The Brood’s descent from the ceiling of Philadelphia’s First Union Center at WrestleMania 15 lasted a matter of seconds on screen. Gangrel says the part nobody saw was the three of them stranded up there afterward when the power cut out.
Speaking on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Gangrel said he, Edge and Christian had no idea they were even on the show until a memo landed.
“We weren’t on schedule for anything at WrestleMania, and then we all get a memo saying you have a rehearsal. We’re like, rehearsal for what?” Gangrel said. “So we show up, and they go, oh, you’re gonna come out of the ceiling. We’re like, what? We’re looking at each other like, who’s coming out of the ceiling? No, you three are gonna come out of the ceiling and come down on top of the cage.”
Nobody was enthusiastic.
“We rehearsed it one time there, and I know none of us were happy about it. We were all freaking out,” Gangrel said. “We were in the top of the First Union. That building is tall in Philly, and you’re looking down and everything just looks like ants. People look like ants down there, and you got to literally climb off the catwalk and hang off in these harnesses and go down. So it was terrifying.”
The rehearsal went fine. The live version did not go quite as smoothly.
“You do a dry rehearsal, it’s one thing, but then it’s live crowd and in the moment,” Gangrel said. “So we all go off and we go down. I almost missed the cage, like one foot’s over here, but I get back on it. That was scary.”
Once he was standing on it, a different worry took over.
“All I’m thinking is, don’t fall through the cage, because you think about Mankind falling,” Gangrel said, referring to the Hell in a Cell spot from two years earlier. “The cage is kind of rigged for you to be able to rip it open. So we’re up there, I’m ripping, and I’m like, please don’t fall through this cage, because I don’t like heights at all.”
Then the lights went out for real.
“We go to go back up, and the circuit breakers blew. So we’re all stuck in there,” Gangrel said. “That’s why you got a picture of Edge hanging right there in his coat. He was hanging the lowest. I was between the soundboard and the lighting, and Christian, I think, was just where his hands were on the beam to get back on.”
He said it was only a couple of minutes, but it did not feel like it.
“It legit went out. We were stuck, and it felt like forever, but it was probably only a couple minutes,” Gangrel said. “I kept thinking they’d come on this soundboard and just blow my eardrums out, because I was in between the lighting board and the speakers. And Edge was down low, and he was getting all the pictures because he was stuck in his coat low.”
The spot itself, the Brood handing a noose to The Undertaker during his Hell in a Cell match with Big Boss Man, has largely disappeared from WWE’s library. Gangrel is not surprised.
“It was a bit of a heavy thing. Hanging’s a bit strong, I suppose,” Gangrel said. “You don’t really see them. I don’t think they push that much anymore. I think if you go look for it, it’s hard to find that, because it was so graphic and kind of strong.”
He said Big Boss Man was rigged for it throughout the match.
“He had a harness. He wrestled in that harness the whole time, and then they were able to hook it up, and the rope come behind him,” Gangrel said. “And he did a great sell.”
