WrestleMania 31: Results, recap, Vines and more

Ronda Rousey’s appearance at Wrestlemania was the stuff of legend. When the UFC women’s champion Judo tossed Triple H and made Stephanie McMahon scream you knew you were watching something we’d be talking about for years to come.

Now there’s the promise of more.

What’s this? SETH ROLLINS IS BREAKING CHARACTER! He’s supposed to be a mean, self-centered, slimy opportunist who only thinks of himself. The kind of guy who’d kick a dog, or make a coat out of puppies (after all, his hair does look like Cruella De Vil’s). Wrangler has a strange effect on people, causing their meanness to melt away.

Congratulations to the new WWE Champion, Wrangler the dog!

Happy WrestleMania! Global Force Wrestling founder and 12-time world champion Jeff Jarrett has a complete match-by-match analysis of the entire five hour event. And be sure to catch Jarrett’s brand new GFW promotion for the first time this summer at the Orleans in Las Vegas.

Jeff Jarrett’s 5 WrestleMania MVPs

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Another WrestleMania has come and gone and once again, WWE made sure the event not only lived up to, but exceeded the hype. It seems like this year went all the way up to Sunday’s pay-per-view before the majority of fans realized how absolutely stacked this year’s card was -- so much so that they had to move two of the matches to the WWE Network’s kickoff show.

76,976 people came to Levi’s Stadium to watch the biggest wrestling event of 2015 and bear witness to history. Three titles changed hands, there were some big returns and there were at least half a dozen moments that will be replayed for years to come. So what happened and where do we go from here? Let’s find out!

Seth Rollins is the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, despite not being booked in the main event. He lost earlier in the night at WrestleMania, but cashed in his Money in the Bank contract after Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns had beaten each other to a pulp, and capitalized to win the title.

In a notable departure from modern WWE, both Reigns and Lesnar bled quite a bit, and not because of any kind of gimmick. They hit each other in the head, a lot, for real. It led to them both bleeding out of their heads, a lot, for real.

Brock Lesnar is suplexing Roman Reigns... a lot. He’s taking him to Suplex City, apparently -- which is a terrible place to visit.

***

The Undertaker is back, and not just to lose to fresh talent. He looked like himself at WrestleMania on Sunday, defeating Bray Wyatt in his first match in a year.

This feud has been different than the others, with Undertaker conspicuously absent from WWE TV. Wyatt started calling out Undertaker months ago, pretended to be the deadman by coming to the ring in a coffin to his music, and repeatedly stated that he was the new face of fear in wrestling. Undertaker eventually accepted Wyatt’s challenge for a match by taking over the lights at Raw, striking Bray’s rocking chair with lightning and putting a message on the TitanTron.

Stephanie McMahon learned the hard way what happens when you talk smack to Ronda Rousey. A fight broke out between The Rock and Triple H before Rousey took care of business. First she threw down HHH, then turned her sights on the billion dollar princess.

It didn’t go well for Steph.

The biggest surprise of WrestleMania 31 came at the end of the third hour, when UFC champion Ronda Rousey showed up out of nowhere, joining The Rock in the center of the ring to beat the heck out of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

Between John Cena’s triumph over Rusev and the match between Bray Wyatt and Undertaker, The Authority came to the ring to tell everyone just how great they are. Just as Triple H was telling the fans that he owns each and every one of them and that there was nothing they could do about it, The Rock’s music hit, and the Brahma Bull walked down to the ring.

If you’re going to do an “evil Russian” gimmick in the year 2015, go all the way with it. And brother, THEY WENT ALL THE WAY.

HE IS IN A TANK. LANA CAME OUT HOLDING THE UNITED STATES TITLE UNDER THE CANOPY OF A RUSSIAN FLAG HELD BY A PLATOON OF MARCHING RUSSIAN ARMY SOLDIERS. THIS ENTRANCE IS EVERYTHING PRO WRESTLING SHOULD BE.

WWE Divas Champion Nikki Bella and her twin sister Brie dominated their feud against AJ Lee and Paige in the build-up to WrestleMania, but the sisters went down on the big show, with Nikki submitting.

The Bella Twins have broken up and gotten back together in the last year, but they showed no division coming into this match. AJ Lee and Paige, on the flipside, have been far from unified. The self-dubbed ‘frenimies’ have fought after miscommunications during tag team matches, and occasionally fought and refused to tag each other.

In an absolutely ridiculous classic, Triple H defeated Sting at WrestleMania 31. But the match was less one between those two superstars and more an all-around tribute to wrestling in the 1990s. It was absurd, and perfect.

Sting was the franchise of WCW, never changing allegiances or negotiating with WWE during the Monday Night War. When WWE bought WCW, he didn’t sign on with the merged company, opting to turn to independent wrestling, then TNA instead. He stuck with TNA until it was clear they weren’t in a position to compete with WWE anymore, and nearly 30 years after his professional debut, he finally made his first in-ring WWE appearance.

