10 Times WrestleMania Genuinely Surprised Us
1. The Heist Of The Century
WrestleMania 31 looked a solid card on paper. The problem: that main event. Roman Reigns had been an unpopular and mishandled Rumble winner, and he was against surly part time player Brock Lesnar for the belt. Whoever won, it was unlikely to be an enormous crowd pleaser.
WWE presses the panic button all the time, usually to long term storytelling’s detriment; here, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Rip up the script, scrap the plan, and put Seth Rollins over at the end of WrestleMania.
Having Rollins cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase was a work of genius, a wild swerve that works on every metric. It’s totally in character, it solves every problem, it pops the crowd in a huge way. As an added bonus, the main event was actually pretty great even before Seth’s interjection, so this wasn't an Ultimate Warrior situation - the whole match is a blast.
It can be hard to keep a crowd energised over a gruelling WrestleMania runtime. The Rollins cash in is pure sports entertainment adrenaline, and ensures the audience is sent home simply buzzing about what they’ve just seen.