WWE gets ready to rumble at Safeco From city to city, every WWE show is a new challenge for the road crew that builds the set and then tears it down

Workmen set up the WrestleMania XIX at Safeco Field. It takes 14 trucks to carry all the gear. The primary WWE road crew is responsible for 104 television shows and 12 pay-per-view events each year. Workmen set up the WrestleMania XIX at Safeco Field. It takes 14 trucks to carry all the gear. The primary WWE road crew is responsible for 104 television shows and 12 pay-per-view events each year. Photo: / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Photo: / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close WWE gets ready to rumble at Safeco 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Every 45 minutes, Bob Christofferson makes the rounds.

He walks the circumference of the playing surface at Safeco Field, surveying the perfect green grass. As head groundskeeper, Christofferson considers every blade his own.

Meanwhile, dozens of workers assemble tons of equipment, lighting rigs and cables extending all directions from second base like a giant metal crab. WrestleMania XIX is Sunday. They've promised to be careful, but it's a little like trusting kids you don't know to fingerpaint on your grandmother's quilt.

"So far, so good," he said yesterday during one of his rounds. "These guys are great, they're professionals. But I'm anxious to get to Monday."

A project the size of WrestleMania -- a record 55,000 fans will be packed in -- represents uncharted waters for Safeco, which the Mariners have been pushing as a year-round venue since it opened in 1999. If there's anyone who can pull it off, it's World Wrestling Entertainment, which will produce 340 live shows this year on four continents with more than 2 million fans. There's not much the WWE crew hasn't seen.

"Other stadiums we have been in are used to having the big events, the big rock 'n' roll shows, but for this facility it's kind of a new venture," said Steve Taylor, the company's vice president of event operations. "They've had a learning curve, and we've had a learning curve."

The combination of retractable roof and natural grass is a major challenge -- particularly since the grass has to be perfect when the Mariners open their home schedule just nine days after the event. For 3 1/2 days, the 106,000 square feet of turf will be entirely covered by 4-foot-by-4-foot semirigid plastic panels. Those panels are protecting the working area during setup, but what grass can be open to sunlight will be uncovered as long as possible.

The biggest project is the suspension of the lighting and sound rigging. It hangs from the center panel of the retractable roof using 132 steel cables. Given that the roof cost about $100 million, does that seem like a good idea?

"We don't expect it to be a problem, or obviously we wouldn't agree to do it," said Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale. "It was built to bear massive gusts of wind and something like seven feet of snowfall and it won't effect the structural integrity of the roof."

The primary WWE road crew, which is responsible for 104 television shows and 12 pay-per-view events each year, is on the road constantly, 52 weeks a year with no time off. It's quite a caravan: 14 tractor-trailer trucks, a TV truck, a satellite truck, a support truck, a generator truck and six crew buses. Separate crews work the smaller "house" shows and international circuit.

Show day begins at 6 a.m. and ends at 2 a.m. The "Raw" telecast is live on Mondays and the "Smackdown!" show is taped on Tuesdays, almost always in different cities. "Raw" will be at KeyArena on Monday, the day after WrestleMania, and "Smackdown!" in Spokane on Tuesday.

"These guys live on a crew bus, get done at 2 or 3 in the morning, hopefully get a shower, get to the next town and get back at it at 7 in the morning," said Taylor, who started with the company as a ringside photographer at the first WrestleMania in 1985.

They visit all kinds of venues, often with widely different layouts.

"If we know it's a hockey arena, for instance, we know the distances and where everything goes," said production designer Jason Robinson. "For this project in particular, it was several site surveys and a lot of planning and drawings. It's a completely different lighting and set and sound design. This is the only time you'll see this."

The main stage, where wrestlers enter before walking down a long ramp to the ring, will be along the center-field wall, where a temporary gap has been made. The ring will sit at second base, to be patrolled by Hulk Hogan instead of Bret Boone.

The ring is 20 feet square, and the surface is steel beams supporting planks of 1-inch plywood, a thin layer of padding and a top layer of canvas.

In addition, the pro wrestling antics call for any number of props: ladders, folding tables, motorcycles and the occasional steel cage. Sometimes plans are made well in advance, but other times the writing crew will come up with a new idea hours before showtime.

"Our 14 trucks carry every single thing that we think they might want to use, but sometimes they surprise us," Robinson said.

One promotion last year was a unique challenge, as the creative team wanted two female wrestlers to wrestle in a pool filled with gravy on Thanksgiving Day.

"We try to get as much planning as we can, but I like to think we are the experts at, 'Oh, by the way, can we do this?' and we make it happen," Taylor said.