Bobby Lashley won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the WWE SmackDown the night before WrestleMania 39. He did appear at Mania to parade the trophy. Original plans called for him to wrestle the late Bray Wyatt before Wyatt was pulled from Mania due to health issues.
Speaking on After The Bell, Lashley admitted he struggled with not having a match at WrestleMania.
“Man, because you know, our businesses is very troubling at times. And it’s very stressful mentally, because you want to know where you’re at. And, if you’re talking about just the last kind of break I took, I think a lot of things [hit me]. The situation revolving WrestleMania kind of really, really hit me pretty hard.
You know, I put in a lot of work throughout the year, put myself at a certain level in the company. And I’ve kept that level up, I work my ass off, I train hard all the time. Everybody knows that’s just me. And then when that big show came around, I just didn’t have a spot at WrestleMania. And you know, I try to hold it in. And when you have your kids calling when you’re supposed to be there and I’m there in all Los Angeles ready to go. You know, the whole time is thinking, just call me in coach call me, I’m that guy, like, call me and call me and I’m ready.
And then my kids you know, after the first day calling, Hey dad are you’re going to be on because if you’re gonna be on we’ll fly up there, we want to see you and everything like that, because they’ve been to everything that I was in. And that was kind of a little bit of a mind trip, you know, to kind of take a backseat at a time like that.”
(H/T to TJWrestling.Net for the quotes)