8 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 31

By Scott Carlson /

1. The Roman Empire Falls

For the second year in a row, WWE put its faith in a muscular superstar to march into WrestleMania as a conquering hero, and for the second straight year, a smaller, more athletic man emerged as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. It has to be frustrating for the WWE brass to invest so heavily into Roman Reigns, only to see fans revolt at his Royal Rumble victory and every step along the way on the Road to WrestleMania. By the time we reached Mania, it was plainly obvious that the Roman Reigns experiment was a failure, regardless of Vince McMahon€™s wishes, will and ignorance. Once Brock re-signed with WWE, it was clear that Reigns wasn€™t leaving Mania with the title. And he didn€™t. But worse than that, Reigns didn€™t even reach John Cena levels of a 50-50 split of crowd reaction. The WrestleMania faithful were overwhelmingly anti-Roman, which might spell the end of his rocket push. We€™ll see if he€™s sent shuttling back down the card. Probably the best thing for him right now would be to team back up with Dean Ambrose (who€™s also lost his Shield luster) and try to rebuild their careers.