As a humongous multimedia conglomerate that produces wrestling events, WWE would certainly have an array of creative people designing all sorts of sets and merchandise that would be eye-catching enough to sell the event, the match, or even toys. They've worked plenty of its magic over the years in this department.
WWE has put forth some amazing looking stages and set-ups for matches over the years. WrestleMania 33 and 29 might immediately spring to mind. As would the swinging scythes from Backlash events of old. Other times, the company doesn’t nail it out of the park. Most recently with the red Hell In A Cell design and several other strange-looking designs.
10 Red Hell In A Cell Cage
Beginning with the 2018 event, as some memes have said, “Hate In A Crate” arrived. The once dreaded and ominous Hell In A Cell structure was redesigned to look like a giant milk crate. What’s worse about it is if you’re at the event live or watching wide shots at home, the red color makes it difficult to see through.
It didn’t help matters much when the child’s plaything was bathed in the red hue for The Fiend’s match vs. Seth Rollins from the 2019 event to make an already difficult to see structure into nearly impossible to see through.
9 Blue Bar Steel Cage
Just because WWE had conditioned a generation of fans to understand that a cage is made of giant blue bars, doesn't mean it is. “Big Blue,” as Bruce Prichard refers to it not only made an appearance in the main event of WrestleMania 2 but to date is still the only official Steel Cage match In WrestleMania history.
As the story goes, Vince loved the look of the blue bars (and the repainted Attitude Era black bars) up until he worked inside the cage at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Once he had to bump around the cage, he opted to swap Big Blue out for the more traditional mesh cage.
8 Spinner WWE Title
The coveted and most important title in the wrestling industry is generally a toss-up between the original NWA “10 Pounds Of Gold” and the old Hogan Winged Eagle title. The WWE title’s lineage that stretched as far back to the original Nature Boy Buddy Rogers would eventually be won by John Cena, The Doctor Of Thugonomics.
The would-be rapper then did what any rapper from the early aughts did to their car. Cena added spinning rims to the title. While wrestling purists were not a fan of the belt at all, it was able to sell merchandise, which is what WWE is all about.
7 War Games
When Dusty Rhodes first thought up The War Games Match, it was dubbed as The Match Beyond. Sure enough, the double ring double cage structure was not just an awe-inspiring sight to see, it looked as dangerous as you could possibly imagine from something called a War Games cage.
Thankfully, Triple H revived the concept for NXT several years ago. But in the sleek and slick clean looking WWE world, this cage doesn’t look terribly dangerous at all. The top has been removed, negating the claustrophobic atmosphere of the match.
6 TLC Staging
For many years, the staging area for Tables, Ladders, And Chairs was an intentionally a precarious-looking nightmare. All three weapons of wrestling destruction weren’t just dangling from the rafters, there were rows and rows of each, leaving fans to ponder if and when a competitor would find themselves under a pile of hardware.
It was a pretty cool sight to see, but still strange. How often do you find these items hanging as if they were disco beads?
5 WrestleMania 35 Set
At WrestleMania 29, WWE went all out representing New York with the Statue Of Liberty hanging above the ring and The Brooklyn Bridge as the entranceway. Several years later, the set designers outdid themselves with the massive amusement park for WrestleMania 33.
However, the set for last year’s monumental show was not as monumental. The strange red spinning globe and lighting didn’t help the event’s presentation. During the AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton match, the crowd in some areas had to chant that the lights were blinding their vision.
4 Punjabi Prison
There’s an old saying in most forms of visual entertainment regarding the elevator pitch. If you can’t explain your concept to someone on a quick elevator ride with someone, then your concept is probably confusing. Submitted for your approval, the WWE’s Punjabi Prison Match.
A cage of bamboo surrounded by another cage with several trap doors to try and escape. The WWE should have a running theme - the more convoluted the cage design is, the harder it is to actually see what’s happening in the ring.
3 Va-Chyna Shirts
During The Attitude Era, WWE had no issue exploiting all of their talents for any and all forms of merchandising - does anyone remember WWE Cologne? One of the stranger items the company produced and tried to get over was Chyna’s Va-Chyna shirt. If that wasn’t explicit and questionable enough (even for The Attitude Era), there was the expression on the back - “Enter At Your Own Risk.”
WWE had a once in a lifetime performer like The Ninth Wonder Of The World and that was the best the marketing mavens come up with. However, like a lot of things that were given to Eddie Guerrero, he was able to get it over.
2 24/7 Title
When Mick Foley was trotted out to unveil the brand new 24/7 Championship, he probably didn't expect nearly getting booed out of the arena. But when the fans saw the gaudy green strap and realized that the new title was not going to bring back Hardcore action of yesteryear.
Instead, the WWE Universe got comedy relief that would be hit and miss from week to week; depending on what R-Truth would be doing. The actual belt design has a huge gold plate reminiscent of The Attitude Era Big Title without any of the glory of that actual design.
1 WWE Title
After years of having to stare at the Spinner Title, The Rock unveiled the new WWE title. Would The Great One restore prominence to the title held by the likes of himself, Stone Cold, and Bruno? Not even in the slightest. Instead, The Rock revealed a giant leather weightlifting belt with a giant “W” on the front piece.
The current world title was instantly derided by fans for how odd the thing looked. Critics have bemoaned that it certainly doesn’t look like a belt worth fighting for. WWE didn’t listen to those critics and doubled down on in the design and implemented it for both and red and blue Universal Titles as well.