Stephanie McMahon Reveals What WWE Originally Had Planned for The Undertaker's WrestleMania 36 Entrance

WWE's original plans for WrestleMania 36 this past April had to be scrapped due to the coronavirus pandemic, including what might have been The Undertaker's final wrestling match. "The Deadman" was booked to face AJ Styles at Raymond James Stadium, but once the pandemic shunted everything to the Performance Center the match was turned into the Boneyard Match, one of the first examples of a cinematic match. In a new interview with Ad Age this week, Stephanie McMahon revealed that legendary rock band Metallica was originally going to perform Undertaker's entrance when the show was booked for Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

Once the plans changed, the band offered to let WWE use one of their songs, "Now That We're Dead" during the Boneyard Match. Taker won by burying Styles under six feet of dirt.

"The Boneyard match was like a 20-minute movie sequence and it was cut to Metallica because Metallica was going to be apart of WrestleMania, their music was going to be apart of Undertaker's entrance," McMahon said (h/t Fightful). "When everything changed, they said 'we still want to be apart of this if we can, we're not backing out.' We were very grateful to Metallica for helping score the entire sequence."

Metallica has previously been connected to "The Phenom" in regards to WrestleMania. Back at WrestleMania XXVIII, WWE used their song "The Memory Remains" as the theme for Hell in a Cell Match between Undertaker and Triple H.

McMahon revealed elsewhere in the same interview that WWE has been using "virtual ceilings" during broadcasts to hide the giant ceiling fans at the WWE Performance Center.

"We have experimented with various different forms of augmented reality," McMahons said. "Normally in our Performance Center there are some big actual fans, not fans the people but fans, and it doesn't necessarily look the best. So now we have put in a virtual ceiling, which is pretty cool."

WWE's latest pay-per-view, The Horror Show at Extreme Rules, took place this past Sunday at the PC. Check out the results below:

• SmackDown Tag Team Championships (Tables Match): Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura def. The New Day
• SmackDown Women's Championship: Bayley def. Nikki Cross
• United States Championship Match: MVP vs. Apollo Crews (No Contest, MVP crowns himself new champion)
• Eye for an Eye Match: Seth Rollins def. Rey Mysterio
• Raw Women's Championship: Asuka vs. Sasha Banks (No Contest
• WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre def Dolph Ziggler
• Wyatt Swamp Fight: Bray Wyatt def. Braun Strowman