10 Secrets Behind WWE Magic Tricks
6. The Ring Collapse Spot
WWE has performed the ring collapse stunt on a handful of occasions; it was first executed back in June 2003 when Brock Lesnar blasted the Big Show with a superplex.
Big Show for years insisted that it was a legitimate, unplanned event. It was one of less egregious pro wrestling lies, in that people actually wanted to believe it, and it wasn’t completely implausible. Both men were colossal, albeit in very different ways, and perhaps all of that carny chat about “reinforcing the ring” had some sort of subliminal effect.
Now, no production worker with real expertise has gone on record about how precisely WWE accomplishes the stunt; the gist can only be inferred from Big Show’s admission on the Talk Is Jericho podcast in 2015.
Show revealed that the use of airbags underneath the wooden boards creates the “lopsided” effect of the collapsed ring (were it a legit collapse, it would have been flattened).
Mike Chioda, in a 2021 interview with Chris van Vliet, elaborated that a hydraulics system is used to release pressure in place of the "criss-cross" cables that usually support a WWE ring.