ThunderStruck: WWE WrestleMania 31 Reaction

Last Sunday WWE presented WrestleMania 31 from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California! With a lot of questions going into the show, many fans were wondering if the card could deliver on such a level that this WrestleMania would go into the record books as one of the greatest ever. Did it happen? Well we have a TON to cover, so let’s go through and see!

Pre-Show Match: Cesaro and Tyson Kidd defeated A New Day(Kofi Kingston and Big E), the Usos and the Los Matadores to retain the WWE Tag Team Championships.

^The match was a spotfest, and not a bad one at that. Big E gets the award for weakest performer in the match as he missed his spots on several occasions for big move setups. Despite the Uso injury early on for the brother with the nagging shoulder(I honestly forget which twin it was), everything still flowed enough that the crowd was brought to life. I think this was a very good start to the evening with the champs looking good and coming out on top. For those of you who asked about Cesaro being on the pre-show this year after winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal last year, I give you this response: WWE is a stacked roster of very talented and hard working individuals. WrestleMania is the biggest show of the year, and WWE seems to be going out of their way to put as many wrestlers on the show as they can. How can anybody complain about seeing Cesaro as one half of the tag team champions where in fact his team WON the match and were able to retain their titles in front of over 70,000 fans? As Batista so famously shouted on a depressing night in Pittsburgh, deal with it people!

The Big Show wins the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal(also on the pre-show) after last eliminating Mizdow.

^The battle royal had a nice structure and feel to it. It was well put together. The fans got what they wanted with Mizdow eliminating the Miz. Did the fans get what they wanted with the winner of the match? Nope, but that’s how life goes sometimes! Big Show has earned his stripes with a stellar career in professional wrestling and he earned this moment. Did he need the win? Probably not, but does it make a huge difference overall? People complained that Cesaro won last year and didn’t get enough of a push for it, and now with Big Show winning they’ll be complaining again. Does the ridiculous cycle of whining ever come to an end?

The kickoff show was fun, and the crowd was pretty fired up because of it. Give WWE credit for knowing how to start off the show with an amped up audience!

Main Card:

Daniel Bryan defeated Stardust, Dean Ambrose, Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper and R-Truth in a seven man ladder match to WIN the Intercontinental Championship!

^Just when you think you’ve seen everything you can possibly see in a ladder match, WWE goes out and steps up their game. These seven guys gave us an incredible opening match! I would rank this as the third best opening match in WrestleMania history(behind Dbry/HHH last year and Bret/Owen Mania 10) and that’s saying something. The speed, the ridiculously crazy spots, the physicality overall and the dueling at the top of the ladder between Ziggler and Bryan that saw them exchange an insane amount of headbutts made for the perfect combination of an exciting ladder match. Does the Intercontinental Title mean more after this match? You better believe it does! Daniel Bryan getting the win was icing on the cake for a lot of fans. For me, I picked Daniel to win the match, but I would’ve been okay with any of these guys leaving with the gold after the performance they put on. How great did Wade Barrett look physically despite not having as much of a role in the match as some of the other guys? Barrett’s one of those guys that was one notch away from superstardom in late 2010 and all of 2011, and I feel like he’d be so much further along in his list of accomplishments had he not battled so many injuries over time. Great matchup to OFFICIALLY start the main card of WrestleMania 31!

At this point in the show, I was honestly thinking things could only go downhill overall from here because NOTHING was going to top this. Let’s see if I was right!

Randy Orton defeats Seth Rollins with an incredible RKO after a curb stomp counter with Rollins crashing into the mat in Orton’s grasp.

^I wasn’t expecting these guys to get the proper amount of time they needed to deliver big, but they did! They threw everything at each other and gave the audience a wrestling match that any performer would be proud to deliver on WWE’s grandest stage. Just when you think you’ve seen all that Randy Orton can do, he comes up huge and gives another awesome performance to add to his list of many great matches. As for Seth Rollins, I’m still in shock that WWE took Tyler Black from Ring of Honor, brought him into FCW and made him champion, brought him to the new NXT and made him their FIRST champion, brought him up to the main roster as part of the most dominant trio in WWE history, and THEN made him Mr. Money in the Bank within two years of his arrival on main roster television! WWE’s approach with Rollins speaks volumes about their belief in Rollins, and I’m thrilled to say that this won’t be the last time we mention him in this review.

