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.