 2017 WWE Hall of Famer spoke about the infamous "Plane Ride From Hell" in 2002. Many stories have been told about that plane ride, including the constant back and forth wrestling match between Angle and WWE Chairman and Owner Vince McMahon. Angle spoke about what really happened on that flight, inferring Vince is truly crazy for wanting to wrestle him.

"It was the longest night of my life," Angle said. "Vince had a few glasses of wine and he was feeling frisky and he thought. 'hey why not, if I'm going to wrestle someone why not if it's the best, might as well wrestle an Olympic gold medalist, I'm going to try him out.' You have to understand, Vince is the type of guy that would say to Mike Tyson 'Hey, knock me out. 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 at what they do, I totally get it but Vince is crazy.

"He was jumping on me or he would have somebody come up to me and say they wanted to talk to me at the back of the plane and I would get up and he'd jump me from behind. We did it for five hours. Wrestle a few minutes, I hold him down, I say 'Are you good?' He'd say 'Yeah, we're good,' I go back and lay down and he would jump on me again or have someone call me up and jump on me again. It went for 5 hours and it became very irritating.

According to Angle, the flight could have ended in disaster as they were wrestling because they were hitting the latch of the door of the plane. Angle recalled Vince getting into a heated discussion with a flight attendant during his constant pursuit of beating the former Olympic Gold Medalist.

"The crazy thing is, we were on the plane and there was wine stains all over the floor," Angle said. "The floor was white carpet and there was just wine stains everywhere. Vince and I were wrestling near the door, the latch, you open the latch and push it open, the doors open and you fly out the plane. We kept hitting the latch while we were wrestling, so the flight attendant came and said 'Hey, the pilot said if you don't sit down and stop he's going to land this plane right now.' And Vince says 'Go tell the pilot to f*** himself, I'll buy the f***ing plane.' I was like, 'oh my God.'

"Here we are wrestling on the plane and we're getting ready to land, they finally get Vince to calm down and we're getting ready to hit the ground and [Chris] Jericho is sitting in front of me and he looks back at me and 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 freaking nightmare."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Kurt Angle Show Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.