Say what you will about WWEs plans to push Roman Reigns to the mountaintop, but when push came to shove, the company blinked in fantastic fashion, and fans got an unforgettable moment at WrestleMania XXXI. With Brock Lesnar suplexing Reigns at will, and Roman making Brock bleed profusely and refuse to stay down, WWE threw a curveball at fans when Seth Rollins streaked to the ring, Money in the Bank briefcase in tow. One Curbstomp later, and we had a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, a guy who was not scheduled for the main event. The last time a wrestler left the Mania main event with the world title when he wasnt scheduled for the match was Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania IX, but this was memorable for completely different reasons. It was an awesomely shocking moment, put over a new star and provided a jolt to the product. While we can argue about how Rollins has been booked since then, that main event will go down in WWE history.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