At this point in the show, one my buddies that I was watching with had said that if Rollins lost to Orton, that meant he would successfully cash in his briefcase later in the night. Hmmm…

With D-Generation X making a surprise appearance to help Triple H against Sting, the nWo made its own surprise appearance to help the Stinger! Triple H defeated Sting despite the interference.

^The match was billed as only being winnable by pinfall or submission, so this essentially was the no-DQ stipulation we were looking for to make it more of a battle than a match. To both their credit, the match was as solid as you could expect it to be. I loved the nostalgia spots of DX and the nWo, and I loved the handshake at the finish. WrestleMania is about so much more than just wrestling matches; it’s about making special moments. Hunter and Sting having that handshake took us out of the “WCW vs WWE” angle and showed us that two legends of the business truly enjoyed the pleasure of being on professional wrestling’s biggest stage together. Great moment and great match – it surpassed all my expectations for being something special. Shawn Michaels and his superkick was also my other favorite part of the match 😉 . The seven year old boy in me still remembers celebrating at Mania 12 when Shawn captured his first title, and for all the years I loved Shawn I will ALWAYS have a fondness for his involvement in the wrestling business(even if I bitch about it from time to time).

AJ Lee and Paige defeated the Bella Twins in roughly seven minutes. AJ won the match with the black widow submission.

^The best women’s match in the history of WrestleMania? I’d say so. Though that isn’t saying much, I truly hope this is the start of more quality women’s wrestling in WWE. These four ladies showed us something impressive and all of them worked hard. For anybody that wants to say WWE doesn’t take their main roster divas seriously, they would have been correct before this year. The effort appears to be there, and I hope it stays. As for AJ Lee retiring from WWE, I’m happy for her as long as she’s happy. People have to do what works for them, and the same goes for her husband. As for the Bellas, they are the faces of the WWE divas whether we agree with it or not, and they came up solid in the clutch for this performance. And last but not least, we have Paige to discuss. I think WWE knows that they have something special in Paige, and I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere anytime soon; she’s a great performer and she’s made a good impression on me in just a year on WWE TV. I’d be very surprised if we didn’t see Paige get the women’s “strap” once again before this year is over.

John Cena ended Rusev’s streak and defeated him to become the new United States Champion.

^Cena wins again, and everyone is pissed! The crowd didn’t seem too bothered by it overall. The match was fun, but it wasn’t better for me than what they accomplished at Fastlane(apparently it’s one word despite my attempted objections – I did my best!). Rusev had to lose eventually, and who else was going to unseat him that the WWE fans wouldn’t complain about? Reigns? Ha! The best choice to me would’ve been Ambrose in a brutal long-term feud that could’ve given us some hellacious battles, but this is WWE’s choice and I honestly don’t think it’s that far-fetched for WWE’s superman to be the one to destroy the top midcard guy who hasn’t yet been defeated. We all complain because the logic of WWE sucks, but then more complaints come when they do something that makes total sense? I don’t think Lana’s involvement hurt or helped anything, but I do think Rusev can recover just fine from the loss. As for the US Title, John Cena being champion is intriguing for me. I want to see Cena wrestle on a regular basis with a variety of workers, and a good example of that was his match with Ambrose from Raw this past Monday night. Rusev and Cena may not have had the best pure wrestling match in Santa Clara, but for me it delivered as a big time performance for both men.

We had a segment between Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, the Rock and Ronda Rousey from UFC. It was a lot of fun. Go see it if you missed it. A lot of people suspect that Hunter will face the Rock at WrestleMania next year, and I hope it’s true.

The Undertaker came back with more hair than he’s had since 2011(the wig on Raw in January 2012 doesn’t count) and defeated Bray Wyatt.

