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WrestleMania 31 one of the best of all time?

2K views 37 replies 32 participants last post by  ShadowSucks92 
#1 ·
We're about to be a year off from WM 31 and looking back at it you really can make a case for 31 to be the best of all time not one bad match on the entire card. The Sting/HHH match was insane and was one of the best booking I've seen from WWE in a while and the Reigns/Lesnar match was surprisingly solid and left me wanting another Reigns/Lesnar match. Rollins cashing in was probably one of the wildest Wrestlemania moments i can remember. The theme song of the event even fit it perfectly as it showcased new up comers such as Reigns, Rollins, Rusev, and Wyatt. I still believe 17 was the best of all time but i think 31 would definitely be behind it. You may not think it now but 5 years from now i think everyone will look back at it with great memories
 
#2 ·
Re: Wrestlemania 31 one of the best of all time?

Absolutely not.

Knee-jerk response.

WM31 was pretty bad by WM standards.

It's just that we had been subjected to 52 shite Raws, 52 shit Smackdowns, and 12 terrible PPV's, so WM31 seemed like some earth-shattering glory.

It wasn't. It was average. It's just that average is so much better than shit, people still think it's amazing.

:bryanlol
 
#3 ·
Re: Wrestlemania 31 one of the best of all time?

Absolutely not.

Knee-jerk response.

WM31 was pretty bad by WM standards.

It's just that we had been subjected to 52 shite Raws, 52 shit Smackdowns, and 12 terrible PPV's, so WM31 seemed like some earth-shattering glory.

It wasn't. It was average. It's just that average is so much better than shit, people still think it's amazing.

:bryanlol
I don't know about that like i said i literally couldn't find one bad match on the card, not saying every match was 5 star match of the year but every match was at least solid and i can't find many wrestlemanias where every match had the fans intrigued
 
#4 ·
Re: Wrestlemania 31 one of the best of all time?

So I presume a badass and clever ending is enough to make up for stupid booking choices, boring matches and a by WM standards meh atmosphere for all matches sans the ME and MAYBE Sting/HHH (which was AWFUL btw, one of the most intelligence insulting matches I've ever seen in my life)? Okay, if you say so.

To each their own, but this has to go take WM 3's cake as the most overrated WM of all time. At least that is historically significant in many areas. To answer your question, not even remotely close.
 
#19 · (Edited)
So I presume a badass and clever ending is enough to make up for stupid booking choices, boring matches and a by WM standards meh atmosphere for all matches sans the ME and MAYBE Sting/HHH (which was AWFUL btw, one of the most intelligence insulting matches I've ever seen in my life)? Okay, if you say so.

To each their own, but this has to go take WM 3's cake as the most overrated WM of all time. At least that is historically significant in many areas. To answer your question, not even remotely close.
The Triple H/Sting booking was done to cover up how they probably couldn't work a normal match and have it be Wrestlemania worthy. At least the overbooking just made it kind of crazy and unique. I thought the match was dumb when it ended, but I tolerated it is because I found the rest of the card to be good.

I actually think this was a top 6 or 7 WM. Only 6 matches (plus 1 divas tag match) and they were all good. Good card structure/flow. All competitors were at least upper card guys. Unpredictable main event which stole the show.
 
#7 ·
Re: Wrestlemania 31 one of the best of all time?

Mania wasn't really that good to be honest. I have fond memories about the ending and the tag title match but everything else was a little underwhelming to be honest. Orton v Rollins was a good match, but nothing overwhelmingly good, HHH v Sting was saved by the run ins, Paige and AJ vs the Bellas might as well not have happened, Cena v Rusev was a great match to be fair, Taker v Wyatt was average and Reigns/Lesnar was a usual Brock match with some superman punches and spears thrown in.
 
#8 ·
Re: Wrestlemania 31 one of the best of all time?

Nope not even close.

to its credit, going in it looked like it would be a bottom tier Mania and ended up over delivering. All things considered, it was extremely average.

There was nothing great on the show, but nothing really putrid. Just kind of there.
 
#16 ·
I agree with the OP, it was one of the best WM. I thought HHH/Sting, Orton/ Rollins, Lesnar/Brock were 4+ star matches. HHH/Steph/Rock/Rousey segment was imo the best non-wrestling segment in wrestlemania history.

Other note-worthy aspects of WM 31:

- DX vs. NWO(yeah the NWO helping Sting didn't make much sense in the context of history, but it made for a great moment and helped elevate that match to another level)
- Sting's first match in WWE
- Daniel Bryan's last WWE title win and PPV match
- First ever cash in at Wrestlemania


Wrestlemania 31 was one of the most fun ppvs I've watched in recent memory, and I consider it an all-time great WM.
 
