There have been lots of stories about some of the wild stuff that occurred on WWE's long-distance flights (the notorious "Plane Ride from Hell," for example) over the years, but one former Superstar has now shared details on what sounds like a particularly crazy trip to the Middle East for a Tribute to the Troops show.
While appearing on Hannibal TV for a Q&A session, Chris Masters described an incident involving Vince McMahon and former WWE Champion CM Punk. Apparently, the Chairman attempted to pressure Punk into going against his "straight edge" lifestyle by drinking alcohol. He also tried to convince him to "shoot" wrestle with Shelton Benjamin to prove how tough he was.
You can check out the transcription in full below (via Post Wrestling).
“I think you’re talking about on one of the Tribute to the Troops shows. All I remember about that flight was everybody got hammered on those. Those were some of the wildest stuff that I encountered in the wrestling business was the trip over to the Middle East for the Tribute to the Troops shows because it was the only time I’ve seen Vince [McMahon] like really let his hair down and get buck wild man, like seriously. Like drinking and instigating fights. A lot of that was on Vince.
I think Vince was trying — you never know with Vince. Vince was trying to peer pressure CM Punk into having a drink and I wouldn’t really know what to do either if I was CM Punk because part of me, maybe Vince is testing him to see if he could get CM Punk to break his will and then that’ll make Vince lose respect for him or whatever, you know what I’m saying but, and then eventually so CM Punk wouldn’t drink and then eventually it turned into — it went from CM Punk drinking to now, ‘Hey, if you’re such a shooter CM Punk, how about you take on –’ I think it was first, Shelton Benjamin and then after that, it was Carlito because Carli would, not shoot flirt but kind of mess with Maria [Kanellis-Bennett] and flirt with her and I’m pretty sure CM Punk and Maria were together again at the time or were together at that point.
So I think kind of the boys really instigated that because we knew that CM was kinda annoyed with Carlito trying to mess with him and trying to kind of, I guess — again, work flirt with Maria, not shoot flirt with her but I don’t even remember what happened. I mean I think Shelton — Carli, nothing happened with Carli and CM but I think Shelton and CM actually grappled a little bit but I mean, that’s no competition for Shelton and Shelton [is a] top-level wrestler in the world as everybody knows so, but it was wild.”
The story goes that Benjamin fairly handily took down Punk (no suprise there) and that was that.
Crazy stuff, eh? It sounds like Vince could be a bit of a bully and all-round prick with a few gargles on him... who woulda thunk it!