Top 10 Best WrestleMania Stages Of All Time!

WrestleTalk

Let's face it, not all WrestleManias are created equal and neither are their stages! With WrestleMania 37 coming up, Adam Blampied takes a look back and ranks the BEST WrestleMania stages of all time! Which one is YOUR favorite?  0:00 - Introduction 1:14 - #10 1:59 - #9 2:53 - #8 3:55 - #7 5:00 - #6 5:59 - #5 6:49 - #4 8:06 - #3 9:11 - #2 10:10 - #1 #WWE #WrestlingNews #WrestleTalk #WWETop10 #WrestleMania  WrestleTalk Podcasts are moving here   https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu Adam Blampied's lists are moving here  https://bit.ly/32JJsCv Wrestling Daily has moved here  https://bit.ly/3j3BXOZ WrestleTalk stays here  https://goo.gl/WfYA12 | SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!  TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/

Transcript

00:00 It's WrestleMania season baby! The pomp, the pageantry, the nouns. When WWE uses all

00:07 its pocket money they save on having the same boring-ass stage for every boring-ass pay-per-view

00:11 by splurging on a very big, very silly structure that humbles you with its sheer Ozymandian

00:16 hubris, that scrapes the underbelly of God, that squats on the city skyline like Big Show

00:22 and a sumo nappy. Genuinely, if you're in attendance and you're not afraid that some

00:26 part of the Mania set will collapse and kill everyone, then they're not doing it right.

00:31 Which is not to say there haven't been some fairly bad stages over the years, for the

00:34 first 16 WrestleManias it didn't really do anything special. Someone made a mistake at

00:38 Mania 18 by leaving the goddamn scaffolding up. Mania 22s was a weird fishnet thing, why

00:43 is it like that? WrestleMania 35s was just a case of Vince inviting you around to show

00:48 off how big his f***ing telly was. And oh god it's like they didn't even really try for

00:52 WrestleMania 36. I mean, talk about basic. Jeez, WWE. Jeez. I'm Adam, hailing from parts

01:00 of unknown and here are the 10 greatest WrestleMania stages ever built. Make sure you subscribe

01:05 to our channel by the way, really helps us out. Just click that subscribe button and

01:09 turn on notifications if you want to. Helps us. Thank you, bye.

01:14 Number 10, WrestleMania 29, aka The Bridge One. Deeply upsetting when a really bad Mania

01:20 makes it onto a positive top 10 list, but here we are. It's a giant bridge and I respect

01:24 giant bridges. Call me a lad of basic sensibilities, but Adam loves a towering structure and this

01:29 Mania's design is full of them. From the scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge that looks

01:33 friggin' amazing during Undertaker's entrance, to the ring canopy decked out like the New

01:37 York skyline with a giant gift shop Statue of Liberty perched on top. The bridge itself

01:42 is a little featureless for something so big, which is why this set ranks a little low.

01:46 Also it's worth mentioning that this is a pig dick toilet WrestleMania. Eight matches

01:50 and three of them were Chris Jericho vs Fandango, Mark Henry vs Ryback and Del Rio vs Swagger.

01:56 Oof. But hey, at least while you were bored they gave you something to look at.

01:59 Number 9, WrestleMania 27, aka The One With The Big Spider. And now you'll never be

02:04 able to unsee it. You can call this Mania the Wild Wild West WrestleMania because it

02:08 features a giant spider, is centred almost entirely around a very charismatic movie star

02:12 and is otherwise a gigantic waste of time and money. A lot of people, myself included,

02:17 rank this as one of the top 3 worst manias of all time. Miz vs Cena restart main event,

02:21 Snooki, Lawler vs Cole, somebody stop me. It's dreadful, dreadful stuff, but damn it

02:27 if that stage isn't a really clean, eye-catching design. The gigantic WrestleMania curve lettering

02:32 is legitimately awesome, and the sense of curve and slightly warped perspective created

02:35 by the spider legs with their own LED lights pressed up against that huge screen creates

02:39 some really great visuals throughout the night. Also, the cube. The cube. Herald the cube.

02:45 You know, that thing that would randomly lower throughout the night for some reason and always

02:48 look good in ways I can't justify. Can we talk about a good WrestleMania now, please?