#18 ·
It was a very good WrestleMania, mostly due to low expectations (everyone believed it would be shit), plus apparently it was a real blast live. However, it's not top 5 and maybe not even top 10. One thing, WM 31 did not have that classic MotY contender that I believe every WrestleMania should have in order to be considered truly great.

- The ladder match was great, but it was randomly put together with horrible buildup.

- Rollins/Orton was only above average, and only the finish and the amazing RKO makes it so. If the finish wasn't so good it would have been just another match.

- Sting/HHH was a nostalgia act that made no fucking sense. And then the fucking handshake.

- Divas match was the regular divas crap.

- Cena/Rusev was good, not great.

- The Rock/Rousey segment dragged like hell, it was 10 minutes longer than it should have been.

- Wyatt/Taker was kinda boring, pointless, everybody knew Taker would win, everybody knew Wyatt would lose his second WM in a row, and nobody cared because there wasn't a reason to care. The death spot certainly did not help.

- The main event was a glorified squash job that is seen as being so good just because it was expected to be so awful, plus Rollins' cash-in. Take away the cash-in and everyone would criticize the match as being a repeat of SummerSlam 2014.

Basically you don't have a single epic match here but a bunch of good matches and one or two bad ones, and a single epic moment in Rollins' cash-in. Not exactly the best WrestleMania ever.
 
#20 ·
To break this down succinctly, WrestleMania 31 had the worst buildup to it of all time, none of the matches will be remembered as great matches in WrestleMania history, although none of them were terrible and one or two memorable moments definitely shined through.

A so-so WrestleMania, but definitely not in the top 5 or even the top 10.
 
#22 ·
I for the life of me do not understand why people think this is one of the best WrestleManias of all time. Look, it was...good. Much better than it had any right to be after the horrible build up. But one of the best of all time?

Roman vs. Brock was fun with a great ending with Seth. Sting vs. HHH was fun. Cena vs. Rusev was ok. Rollins vs. Orton was ok. The Ladder match was fun. Taker and Wyatt was meh. The Divas tag team was meh. The Rock-Rousey segment was fun but took 20 minutes too long. It was a solid overall WrestleMania. But one of the best?

To me, 30 was so much better. And 17 and 19? Doesn't even sniff those. And I look at other Mania's like 24 and 26 that are still superior. And I'm just talking about the 21st century. So no, not even close to being one of the best of all time.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Not a single person has said this was THE BEST or better than 17 by the way.

Both 30 and 31 have been better than every wrestlemania since 24 probably.

Comparing 30 and 31:
31 had better undercard overall, but 30 had best singular undercard match in DB vs Triple H
But 30 had a battle royale and a 3 minute Shield match which id hardly call great.

The 2 shows had a lot of similarities too with a shocking victory (streak ending, rollins cash in), a long segment, and a small card of 6 mens matches.
 
#25 ·
A very good show but it still can't hold a candle to WM17 and WM19.
 
#26 ·
No it isn't.

It just wasn't as bad as our supremely low expectations. But it was by no means one of the best shows in Mania's history.

Lets go over the show:

- We had HORRIBLE music acts...like among the worst in Mania's history.

- An ungodly long segment with Steph and rock jawjacking about God knows what before Rhonda Rousey showed up. That was a long walk for a short glass of water. The 10 second clip of Rhonda that you probably saw on ESPN the next day was way cooler than the walk through the valley of death to get to that point.

- The opening match was a carwreck IC Title Ladder match that crammed guys onto the show. I've made my feelings clear on these type of matches. They are fun, but at the end of the day, they have no substance. It is just a long series of falls and spots. I also question taking Bryan out of the main event due to his health and then putting him in a match like this. Yeah, OK. One aspect I really liked though was Ambrose being powerbombed through the ladder, which took him out of this match, and also prevented him from stopping Seth's cash in later in the show. Did WWE do that on purpose? Probably not, but I noticed it, and it made everything work better in my mind.

- Randy Orton Vs. Seth Rollins was my favorite match on the show. Had a long built up, and the match delivered, and had an awesome finish too. Good stuff all around.

- Triple H Vs. Sting is one of the most frustratingly booked matches I've ever seen. First of all, no way in hell should HHH have gone over. Sting's first match in WWE against a part time near 50 year old? Yeah, I think it would be okay of Sting took the W here, but no. We can't let WCW get over on WWE, EVER! And it was even more frustrating when Sting cut a promo the week before specifically stating "This is NOT about WCW" and then the match just became a recreation of the Monday Night Wars, with the nWo non-sensically aligned with Sting, DX getting over on the nWo because, lol, reasons. The joke to me is that the nWo was conceived as being the WWF invading WCW, so the idea of them siding with WCW in this recreation of the war is just silly to me. I mean if you are going to go for WCW Vs. WWE, why not throw Vader, DDP, Flair, and Goldberg out there? That would at least have been a truer representation of WCW. Don't represent WCW with the faction that killed it! That's like representing the JLA with Lex Luthor, The Joker, and Gorilla Grodd. But like I said, doing WWF Vs. WCW was silly anyway since Sting said that this was never about WCW, so why the story of the match reflected that it was is just silly.

