WrestleMania 31: Not even worth $9.99

Ten bucks can be spent on something better than WrestleMania this time around.

$9.99. $9.99. $9.99. I can’t remember, without looking back, what team won the World Series five years ago. I probably couldn’t name everything that went down at WrestleMania 29 and I was there live and in-person for the show. I could live to be 100-years old and still remember that there was once a time when some version of the WWE Network was only $9.99 a month. Give those running World Wrestling Entertainment credit for at least hammering that fact into our skulls until it became a punchline.

I digress.

You would have to work hard to screw up the writing leading into a WrestleMania. It is the one pro wrestling event that everybody looks forward to, one that gets advertised on and mentioned during ESPN SportsCenter broadcasts and one that brings people who literally only watch WWE and/or pro wrestling one day a year together inside of a home and inside of bars and restaurants. Feuds that are competently booked create memorable matches at a WrestleMania because of the event itself. It’s a simple process.

And yet, WWE has gone and screwed things up this year.

WrestleMania 31 — or “WrestleMania Play” as it is being referred to because of the fact that WWE is utilizing a symbol rather than the number because apparently “31” is too old for an event taking place for the company — has zero redeemable qualities heading into the final Sunday of March. None. There is not a single thing about WrestleMania 31 that has me anticipating the event, and that reality can be blamed on the people who have put the show together.

More often than not, there is a general excitement in the air within the pro wrestling community this time of year, similar to what occurs in the days leading up to a Super Bowl. What WWE has managed to successfully unintentionally accomplish is turn that hype into a black hole of emotion. WrestleMania 31 does not, on paper or in theory, appear to be the wrestling event of the year and another edition of “The Showcase of the Immortals.” Rather, it feels, to steal a phrase from Vince Verhei of Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer, like it is just…a show, and not even a good show, at that.

WrestleMania is supposed to be the end of the WWE year and the finalization of feuds and storylines. Where is that happening even once on Sunday? The four-way tag team match and the battle royal, both of which are so important that they will air on the preshow in front of a quarter-full stadium when fans are buying merchandise, food and beer, and both were seemingly booked just to get guys on the show. There will be ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship featuring guys who have been losing on television. Randy Orton essentially wrapped his program with Seth Rollins up a few weeks ago on Raw when Orton destroyed the “Money in the Bank” briefcase holder.

Those are not even the most frustrating parts of the card.

Some have used the Internet to voice their hot takes on what a shame it is that Undertaker is returning for WrestleMania after he lost to Brock Lesnar a year ago. I am in the opposite camp. Undertaker is a living legend in the business who has sacrificed his body time and time again. He has more than earned the right to show up for yearly paydays on WrestleMania Sundays until his body legitimately falls apart if that is what the man wishes.

With that said, his ideal opponent was beyond obvious to everybody except to those in WWE. Fans have been yearning for a Sting vs. Undertaker dream match for years, so much so that mock posters for that imagined contest have become Internet mainstays. Wi-Fi must be wonky in Connecticut these days, because WWE not only failed to link the two even after Sting finally signed with the company. Both Undertaker and Sting have instead been put in useless feuds.

WWE can try to put lipstick on the pig that is Sting vs. Triple H all the company wants. It wasn’t exciting when it was first introduced, nothing has been done to make the battle something anybody would want to see outside of witnessing Sting performing in a WWE ring, and I’m still not 100 percent why, in storyline, the two are supposed to be enemies. Bray Wyatt vs. Undertaker, meanwhile, is a forced storyline that will end without a winner. Wyatt beating Undertaker lost its shine when ‘Taker was pinned by Lesnar at WrestleMania 30, while Wyatt losing to somebody who won’t be around again until 2016 wouldn’t do him any favors.

Last and maybe least is the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match, one that has been mismanaged since even before the Royal Rumble in January. Roman Reigns isn’t over, and not “not over” as in he is a polarizing figure among audiences as is John Cena. Reigns has, over the past month, drawn lukewarm responses from fans inside of arenas, and he was always going to be booed right out of Levi Stadium at WrestleMania 31 even before it was announced earlier this week that Brock Lesnar, who will be defending his title against Reigns, will be staying with the WWE rather than rejoining the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

None of the outcomes of the main event of WrestleMania 31 are all that ideal. Lesnar retaining as the monster heel of the company would undo all of the work the company did in trying to build Reigns. Reigns winning as a babyface will not go over well with those inside of the stadium. Heyman turning on Lesnar didn’t work when the company tried it a decade ago, and there is no reason to believe that WWE would get it right this time around. Rollins cashing in his briefcase at the end of the evening is no way to end a WrestleMania.

The problem here is that WWE put Reigns in an impossible spot by giving him the push that should have gone to Daniel Bryan, the man who was, for some time the most over performer in the company. Fans rejected Sheamus when he was put over Bryan at WrestleMania 28, and why the company believed a different result would occur with Reigns is baffling. The program involving Lesnar and Reigns was doomed before it ever officially began, and Lesnar holding the title up strong in the center of the ring to close out WrestleMania is the only way fans in attendance will go back home happy.

Any and all criticisms on the WWE product and WrestleMania 31 aside, Sunday’s show is a yearly cultural event, one that should be shared among friends and pro wrestling fans. Nobody should take the drastic step of cancelling such plans just because there are few reasons to be excited about the card and its storylines. Those who are on the fence about ordering WrestleMania, however, would do well to spend the money elsewhere.

You could always get caught up on Mad Men before the show returns on Easter Sunday.