10 Hot WrestleMania Openers That Blew The Main Event Away
6. Intercontinental Ladder Match - WrestleMania 31
WrestleMania 31 from a match quality perspective is strong but the booking was more than questionable.
Triple H buried Sting in his first ever WrestleMania match and The Undertaker needlessly killed off Bray Wyatt’s potential. Shot to the moon immediately after the breakup of the Shield, the biggest mistake of all would’ve been putting the world title on Roman Reigns in the main event.
Of course, this was neatly avoided by Rollins’ “heist of the century” cash-in. That moment itself is legendary but the match leading up to it was overshadowed by others.
In terms of pound-for-pound quality, the ladder match for Bad News Barrett’s Intercontinental championship inches out in front of it. Hard-hitting, pacey yet well constructed; if you like chaos then this is the match for you.
Fun additional fact: this is so far R-Truth’s final WrestleMania match outside of gimmicky battle royals and it’s cool to see him mix it up with a group of guys clearly looking to steal the night. Ambrose finds himself crumpling in the biggest spot of the match, Harper leads the pack as the MVP and Stardust and his “exo-atmospheric starbird” (a ladder covered in rhinestones) amp up the weapon-based shenanigans.
Bryan winning the shebang just made sense as a former world champion looking to restore prestige to the title, although of course this sadly would be cut short by his retirement.