And yeah, Sting losing was dumb for a multitude of reasons. Not only did it give WWE fans a bad first impression of Sting, and not only did it disappoint the long term Sting fans like myself, but it squandered WWE's opportunities to do big things with the guy later on. If Sting/Taker was planned at one point, this match basically ruined it because if Sting gets beat by Triple H, then how on Earth is he a threat to Taker? Also, if Sting is going to be challenging Seth for the title later in the year, wouldn't it make more sense to have Sting go over and be a legit threat to Seth, so that when Seth beats him, it'll make Seth look better, and then add fuel to a future Seth/HHH feud (which seemed to be the direction before Seth got hurt) with Seth being able to say that he beat the guy that beat HHH? I mean if they were just going to job Sting out in his first match, they might as well have just done the match with Taker at Mania and get it over with.

- Divas tag match was....there. That's really all there is to say about it.

- Rusev's entrance was amazing...its just too bad I knew exactly how the match with Cena was going to play out. I seriously called it step for step three months before it happened. I said "Cena is going to beat Rusev at Mania" and then when the booked the first match for February, I said "Rusev wins the first match and then Cena beats him at Mania" and it played out exactly how I said it would. This match was the best match that the two had together (the rematches got increasingly frustrating and obnoxious) but the inevitability of a Cena win just took me out of it. It played out how I thought I would, so I guess I can't say I was disappointed. The best part of this match for me was the fan reaction to Lana...boy did they ruin her or what? But her getting up on the apron to acknowledge them cheering her actually felt organic and natural.

- Bray's entrance was awesome...it was just too bad that he got fed to Undertaker in a really shitty match built up with Bray doing all the work to get anybody to care. I thought Taker looked horrible in this match. He looked slower, winded, and just old. When he picked Bray up for the tombstone both times, I legit feared for Bray's life because Taker looked off balance and like he had trouble getting him up. Fortunately Taker looked better for the matches with Lesnar later in the year, but he had a ton of ring rust here that was accentuated by his age. Also, why is Bray Wyatt being built up just to be fed to Undertaker? If you don't want Bray going over Taker, then fine, don't book the freaking match because this benefited nobody. They acted like the match never happened. Seriously, Taker went after Lesnar later in the year as if he had been gone from Wrestlemania XXX onward and Bray called himself "The New Face of Fear" as if he never lost to Taker, so what was the point of this? So Taker could save face after losing at Mania XXX? Well considering he just came back and faced Lesnar like he had been gone the whole time anyway, that whole idea seems pointless in hindsight.

And oh yeah, Bray Wyatt, the guy that people say could be the next Undertaker. Yeah , he's 0-2 at Mania now. Great job.

- Main Event was a great way to end the show. Seth's cash in was a possibility that existed in the back of my mind and thankfully they went with that over just having a clearly not over top face Roman Reigns beat Lesnar and take the title. If anything, doing it this way left Roman in a better place as it gave him a path and story to follow...they messed that up, but still! And watching Lesnar just destroy Roman the entire match prior to the ring post spot was on point and cool to watch. So yeah, really good ending to the show.

I'm not arguing that Mania 31 was a bad Mania by any means, but the "one of the best ever" level of praise that it gets is a little crazy, especially given my frustrations with Bray/Taker, Sting/HHH, Cena/Rusev, and the non wrestling portions.
 
#33 ·
No it isn't.

It just wasn't as bad as our supremely low expectations. But it was by no means one of the best shows in Mania's history.

Lets go over the show:

- We had HORRIBLE music acts...like among the worst in Mania's history.
point.

One aspect I really liked though was Ambrose being powerbombed through the ladder, which took him out of this match, and also prevented him from stopping Seth's cash in later in the show. Did WWE do that on purpose? Probably not, but I noticed it, and it made everything work better in my mind.
Youre the only person Ive seen who noticed the Ambrose injury and how it tied into the main event.

I remember as the Cash in was happening, I had a fleeting thought of "wheres ambrose?" but totally forgot about it until i saw you mention it in your review video lol.

Ill always wonder if that was related to Rollins or they just wanted him "injured" to protect his character since he lost the match. Very cool coincidence if it was.
 
#27 · (Edited)
One of the all time great endings at least. It was a good WrestleMania overall. Nowhere near the standards of WrestleMania 17, 18, 19 but still pretty good. On a similar level to the likes of WrestleMania 24 and 30, although the ending really did save it from it being a disaster :rollins
 
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