WWE WrestleMania 31 Results: Biggest Highlights and Low Points
The biggest show of the year has concluded, and now that WWE WrestleMania 31 is in the bag, it's time to reflect back on the positives and negatives of the night.
Every year, this pay-per-view is touted as "The Grandest Stage of Them All"—the one event that cannot be topped.
Was that the case this time around, or was this show plagued with too many problems?
Going into the event, fans doubted WWE's decisions to have Roman Reigns face off against Brock Lesnar, criticized Daniel Bryan's placement on the card and questioned whether Undertaker's legacy was truly dead without the streak in tact.
Despite this, WWE has shown that a poor build can still result in a great show or vice versa.
Did this live up to the hype—or lack thereof, for that matter? What were the best and the worst parts of the show?
It's time to break down not only the biggest highlights but also the biggest low points of the 2015 edition of WrestleMania, presented in order of appearance.
Highlight: WWE Tag Team Championship Fatal 4-Way Match
1 of 10
There's always a chance on the pre-show that the matches will be nothing but forgettable filler, but despite having an injured Uso and a jobber team in Los Matadores, this segment was a great way to start off the show.
This had a lot of energy and made it look like the tag team title was really worth fighting for.
Jimmy Uso in particular needs to get a lot of credit for holding things together, while his brother was taken out of action.
Involving Naomi, Natalya, El Torito and Xavier Woods was another fun addition to spice things up.
Tyson Kidd and Cesaro kept the trend going where the tag titles have been retained at WrestleMania every year for almost a decade.
For what could have easily been a throwaway match, this ended up being a lot of fun.
Highlight: Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal
2 of 10
Battle Royal matches in general are almost always fun, so it was easy to predict that this part of the pre-show would be entertaining as well.
Of course, lots of fans are going to be disappointed in the outcome, having wished that plenty of other people could have won instead of Big Show.
However, it does make sense that the biggest man in the company wins the match built around the guy whom his career was based off when he first came into the wrestling business.
Fellow big man Ryback looked great as well, which is something that he doesn't get to do all that often.
Hideo Itami took a step in the right direction during this match, despite not being one of the finalists.
Among the highlights, naturally, was the feud between The Miz and Damien Mizdow.
He did not come out on top, but Mizdow is definitely going to capitalize on a great performance and have a lot of momentum going forward into Extreme Rules.
Highlight: Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match
3 of 10
Daniel Bryan fans will be happy to see that the leader of the Yes Movement is our new Intercontinental champion after an impressive performance.
This match was an obvious pick for a highlight before it even happened, and it lived up to the hype.
Ladder matches always keep the energy at a high level and introduce dangerous spots that will wow the audience, and this was no exception to the rule.
Between the powerbomb Dean Ambrose took, the vicious Bull Hammer Bad News Barrett delivered to Dolph Ziggler when pulling him off the ladder and the series of stunts to start the match off, this was just a ton of fun.
It'll be interesting to see what direction the title scene goes after this, but if this match is any indication, it should be in good hands.
Highlight: Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins
4 of 10
Following the Intercontinental Championship match, it was expected that this match would have a slower pace. It did, but it was nowhere near as slow as what some other Randy Orton matches have been in the past.
Instead of being filled with rest holds and dragging on, this was just a different style than the match that preceded it and didn't need to be spot after spot.
J&J Security's involvement was not overdone, and this match was not burdened by too many false finishes.
In fact, the best part of the match would likely be the decisive finish when a curb stomp was turned into an RKO to a rounding applause.
Highlight: Sting vs. Triple H
5 of 10
If you are questioning whether this is worthy of a highlight just because Sting lost, just think about how epic it was that we got to see DX against the New World Order.
Yes, it could be disappointing to see someone make their long-awaited debut and lose, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, fans are always hoping to see surprises, too.
There wasn't much uncertainty in regard to this match as most of the WWE Universe just assumed it would be a standard Sting victory.
However, seeing that not come to fruition helped prove that as obvious of an outcome as something might look, it doesn't mean it is set in stone.
Sting proved that he still can go in the ring, and he worked with Triple H and their friends to have a fun match that really hit home with the nostalgia factor.
