Snakes on a Plane... real life drama on Diamondback's airplane

As Snakes on a Plane prepares for takeoff the buzz from the summer's most talked about movie inspired us to do a story on the Arizona Diamondback's real life plane... and boy did we land a big one.

First a bit of background on the Diamondback's jet setting ways. Jerry Moynes, who is a financial backer and part owner of the Diamondbacks as well as the Phoenix Suns and Coyotes was approached back in the late 90's by majority owner Jerry Colangelo to buy a team jet for their franchises. As it turns out Moyes, who made his fortune in transportation industry, spun the business out to cater to other sports teams including the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Utah Jazz, Texas Rangers and the Milwaukee Brewers not to mention other entertainment high fliers like the Boss. Click here to check out pictures of SportsJet's fleet.

Just as Moynes' Sportsjet business was taking off the venture nearly got grounded when they slammed a client, the WWE, with a lawsuit involving get this...  snakes on a plane (in this case they were of the trouser snake variety).

Evidently on flight back from Europe on May 20, 2002, several flight attendants alledged they were sexually harassed and groped by some of the members of the WWE who had rented the SportsJet for their trip abroad. As reported in the The Arizona Republic and other outlets, several SportsJet attendants noted Ric "The Nature Boy" Flare's predilection to be in the "natural state."

Ric Flair "wore only a jeweled cape, flashed his penis and forced a flight attendant to touch his crotch" while another wrestler Scott "the Diamond Stud" Hall asked a flight attendant to "give him oral sex and licked the face of another attendant."

The whole thing was a mess for all parties involved. As it turns out SportsJet was being investigated by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the time so they might have been using the lawsuit to fly some interference and in the end the lesser know wrestlers got smacked/reprimanded by the WWE. Stay posted as we do some more digging on how the dust settled. Comment below if you know of anything.

On a lighter note thewadeblogs.com compared passenger manifests as we matched stars of the Snakes on Plane movie with those real life Diamondabacks and other Phoenix sports stars. Sure the Diamodbacks start a Jackson at first but we looked to second for our Samuel J. look-a-like:

SoaP Movie vs. Diamondbacks/Phoenix star (refer to our photo comp)

Samuel L. Jackson / Orlando Hudson

Julianna Margulies / Steve Nash

Kenan Thompson / Jorge Julio

Guy & Girl on Plane / Matt Leinart & Paris

Snake / Scott Hairston

DJ Qualls (not in movie) / Shawn Green (uncanny)

Comments

[Fukkad]

Samuel is just a great actor. Can we have a list of his movies (memorable ones only ;-)