The tron, in its entirety, is assembled and in position. The arena floor is now cleared and the ring is brought in. Well, the components that make up the ring are brought in. It, like everything else you see, needs to be built up from scratch. First, the ring posts are put in place. This is where referee Charles Robinson comes into play. He is the one that uses his feet to measure out the distances between the posts before drawing circles on the floor, telling others where to put them. Each post weighs a few hundred pounds so takes a fair few men to haul them around the arena floor. Then, once they're in place, pretty substantial steel bars connect them up and give us the regular 20x20 squared circle we are so used to seeing. Now we have a square shape with nothing but air in the middle (this is all really hard to picture, I know). Steel beams that fit into slots go across the width of the ring before nothing more than wooden planks (pictured) are laid on top of them, but going in the other direction (they would fall through if they were laid on in the same direction, duh). MYTH BUSTER: There is no spring under a WWE ring. There used to be way, way back in the day, but not now. Those steel beams are set up in such a way that they flex slightly when a superstar takes a bump. How can that not hurt time and time again? Rubber mats are placed on top of the 'crossing' steel bars for televised events only so the noise the ring makes is substantially reduced. Those devastating bumps must hurt more during house shows, surely? You really do gain a lot more respect for the toll our favourite superstars put their body through when you see a ring stripped down to its bare bones.
