Everything That Was Supposed To Happen At WrestleMania 36 (But Didn’t)

18. The Abandoned Theme And The Stage Plans

Tampa's "Ray Jay" Stadium offered such a unique setting for WrestleMania that the company were leaning on the whole pirate theme as soon as the venue was announced. The fact that there's a giant Pirate Ship within the stadium makes it likely there would have been SOME allusion to pirates in the theme of Mania 36.

We're not saying it would have been a Pirate Battle Royale or anything like that, but you can't put on a show in that setting without tying into the biggest feature of the stadium. Just as you couldn't then use a pirate theme properly when it was moved to the Performance Centre.

Intriguingly, during NFL games, cannons are fired from the ship when the Tampa Bay Bucs scores. There is no chance on Earth they wouldn't have been used as part of the opening or other entrances.

Seating plans for the show linked to early ticket sales also revealed that the ship would actually have played part of the stage design.