-- Whatculture published a story yesterday about the much talked about Boneyard match, claiming several exclusive notes on how the match came about. Here are the takeaways:
- The match was taped in Florida but wasn't shot "anywhere near the Performance Center." For the set, WWE hired an outside, but local production unit to custom-build it and the construction took five days to complete. Initially, WWE only wanted a "graveyard promo scene" but when HHH and Michael Hayes arrived at the set, they were impressed by the quality and decided to pull out all the stops.
- The company filmed the match overnight starting at 9 PM on March 25 and ending at 5 AM on March 26. After filming, it took a week to clean up the mess.
- The Orange County production unit that WWE hired for the job had no work due to COVID-19 so not only welcomed the opportunity, but commented that the WWE team treated them very well and they appreciated that the company hired locally.
- WWE wanted to use an abandoned ditch, a bridge and a roadside to for Undertaker's arrival before the match but the production crew cautioned that those areas belonged to the city and was considered private property. WWE did not obtain a permit to shoot there and there was no time to get one, so they ended up using an area that wouldn't get them in any legal trouble.
- The druids that WWE used during the fight sequence were "nervous" about screwing up so Undertaker, AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows all spent considerable amount of time with the extras to ensure they were comfortable and familiar with what they needed to do.
- The "smack talk" between AJ Styles and Undertaker during the course of the match was completely improvised. Initially it was not included in the script for the match but both Styles and 'Taker convinced Triple H to let them talk away and he was happy to oblige. In fact, as the segment went on, Triple H encouraged both to talk as much as they wanted and that nothing was "off limits."
- The Undertaker wasn't supposed to bleed during the match but when he decided to re-shoot his hearse window attack from a different camera angle, he ended up accidentally smashing it. The production crew contemplating filming from the other side so they could instead get the unharmed windows in frame, but everyone ultimately decided that it looked "cool" and kept it the way it played out. The incident caused Taker to suffer a cut in his arm and again, the team decided to continue filming rather than stop to bandage him up.
- Triple H and Michael Hayes spotted a "hand prop" at the location that they wanted to use at some point in the match but had no idea where. It was Undertaker who pitched the idea to have the hand poke through the dirt at the end after Styles was buried underneath.
BACKSTAGE #WWE NEWS: ORIGINAL plans for #WrestleMania36 #BoneyardMatch REVEALED + Where & How did #Undertaker & #AJStyles film it for #WrestleMania #Part1 PPV?! Reason & meaning behind return of #AmericanBadAss ... #TheUndertaker in #retirement?!
LINK: https://t.co/LggJQWI835 pic.twitter.com/1JqdSL6DUa— Matt Boone (@MattBoone1984) April 6, 2020
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