Low Point: Musical Performances
6 of 10
Even if the musicians and the songs they sing are good, an argument can always be made that musical performances are a low point to any wrestling event.
Playing someone to the ring as part of a wrestler's entrance is a different story and usually more justified, but setting time aside just to have a concert can easily be written off as a waste of time.
There was certainly nothing horribly offensive about the performances by Kid Ink, Skylar Grey and Travis Barker, but seeing as how this is a wrestling show, there's room for people to view this as one of the bad points of the evening.
Low Point: The Bella Twins vs. AJ Lee and Paige
7 of 10
The #GiveDivasAChance movement might be gaining more and more support, but WrestleMania did not turn things around in the right direction for those supporters.
Truth be told, this match was given more time and was better than a multitude of Divas matches over the past few years.
That in itself is a positive, but the quality of the match was still just not good enough to justify comparing it to the other highlights of this list.
These four women are talented and could have had a much better bout if it were a Fatal 4-Way for the Divas Championship, but a generic tag team match is still just something that works on Monday Night Raw instead of WrestleMania.
Low Point: United States Championship Match
8 of 10
In the mind of WWE's Creative team, this match was as easy of a story to tell as anything you could possibly hope for.
There's no way fans could boo against the top star of the company when he's supporting the United States of America against the evil Russian, right?
Then, that happened.
Right off the bat, fans were not supportive of Cena, and that instantly put a damper on the mood.
Still, if the match had been particularly entertaining, it may have been easy to put that aside and just enjoy it, but this was nothing but a standard Cena match.
Rusev has had better matches against the likes of Jack Swagger and plenty of other people considered much lower on the hierarchy than Cena.
This could be taken as an insult on its own, but seeing as this was WrestleMania and those matches were on lesser pay-per-views, that points out even more how disappointing this was.
For Rusev to have been built up as much as he was, he deserved a better ending than this—and not just when it comes to Cena winning but also how Cena won, too.
The way this culminated was anticlimactic and did not feel like an epic end of an undefeated streak like it should have been.
Highlight: Undertaker vs. Bray Wyatt
9 of 10
Seeing as how the health of both of these stars was in question going into this match, this could have been an absolute mess.
Undertaker had to follow the biggest loss of his career. Could he turn things around, or was The Phenom truly dead?
Bray Wyatt had to prove people wrong that he could hang with a legend after having a year that was nowhere near as good as it should have been, considering how much WWE was behind him.
This was a step up from last year, despite the disadvantage of not having the streak to add mystique to it and not having as big of a name as Lesnar.
It was not the best match of the night, but it was still much better than what could have been anticipated considering the negative factors working against it like the complete lack of Undertaker during the build.
Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction, and not only will Undertaker be back on track but Wyatt will also use this to improve his game even more.
Highlight: WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match
10 of 10
If you were a fan of Brock Lesnar delivering a beatdown such as the one against Cena at SummerSlam, you will enjoy watching this match, as he did that for the majority of it.
If you are a fan of a babyface fighting back and showing his tenacity, you will be a fan of this match for what Roman Reigns does, as he continued to take the punishment that Lesnar dished out to him.
Finally, if you are a fan of surprises, you will be a fan of this match, because it all culminated in history being made as Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract mid-match to win the title.
This is an even weirder happenstance involving the main event of WrestleMania and the WWE Championship than the scenario that went down with Bret Hart, Yokozuna and Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania IX.
In a way, almost everyone wins with this scenario. Both Lesnar and Reigns look tough, Rollins looks like the slimy heel that he is, the title isn't on someone who won't regularly be there, but he wasn't sacrificed in the process, either.
A lot of bad could have come out of this with the fans not liking either Lesnar or Reigns to win, but with Rollins throwing a wrench into that situation, it had to have put a smile on a lot of faces.
At the very least, this will definitely go down as an incredibly memorable main event for the biggest show of the year, which is just what WWE wanted.
What are some of your favorite and least favorite parts of the pay-per-view?
Is there anything that stands out to you in each of these matches, good or bad?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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