Jimmy Korderas Recalls "The Real Plane Ride From Hell"

Veteran WWE referee Jimmy Korderas is on a today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily to discuss the latest news in pro wrestling. Two-time WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair has been keeping a relatively low profile as of late after past allegations resurfaced following the airing of the "Plane Ride From Hell" episode of Dark Side of the Ring.

On the Dark Side of the Ring episode, the 2004 lawsuit from two flight attendants, Taralyn Cappellano and Heidi Doyle was brought up. In that lawsuit, Flair is accused of committing sexual assault and sexual misconduct. Flair continues to deny the allegations. On The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked Korderas if he sees Flair returning to the pro wrestling world.

"I don't know. It's hard to say, but in pro wrestling, there is a lot of forgiveness for a lot of things," Korderas noted. "After that Dark Side of the Ring episode where a lot was revealed there, it hit a lot of people the wrong way, but time heals wounds. I don't know if it'll happen in this case because it seems to be something that's lingering, but at the same time, as someone who was on that flight and didn't witness that stuff, I can't confirm what was said or not, but I'll just leave it at that."

RVD, who was also on the flight, has shared similar sentiments as Korderas where he also says he did not see nor could he confirm what happened in regards to Flair and Doyle. As someone who was on the flight, Korderas commented on how accurate the Dark Side of the Ring episode was, and he recalled his experience on the flight.

"For the most part, from what I heard, yeah, [it was accurate]. Let me put it to you this way, we were seated at this table," Korderas recalled. "There was a table there, and we were playing cards and we were right beside the incident with Curt Hennig and Brock [Lesnar] when they slammed into the emergency exit door right opposite us. And that's when I cranked up that seatbelt. I didn't know, I just didn't want to get sucked out at 30,000 feet, but we didn't know that you can't unlock that door unless it's unlocked from the from the flight deck, the cockpit.

"Apparently they have to, I don't know, push buttons or levers or whatever is going on, but at the same time, here's two big guys slamming into the side of the plane and at the door. So we don't know what we're thinking, and then there's Dustin [Rhodes] grapping the mic and singing to Terri [Runnels] and ponytails getting cut off. So we just 'sat in Switzerland' and just stayed there. 'It's gonna be one of those flights. Just stay in your corner and we're gonna play cards over here. As long as nobody lands on the table, we'll be fine.'"

In the episode, and after the episode, many talents have noted that there have been some rowdy flights in the past. Korderas commented on if the "plane ride from hell" was a uniquely bad flight.

"Not as crazy as that. I mean, yeah, the guys have fun on the flights, and there's a little bit of sipping of the pop and guys get a little bit rowdy, but for some reason, this one just felt a little more rambunctious than normal, that's all," Korderas said. "And that's why I figured the best thing to do just sit in my seat. Let me put it this way, this was probably the only overseas flight where I didn't get up to go to the restroom. I swear I wasn't moving. I wasn't going anywhere till we landed. I don't want to get into it, but there was another flight that I call 'the real plane ride from hell' when we almost crashed in Russia."

Hausman then asked Korderas for more details on this "real plane ride from hell".

"It was a charter flight. We were heading over to Australia, but this was an older aircraft, and it had to stop and refuel," Korderas recalled. "So as we were going over, we stopped in Alaska, refueled, spent the night. Then coming down, there was a coastal city where we had to stop and refuel, but this was in the dead of winter. So as we're coming down, the plane is shaking violently, and it's doing all this crazy stuff. Everybody strapped in and going, 'What the heck!' And then the plane goes back up again, and we're like, 'What the heck!' And they circle around.

"It was on the third attempt that we finally landed after we thought that we're going down. I hate to put it this way. Everybody's looking at Ric Flair because he's the only guy on the plane that's been in a plane accident. So they're looking to see him react. Big Show's seat broke and landed in Brian Hebner's lap. It was insane, and then we finally landed on the ground. We hit the ground. There's these cross winds and snow, and it's a blizzard. We make to the ground. Everybody's like, 'Yes, thank you.' We're not getting off, but apparently, where we landed was a Russian military airport.

"So we couldn't get off the plane. Russian military boarded our plane with rifles. 'Okay, you guys are gonna refuel, and then you're going to take off again.' And we're thinking, 'What?' We ended up taking off in that blizzard, and thankfully, obviously, we made it, but my goodness, it was terrifying. It was horrible, but then again, we made it to Australia, and we were on the opposite side. We were in Perth and had to fly back over back to North America, and as we're flying across Australia, we had to stop in Kearns because they had engine trouble and had to repair the plane. It was horrible."

The Wrestling Inc. Daily records it's news portion live with Nick Hausman and EJ Cameron today at 5 pm EST on YouTube.com/WrestlingInc! The full audio from Jimmy Korderas' interview will be included as part of the audio release on all podcast platforms shortly after the news portion of the show finishes it's live recording. Jimmy's full interview can also be found in video form below.

You can follow Jimmy on Twitter @JimmyKoderas