02:53 Number 8, WrestleMania X-7, aka The Classic. It's not as tall as you remember, but it's

02:58 still pretty damn excellent. The first big WrestleMania stage and the perfect complement

03:03 to the biggest card in WWE history. When I was a wee lad staying up late to watch Mania,

03:07 I genuinely thought the stage reached up to the f***ing clouds. It blew my socks out through

03:12 my ears. Looking back, there are better stages, but there's no denying the timelessness of

03:18 the design. The two giant screen pillars shooting straight up, none of the excess offshoot scaffolding

03:23 that certain 2000s manias would become obsessed with. The pillars would change colour throughout

03:28 the night, decorated in the very cool WrestleMania X-7 lettering that didn't actually fit entirely

03:33 on the pillars. You were attending WrestleMan. Oh dear. The two layered screens that wrestlers

03:39 entered through, flashing up that looping graphic of those golden lines that transport

03:43 you directly back to the atudeir and a better time. Like most aspects of the atudeir, it's

03:48 not quite as good as you remember, but it's still pretty damn great, especially during

03:52 The Rock's entrance in the main event. Now it's perfect lighting. I love it.

03:55 Number 7, WrestleMania XXV, aka The One With The Typo. WrestleMania XXV, aka the 24th anniversary

04:03 of WrestleMania. I will let it go when I die and not before. Look at it, built boulders,

04:08 cocks and huge lettering, hanging over the entire show, mocking me. Mocking me, bastard.

04:13 That being said, it's a really nice stage design. Not one you hear people talk about

04:17 all that much, maybe because it's a fairly middling mania. Michael's Taker aside, it's

04:22 got performance from Kid Rock in it for God's sake, which I'm pretty sure not even Kid Rock

04:26 enjoyed. The slight busyness of the multi-layered screen pillars intercut with lighting rigs

04:29 is offset by the ginormous star. And honestly, this will make me seem like just the biggest

04:34 bougie polo shirt, but the diamond texture on the star really works for me. Striking,

04:38 visually a really solid and clean composition when all taken together, and that star is

04:42 proper affront to God massive, which is precisely as massive as a WrestleMania stage should

04:47 be. Looks great during Rey's entrance, but the real gem is HBK's angelic descent, the

04:52 huge panels of white and glowing white hearts surrounding him. Gorgeous. Mania 32 star based

04:58 design nowhere near as good.

05:00 Number 6. WrestleMania 23, aka the really f***ing big one. It's really f***ing big.

05:06 Mania 23 is something of an underrated mania in the eyes of the fans, if not the eyes of

05:10 the bank, because god damn did 23 make some money. HBK Cena was great, Batista Taker was

05:14 great, Great Khali vs Kane was… it makes sense that for 5 years Mania 23 was the highest

05:20 selling WWE pay-per-view of all time, because everything about it reeked of ostentation

05:25 from the battle of the two tackiest rich twats to ever buy a gold toilet, to the stage which

05:29 is as tall as you remember the Mania X-7 set being, and then like twice as tall as that.

05:34 The two pillars shooting out of the ground encircled by rings of lighting rig the white

05:38 curtains angled to give it a cool shape, the colossal screen and the shafts of scaffolding

05:43 that slice through the area above the ramp and ring. I'm not wild on those, especially

05:48 when they obscure the main stage, but it's hard to argue against the sheer epic scale

05:52 of everything, look at Batista taking bloody ages to dad run around that stage, he's

05:56 blown up before he even starts, that's how big this whole thing is.

05:59 Number 5 - WrestleMania 24 aka the really, really f***ing big one. Hold my beer, says

06:05 WrestleMania 24. So look, this is a weird design, and I can understand people not liking

06:09 it because it essentially looks like a giant Hampton Inn or a 3 star hotel in the Costa

06:13 del Sol, also it's sort of like the casino version of a giant middle finger, but guys,

06:18 look, none of it matters because it's so motherf***ing big, seriously, it's so damn

06:23 big that quantity becomes a quality all of itself. WrestleMania is all about grandeur,

06:27 and what's more grandiose than a giant pillar with the WrestleMania letters on it punching

06:31 into God's house? It looks majestic lit all in gold during the Nature Boy's final

06:36 official ring entrance in WWE, and it looks even better during Edge's entrance in the

06:40 main event, every square inch of it bursting with fireworks and static. If the Smackdown

06:45 hotel looked half as good as the Mania 24 set, I would happily check myself in.

