How Does WWE ‘Break the Ring’ for a Match?
By Josh.0
Monday Night RAW gave us the third ring collapse in WWE history. So how do they pull off this stunt while avoiding serious injury?
On the Monday, Apr. 17 edition of RAW, Big Show joined a unique club when Braun Strowman delivered a superplex to him, causing the ring to buckle under the weight of 768 pounds crashing onto it. Big Show’s large frame combined with the large frames of other large men have now caused the collapse of three WWE rings, thus giving him a demolition derby-style hat trick. I have suggested several names to the WWE with no response as of yet, other than a sternly worded email asking me to stop suggesting names to them.
The first WWE ring collapse occurred in 2003 during an episode of SmackDown when Brock Lesnar superplexed Big Show. The spot was a tremendous success and fans went crazy wondering whether or not what they had just witnessed was real. In an effort to maintain the mystery, WWE wouldn’t use the schtick again until eight years later at Vengeance in 2011. Once again, Big Show was on the receiving end of a superplex, this time from Mark Henry.
For years, Big Show maintained that the spot was genuine. It wasn’t until 2015 that he finally admitted on Talk is Jericho that the ring collapse was (much like almost everything else in WWE), a pre-staged event. He even took it a little further and gave fans insight into how the stunt comes together, mostly thanks to the efforts of WWE Stunt Coordinator Ellis Edwards:
"“We did a spot right before we broke the ring where we’re both down and they shoot a real close-up of both of us selling. Well in that time, Ellis had airbags under the ring. So they had lifted the ring a couple inches. So now, when I’m standing on that top corner, that ring is like standing on marbles. Because it’s moving. Of course, now I’ve got my fat ass up in the air, 500 pounds on a not very stable surface … So then the ring broke. I just remember when it happened because … you don’t know how the stunt is going to look. But man, it was so perfectly timed the way we did it and Ellis did a great job of setting up. That thing collapsed and everybody they bought it so long.”"
I give credit to Big Show for keeping kayfabe for so long about one of the more elaborate stunts the WWE pulls out so infrequently, as well as his logic for lying about it. Basically, he lied for your own good:
"“And this is the first time out all the interviews I’ve ever done, I’ve admitted the truth that that was a rigged angle. On hundreds of interviews, I have lied right through my teeth and said it’s a shoot. But if you get a chance to suspend people’s reality just for an instant, for a second, it’s good for them.”"
Related Story: Braun Strowman, Big Show Break the Ring on WWE Raw (Video)
This made for a wild moment on Raw, even though it’s a collaborated stunt. What did you think of it?