WWE WrestleMania 31 recap: The Rock and Rousey steal show

ronda-rousey-rock-032915-twitter-ftr

The main event started as WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar — who re-signed with the company earlier in the week — squaring off against Roman Reigns. The two had a physical brawl with Lesnar in control for most of the match, landing suplex after suplex along with three F5’s but couldn’t get the pin against Reigns.

The tide turned when Reigns pushed Lesnar into a ring post, causing a cut on the champion’s head with him bleeding profusely. Reigns the connected with several of his Superman punches before Lesnar hit one more F5. With both men down, Rollins seized the moment and raced to the ring to cash in.

After hitting Lesnar with his Curb Stomp move twice, Lesnar caught Rollins and set him up for an F5, only to be speared by Reigns. Then Rollins came back with a stomp onto Reigns and secured the pin for the biggest win of his career to the delight of the audience.

The victory came in front of a reported 76,976 fans, a new attendance record for the stadium, which is also the new home for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.

Former WWE Champion and now Hollywood A-lister The Rock as well as current UFC Bantamweight women’s champion Ronda Rousey made surprise appearances, confronting the power couple Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

The couple — known as The Authority — spoke about the new attendance record at Levi’s Stadium and bragged that the fans were there because of them.

That prompted The Rock to come out to a raucous ovation.

“You don’t own them and you damn sure don’t own The Rock,” he said.

He then said he was “ready to make a WrestleMania moment,” but Triple H said he had nothing to prove. 

Then, McMahon took over the talking as she trashed The Rock and told him to leave because this was her ring and her fans. After “The People’s Champion” made a joke about her, she fired back with a slap and challenged him to hit a woman.

He left the ring to her delight but it turns out he was just walking over to Rousey who was seated in the front row and then jumped the barricade to join The Rock in the ring.

“The Rock would never hit a woman, but I have a really good friend who would be happy to,” he stated with his friend by his side.

“She is the queen of the octagon and in the world of MMA I would never mess with Ronda Rousey," McMahon said. "But this is the squared circle. This is my ring.”

“You don’t understand something Steph,” said Rousey. “Any ring I step into is mine. If you want me to leave how about you make me?”

Then after a moment, The Rock began punching Triple H followed by Rousey giving him a judo toss.

The UFC champion, who has won most of her fights by submission using an armbar, grabbed McMahon’s arm and threatened to hurt her further before letting her go with McMahon quickly exiting the ring.

This sets up a huge potential mixed tag-team match involving the four of them at next year’s WrestleMania. That show will take place at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, TX with the WWE hoping to have more than 100,000 fans in attendance.

It was years in the making with longtime WCW star Sting finally making his debut in the WWE. However, it turned out to be a losing effort as he fell to Triple H in a match that pulled out plenty of bells and whistles. 

The 56 year-old Sting looked in great shape as he went toe-to-toe with “The Game”. To add to the drama, both D-Generation X and the nWo — factions during the Monday Night War era between the WWE and WCW — got involved. Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and X-Pac ended up battling outside the ring with counterparts Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. If that wasn’t enough, “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels showed up and delivered a superkick to Sting.

As the match continued, Triple H grabbed his trademark sledgehammer but Sting countered with his signature baseball bat and broke the sledgehammer in two. But moments later, “The Game” cracked Sting in the head with the metal portion of his weapon for the win in what could be the final match of the Stinger’s 30-year career.

Before the showdown began, Triple H came out to an elaborate entrance as part of a promotional tie-in with Paramount Pictures for the upcoming movie “Terminator: Genisys”.  Music from the movie played and Triple H rose from the stage surrounded by cyborgs along with a video appearance from Arnold Schwarzenegger who stars in the film.

The main show on the WWE Network began with Daniel Bryan winning the ladder match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship in a fantastic contest. The seven-man match — which also included Luke Harper, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose, R-Truth, Bad News Barrett and Stardust -- was filled with several big spills including Ambrose being powerbombed over the top rope and through a ladder outside the ring by Luke Harper. 

In the final moments, Bryan was alone on top of the ladder and was about to grab the championship hanging overhead with Ziggler raced up to the top as the two exchanged a series of punches and head butts. Finally, Ziggler fell off the ladder leaving Bryan alone to pull the championship down for the win.

John Cena defeated the Russian Rusev for the United States Championship in a patriotic showdown. The battle lines were drawn early when Rusev came out to the Russian National Anthem while riding in a tank with cannons firing followed by a pro-America video before Cena made his way to the ring.

Rusev was in control for most of the match, slapping on his Accolade submission move on several occasions. But Cena would not tapout and finally delivered an Attitude Adjustment for the pin and winning the title.

Randy Orton defeated Seth Rollins in what turned out to be a spectacular match. Both men hit their finishing maneuver at different points -- an RKO from Orton and the Curb Stomp from Rollins -- but each man was able to kick out before the count of three.

At the end, Rollins went for the move again and had his foot on the back of Orton’s head when the “Viper” lifted up, launching Rollins into the air and connecting with an RKO for the victory.

At last year’s event, The Undertaker had his undefeated WrestleMania streak broken by Lesnar. He bounced back at this year’s showcase with a victory against Bray Wyatt.

After back and forth action, Wyatt was able to survive a Tombstone Piledriver. But a second one from the “Dead Man” did him in just minutes later.

In the divas tag team match, it was AJ Lee and Paige defeating The Bella Twins. Nikki and Brie tried to use shortcuts but it was Lee locking her Black Widow submission move onto Nikki, forcing her to tapout.

During the pre-show kickoff, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd retained the WWE Tag Team Championships by defeating Los Matadores, The New Day and The Usos in a Fatal 4-Way match.

Plus, the Big Show won the 2nd annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal defeating 19 other superstars. At the end, Damien Mizdow refused to obey The Miz and eliminated him. Then minutes later, Big Show dumped Mizdow over the top rope and onto the floor for the victory.

Brian Fritz has previously covered pro wrestling and MMA for AOL FanHouse and The Orlando Sentinel. You can find more of his work including podcasts at www.BetweenTheRopes.com. E-mail him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @BrianFritz.

Author(s)