WrestleMania 31 Report Card

Hello everyone! As you all know, +WWE's WrestleMania 31 took place last night (afternoon in West Coast) in Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Here are the results as well as the grades of each match. The Grading System works like this:

For example: A match that is 7/10 would be given the grade of B-

Pre-Show

• Tyson Kidd & Cesaro def. Los Matadores, New Day (Kofi & Big E), and The Usos to retain the WWE Tag Team Championships

Overall, it was an intriguing way to start off the show with the Fatal 4 Way tag team match. Other than that, there wasn't anything too special about this match,

Grade: C+

I would've given them a C-, but I'll give a slight curve due to the efforts of the talents in the match.

• Big Show wins the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal

The match itself was a lot better than the previous one. The most intriguing storyline was when Damien Mizdow turned on The Miz after months of verbal abuse from The Miz. However, at the end, I feel this was a letdown because The Big Show last eliminated Mizdow after the latter achieved his crowning moment of awesome. I won't discredit Show since he did deserve it, but I feel that Sandow shouldn't be a casualty.

Grade: B-

Main

• Daniel Bryan def. Wade Barrett, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, R-Truth, Luke Harper, and Stardust in an Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match

This was definitely a great way to start off WrestleMania. Prior to the match, the ladder match was hyped up, mentioning great ladder matches in WrestleMania history. I feel that it was a good way to garner interest after the Money in the Bank Ladder match was no longer part of WrestleMania. At the end, Daniel Bryan has sought redemption after being out for most of 2014.

Grade: A-

• Randy Orton def. Seth Rollins

After the excitement of the ladder match, it was time to simmer down and see how the Orton/Rollins rivalry would play out. To talk in Kingdom Hearts terms, Orton embraced the darkness when he joined The Authority. Thus, Seth Rollins was a mirror image of  Orton to a small extent. Even though the two were similar in terms of their fighting stance in the match, at the end Orton prevailed. However, Rollins was not done for the night.

Grade: B+

• Triple H def. Sting

This is probably the only match I didn't like due to the outcome. For months, Sting went after The Authority to seek justice against them. Triple H responded and made this a WCW vs. WWE thing. At the beginning, it started out good, but quickly went south when Sting vs. Triple H became a nWo vs. DX rivalry. Once that happened, you knew things weren't good for Sting. This was probably the worst match of the night, and it's all because of Vince McMahon's ego. Note to Vince: this isn't 2001. WWE fans are aware of the aftermath of The Monday Night Wars. Also, this was Sting's first ever WWE match after years of not joining them. 

Grade: 3/10- F

• AJ Lee and Paige def. The Bella Twins

After the ending of Sting/HHH, it was hard for the crowd to invest in the match in the beginning. At the start of the match, it started off one sided in favor of the Bellas. Fortunately for AJ and Paige, they overcame Nikki and Brie and managed to defeat them. What I liked about this match is that AJ and Paige didn't look bad and in addition fans weren't chanting CM Punk (Lee's real life husband).

Grade: C+

I was originally going to give it a D prior to the ending, but I gave it a slight curve since the match was balanced. Also, that would've given the impression that I was talking about Nikki Bella when the match has to be evaluated.

• John Cena def. Rusev to become the NEW United States Champion

In an ideal scenario, fans would be happy that an American defeated someone who has disrespected America for almost a year. Instead, it was a mixed reaction for both sides. Most fans were tired of Rusev's pro-Russia propaganda, but at the same time fans didn't want to see Cena win. To me, this felt like Giants/Patriots in Super Bowl 42 where neither one has any investment that fans should root for. At the end, someone had to lose and I preferred it to be Rusev since he was undefeated in singles competition for far too long and needed some humble pie.

Grade: B-

• The Rock and Ronda Rousey confront The Authority

Now this wasn't a match since it was a segment where The Authority was gloating until The Rock (and later UFC Women's Champion Ronda Rousey) confronted them. I thought this was a pretty entertaining segment since someone had to put Stephanie in her place. What's alarming is that it took a MMA fighter to subdue an authority figure in pro-wrestling. That doesn't look too good for the WWE Divas.

Grade: A

 

• The Undertaker def. Bray Wyatt

This was definitely the surprising outcome of the match since Undertaker recently turned 50 and how WWE handles it. Last WrestleMania, Undertaker suffered a big loss at the hands of Brock Lesnar. Nonetheless, Undertaker bounced back nice and managed to make Bray Wyatt look good. Even though Undertaker won, Wyatt doesn't have anything to be ashamed of.

 

Grade: B+

 

• Seth Rollins cashes in his MITB contract between Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

This match originally was between Lesnar and Reigns. Originally, expectations were extremely low for this match since Reigns' Rumble win ended in controversy while Lesnar's contract was nearly over. However, prior to WrestleMania, Brock Lesnar announced he signed an extension with WWE. The match was good for the most part since it featured strong brawling from the two as well as multiple suplexes from Lesnar where he dubbed it "Suplex City B*+ch". However, the match got even intense when MITB winner Seth Rollins entered the match to make it a Triple Threat match. Even though Rollins won the championship, Lesnar wasn't pinned.

Grade: A

Even though fans expected this to be bad, no one looked bad at the end.

Overall Grade: B-