Whereas most casual fans of sports-entertainment likely did not notice the difference, keen-eyed viewers may have spotted something different about the ring — after decades of holding matches inside a squared circle, WWE has transitioned to a circled squared. 

WWE has not commented publicly on the switch, which is rumoured to be a cost-cutting measure, given that squared circles are typically at least 40 percent more expensive than circled squares. 

Professional wrestling matches have traditionally unfolded within a squared circle, although there have been exceptions, such as TNA’s Hexagonal Circle and the early-1990s-WCW Rotating Square. 

According to a backstage source, who, to maintain anonymity, identified himself only as Xavier W., the new circled square is “mostly the same” as a squared circle, except that “you have to re-calculate the square-root of pi based on your angle relative to the circumference.”

WWE will reportedly sell off its squared circles to scrapyards, where they’ll be squeezed into cubed spheres.