^For those who doubted whether or not Taker could still go, I think we got our answer. Though the match wasn’t as awesome as Taker’s classics with the likes of HBK, Triple H and CM Punk, it felt leagues above what we saw Taker do with Brock Lesnar last year. The big man brought his best A-game and worked a passable match with the eater of worlds. Do I think the match would’ve had a quicker pace had Wyatt not hurt his ankle earlier in the day? Maybe, but I don’t care. I liked the story these guys told, and I liked Bray not winning just for the sake of “going over” here. With Bray Wyatt, he doesn’t need to win to be over with the audience, and he certainly doesn’t need to win when he has such a high profile opponent in the Undertaker. I’m okay with Undertaker working his final match next year in Dallas at Mania 32, and I was more than pleased overall with his performance in Santa Clara. I’ll be the first to admit that immediately following this Mania, I suggested Taker wrap it up because of his age. But to be fair, the guy can do whatever he wants as long as he can put on a show that makes people happy when he’s on WWE’s biggest stage. As for Bray Wyatt, he’ll continue to have the Undertaker-type role on WWE TV and his storylines will continue to be interesting; I just hope he can stay healthy for his own sake.

It’s time to discuss the main event!

Roman Reigns challenged Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Title in our WrestleMania 31 main event. In a twist, Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase DURING the match to make it a triple threat. Rollins would curb stomp both Reigns and Lesnar before pinning Reigns and ending WrestleMania as the NEW WWE World Heavyweight Champion!

^I’m going to address the Lesnar “blading” issue before anything else. It’s been suggested with video evidence that Brock might have cut himself open with a blade when he hit his head on the ringpost during the match. I’ve watched the replay several times and done a lot of pausing. Two things are clear: The referee and Roman Reigns exchanged something between their hands when Roman was on the ground outside the ring. The theory is that either the ref or Roman handed the other a blade to give to Lesnar. Secondly, Brock paused when he hit his head on the ring post outside and held his hand on the lower turnbuckle for an extended amount of time. Many assume this is where he was tucking away the razor blade into the turnbuckle. The theories and assumptions around the facts are unclear as no one can say for sure what happened to cause Brock to bleed.

With the blading issue out of the way(hopefully you’ve all let it go by now), let’s focus on the match. Brock and Roman told an exceptional story with Roman selling a beating and continuously coming back for more. Roman nearly ruined the spot with Rollins and Lesnar during the cash in by not getting up in time to have the spear on Lesnar when he was going for the F5 on Rollins. That one spot aside, the booking of the match was brilliant and the finish was even better. Rollins running down the aisle was a huge moment for him and his pinfall on Reigns was the perfect protection for the beast of Brock Lesnar to not be pinned despite losing the title. All of it worked together perfectly. Are people angry that Rollins is a heel who won the belt? Of course they are. But can you argue that a heel cashing in at such an opportune moment is anything but a perfectly planned finish? It just clicked for me on all levels. Rollins was my wrestler of the year in 2014(with Randy Orton in second place) and he earned his spot as champion for being such a hard worker in this business.

With Rollins ending Mania as champion, people could begin guessing who his first challenger would be and where things would go from here for both Reigns and Lesnar. I expect Rollins will have a lengthy title run, and I think Reigns will spend the next year working his ass off coming into his own as a star.

WrestleMania official Match Ratings:

Pre Show Four Way Tag: ***

Pre Show Battle Royal: ***1/4

IC Title Ladder Match: ****1/2

Rollins/Orton: ****1/4

Sting/Triple H: ***3/4

Paige/AJ vs Bellas: ***

Rusev/Cena: ***1/2

Taker/Wyatt: ***

Reigns/Lesnar/Rollins: ****1/4

^The Ladder Match wins Match of the Night for me, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the card wasn’t good by any stretch. This DID deliver as one of the greatest WrestleManias in history, and it’s a show that I’ll never forget.

Official WrestleMania 31 score: 8.5 out of 10

For those of you wondering why this wasn’t done in podcast format, time wouldn’t allow me to fit a recording into my schedule this weekend and I really wanted to get a review posted. I love writing and I love reading your feedback and opinions. Please leave whatever thoughts you have in the comments below, and don’t be afraid to get in touch with me via facebook or email. Thanks for reading!

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