Insurrextion (2002)

Insurrextion was an annual United Kingdom-exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) produced by the American professional wrestling promotion, World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), since 2000. The 2002 event was the third event in the Insurrextion chronology and was held on May 4 at the Wembley Arena in London, England.^[3] It was also the first Insurrextion produced under the brand extension introduced in March, which divided the roster into two separate brands, Raw and SmackDown!, where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform.^[4] The 2002 event was in turn made exclusive to wrestlers of the Raw brand, which was the promotion's first Raw-exclusive PPV produced.^[3]

The event featured nine professional wrestling matches and two pre-show matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.^[5]

The 2002 Insurrextion was the final PPV produced under the WWF name as the company was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) just two days after the event. This name change came as a result of a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund over the "WWF" initialism.^[6] This would also be the company's last PPV held in London until Money in the Bank in 2023.^[7]

During the flight back to the United States, a series of incidents occurred that has been referred to as the "plane ride from hell", which has been described as one of professional wrestling's most infamous scandals. The Boeing 757 plane that was chartered included an open bar, and many of the wrestlers indulged. Incidents included physical altercations and the sexual harassment of two female flight attendants, Taralyn Cappellano and Heidi Doyle. Scott Hall had a history of alcoholism. Although he did not have a match at the PPV, he did interfere in a match and he did perform at the house shows during this UK tour. In addition to pranking other wrestlers with shaving cream, he said sexually vulgar things to Doyle before passing out. Curt Hennig, known for being a prankster, also pranked wrestlers with the shaving cream, including Brock Lesnar, which resulted in a fight between the two that almost caused them to bump into the plane's emergency exit. Goldust also said vulgar things to Cappellano, and later got on the public address system and started to sing a song for his ex-wife and fellow wrestler, Terri Runnels, who was also on the plane. Cappellano and Doyle both alleged that Ric Flair had exposed himself to them, grabbed their hands and made them touch his genitals; Flair however denied the accusations. Both Hall and Hennig were fired following the event, while Goldust and Flair were reprimanded by the company. A 2004 lawsuit was filed by both Cappellano and Doyle, although WWE settled out of court with both women.^[8][9][10] Season 3, Episode 8 of Vice's Dark Side of the Ring series covered the incident, which aired in September 2021.^[11]

• Professional wrestling in the United Kingdom