Mark Henry Should Win The Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal

On Friday, April 6 Mark Henry will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. On Sunday, April 8 I think he should win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania.

At this point, I think that it’s safe to say that the Andre Battle Royal isn’t being used as any type of “launching pad” for the career of the winner. When Cesaro won the inaugural Battle Royal we all thought that it would push him into the “next level” within the WWE system. That never happened and Cesaro has just now seemed to really hit his stride as a member of The Bar.

The next year we saw The Big Show get the win. I’ll say that it was nice to see Show win this match because up to that point he’d NEVER won any type of significant Royal Rumble or Battle Royal during his time with the WWE. While it was a cool moment, Big Show was obviously already so established that the win didn’t really do anything for his career going forward.

Year three we saw Baron Corbin win the Andre Battle Royal in his debut match as a part of the WWE main roster. Similar to the Cesaro win, we thought that this could be the beginning of a major push for Corbin as he’d shown promise in NXT but was never given “the ball”.

Also similar to Cesaro, the win did pretty much nothing for Corbin.

Last year we saw Mojo Rawley win the trophy with the help of his friend, Rob Gronkowski of the NFL’s New England Patriots. Mojo’s win was greatly overshadowed by Gronk’s appearance and just like Cesaro and Corbin before him, this did very little for his career. In fact, the Mojo win really only seemed to happen so that WWE could get their name out in the mainstream due to Gronk’s involvement.

The reason that I bring this history up isn’t to belittle the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. It’s to emphasize that this match isn’t being used to push new talent.

I think that this year the match should be used to celebrate the career of Mark Henry.

Source: WWE.com

Henry has one of the longest active tenures in WWE history. Fans like myself watched his career from day one when he was nothing more than a super athletic, big guy with a ton of potential.

We watched him represent the USA, become Sexual Chocolate, create the Hall of Pain, and become the World Heavyweight Champion.

Pro Wrestling is unique in the sense that unlike “true” professional sports, the WWE can offer storybook endings for the careers of its’ performers.

Henry never had a proper retirement match and while not every Superstar can get a send-off like Ric Flair or Shawn Michaels, there’s no reason that Henry can’t have a big moment on his way out as well.

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I think that it would be great to hear Henry’s theme song hit one last time as he walked down to the ring as a member of the WWE Hall of Fame.

Henry winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal would be a huge win for Henry and the perfect ending of an incredibly successful career.