Triple H is known for his lavish Wrestlemania entrances, but this one was like something you’ve never seen before.

He rose out of the stage and into the air with a bunch of other terminators!

Randy Orton and Seth Rollins’ feud has seemingly come to an end, with the Viper hitting the RKO to win at the end of a spectacular match.

Rollins and Orton have been Authority brethren for the better part of a year, since the Money in the Bank winner turned on The Shield to join up with Orton and Triple H’s stable. They worked together until Rollins turned on Orton early in the fall, curb-stomping him through cinder blocks to put him out of commission for a while.

For the first time in his career, Daniel Bryan has won the Intercontinental Championship, completing WWE’s grand slam. He’s now won every single title in the company.

Bad News Barrett was the champion coming into this match, but he hasn’t had the belt much. Since WWE Fastlane, the IC title storyline has centered around the participants in this match trying to steal it from him, often tricking him into looking away while they take it, or giving him a fake belt. As soon as Barrett reclaimed it, Director of Operations Kane took it away from him since it has to be hung from the rafters for this ladder match.

COULD THIS BE THE COSMIC KEY?!

Nah, probably not. Still, though: SPARKLE LADDER.

Big Show has won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, finally winning one of these things that he’s picked to win every year. Damien Mizdow turned on The Miz and got to the final two, but couldn’t eliminate the 400 pounder.

This match was invented as a means to get everyone on the roster a WrestleMania check, which was a very nice thing for WWE to do for their performers. It’s also a great idea because 30 guys in the ring punching the crap out of each other is always really, really awesome.

Marshawn Lynch has invaded Wrestlemania ... at least in spirit. Ryback wore an outfit with a “Feast Mode” slogan during the Andre the Giant Battle Royale at Wrestlemania.

Channeling Marshawn didn’t help, sadly -- but at least he looked good!

As expected, the fatal four-way match for the WWE Tag Team Championship got wild, with Tyson Kidd and Cesaro retaining the titles by pinning Big E.

The Usos have been on top of the tag team division for most of the last year, but recently lost their titles to Cesaro and Tyson Kidd. After they failed to reclaim their championship in a rematch on Raw, this four-team feud involving The New Day and Los Matadores got underway, and they’ve all been battling each other since WWE Fastlane.

WWE’s biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 31, gets underway at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns will fight for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the show’s main event, while other matches will feature the likes of John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton and The Undertaker, plus Sting’s first-ever WWE match.

You can catch the show on the WWE Network for $9.99. That’s not the price for just the pay-per-view, but also for an entire month’s subscription to the network, where you can watch decades of WWE, WCW and ECW archives, as well as a new episode of WWE NXT every week.

For weeks -- almost for months -- the build to WrestleMania 31 seemed lackluster. All the matches seemed unwanted or predictable. But at the 11th hour, WWE once again pulled their annual magic feat by having a tremendous go-home RAW, announcing the re-signing of Brock Lesnar and unleashing the floodgates of their unparalleled hype machine. The result? We’re excited about WrestleMania. REAL excited. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s the biggest show of the year and all bets are off.

WrestleMania begins at 7 p.m. ET Sunday, with a special WrestleMania countdown pre-show on the WWE Network beginning at at 5 p.m. The official “kickoff show” will begin at 6:30 p.m. and features a Fatal 4-Way match for the WWE Tag Team Championship, as well as the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Just stay tuned to the WWE Network pretty much all day Sunday and you should be fine.

WrestleMania 31 takes place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Sunday. The event is stacked, so much so that they had to move two of the nine matches to the pre-show.

The grandaddy of them all begins at 7 p.m. ET on pay-per-view and the WWE Network. If you subscribe to WWE Network (still only $9.99 a month), you’ll be able to stream WrestleMania live on any number of devices. There will be a two-hour long, live pre-show beginning at 5 p.m. on the Network, which will feature two exclusive Kickoff Match: the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and the Fatal 4-Way match for the WWE Tag Team Championship.

SB Nation’s WrestleMania coverage is live from the Bay Area this Sunday. Those of you who will be watching along on pay-per-view or the WWE Network can join SB Nation and Jeff Jarrett, 12-time World Champion and founder of Global Force Wrestling, for analysis of each match, as well as a special announcement about the future of GFW.

Check out Jarrett’s match-by-match preview analysis below. Enjoy the Best Weekend In Wrestling:

Until just a few days ago, the expectation was that Roman Reigns, Vince McMahon’s handpicked successor to franchise wrestler John Cena, would win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 31. What has suddenly shaken this long-held belief is the re-signing of Reigns’ opponent on Sunday, Brock Lesnar, to a three-year contract, which also signaled the end of his mixed martial arts career.

If Lesnar was leaving the company, it would make some measure of sense to have Reigns benefit from defeating WWE’s final boss in the process. Now that Lesnar is sticking around, though, and not just for a short time, the smart move -- what WWE would tell us is “best for business” -- is to have Lesnar eschew tradition and retain his title.