06:49 Number 4 - WrestleMania 26 aka the stupid one. Ah yes, what nonsense. Quite often, WrestleMania

06:56 stages are themed after cities or states in which they take place. The huge star of Mania

07:00 25 is a reference to Texas as the Lone Star State, the huge palm trees surrounding the

07:05 ring at Mania 28 in Miami, and the set of WrestleMania 36 was modelled after Orlando's

07:09 famous WWE Performance Center. Mania 26 took place in Arizona, so it only made sense to

07:14 honour that state's Mexican heritage with a ziggurat-style Aztec pyramid, with some

07:18 experts claiming that Aztlan, the original land that birthed the Mexican people, was

07:22 actually in ancient Arizona. Not sure if that's actually true, but it was good enough for

07:26 WWE to build this huge structure which is too big and very silly, but damn if it's

07:31 not completely won me over the more I've seen it. The multiple steps, each with a squash

07:36 screen and fireworks positioned on top, that giant slab stuck right on the middle looking

07:41 like the world's funnest and most dangerous looking slide, the massive pyramid canopy

07:45 over the ring, it's really great. Especially during HBK's final official entrance in

07:49 the main event because Crown Jewel 2018 never happened. Massive, silly, massively silly,

07:55 much like WrestleMania itself. Watching Bret Hart tap out Vince McMahon with a giant Aztec

08:00 temple in the background is a very silly thing and a reminder why professional wrestling

08:04 is the dumbest, best thing.

08:06 Number 3, WrestleMania 30 aka the sex number. Lol, triple X is the sex number. Well it's

08:12 the other sex number, I really hope I'm alive for WrestleMania 69, I'm reliably

08:16 informed it'll be nice. Another absolutely colossal monster of a stage, this Mania 30

08:21 is also proper gorgeous. The rich purple colouring throughout really works, the gigantic Fleur

08:26 Delis, a WrestleMania sign so big it could crush a hospital, and the three X's which

08:31 really could have undone the whole design, serve to create the perfect entrance way for

08:35 the wrestlers. Mania 30 was the final Mania to be officially numbered by the big dub,

08:39 with all the others just called WrestleMania like the sequel to a horror movie made decades

08:43 earlier having the exact same name for no f***ing reason, and those three X's saw

08:47 that era of Mania go out in grand style. The show turned out to be monumental for a number

08:52 of reasons, and it was only appropriate that the stage was one of the best and most epic

08:56 ever built. Also, it's very important to note that Mania 30's production managed

09:00 to be epic without erecting giant pillars around the ring to block the eyesight for

09:04 the poor sods on the arena floor. Bad luck, idiot. But for real, what is it about New

09:08 Orleans and gorgeous Manias? Because, number two, WrestleMania 34, aka the colourful one.

09:15 Gorgeous. Just beautiful. Not so much the Mardi Gras mask aspect of the design, which

09:20 is eyes wide shut crossed with a court jester, and stunning if only in its sheer scale, but

09:24 it's just how colourful the whole thing is. The purple of Mania's last trip no

09:28 low ways present and correct, but complemented by the Joker green writing, and I'm also

09:32 normally a bit cold on excess scaffolding, but I love the crown of lighting rig pillars

09:37 that plunge from the ceiling above the ring. For the longest time, WWE was obsessed with

09:41 making all of its WrestleMania setups exist only in the blue end of the colour spectrum.

09:46 Mania 34 is possibly the most vibrant stage WWE have ever made, and it's not only a

09:50 brilliant pairing for New Orleans' vibe of loud, colourful excess, but also it makes

09:55 the show feel like a huge party that I want to be a part of. Love how they used a face

09:59 mask throughout the show too. Seth Rollins' White Walker entrance rules, Charlotte's

10:03 huge eyes are very fun and silly, the glowing demon's eyes for Brock, it's lots of fun,

10:08 but perhaps not quite as fun as number one, WrestleMania 33, aka the best one.

10:14 It's got a f***ing rollercoaster on it, are you kidding? How could it be anything else?

10:18 It's so beautiful, and it's not even the insane excess of having the loop the loop

10:22 lighting rig, it's the globe above the ramp, shimmering in blue and green with the WrestleMania

10:28 writing over it, it looks so good. The golden steps underneath it, the flare tunnel of LED

10:33 panels in the entranceway, the elevated ramp, the huge walls of colour, the ridiculous giant

10:38 ring above the ring that so many fans managed to convince themselves before the show that

10:42 Shane McMahon was going to jump off, and the rollercoaster, it's wow. Like wow.

10:47 WWE are absolutely backwards in a lot of ways regarding their own product, but what they do

10:52 better than every other wrestling game in town, yes even New Japan and WrestleKingdom,

10:56 is they put on the biggest, most flamboyant wrestling party of the year, every single year.

11:02 It was an absolute privilege to be in the Camping World Stadium to see the Mania 33 stage in all its

11:07 glory, until The Undertaker set it on fire because he was grumpy about losing to Roman Reigns,

11:11 which is fair.

11:12 And that's our list. Did we miss your favourite Mania stage? Let us know what it was in the

11:17 comments, don't forget to like and share this video around, and subscribe to

11:20 PartsFunKnown for more very stupid wrestling content, Jam That Jam.

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