If there's one performer who felt like they had a borderline guaranteed spot on the WrestleMania 39 card, it's Bobby Lashley.

After winning a match against Brock Lesnar via DQ at Elimination Chamber, a match that felt like an underwhelming end to a pretty fun feud, Bray Wyatt vowed to feud with the winner of the match and immediately turned his attention to the “All-Mighty,” making sure the “Muscleman” knew that he wasn't going to have a psychological edge head into the show.

… but then, nothing.

Now, as fans have come to learn, Wyatt was unable to perform in Los Angeles and ultimately passed away a few months later due to complications with a heart condition, but in the lead-up to the show, the status of the match was very much up in the air, with no clear answer as to whether or not it would actually happen until the show ultimately came and went with nothing more than a cameo from Lashley to show off his Andre the Giant Battle Royal Trophy. Speaking with Corey Graves on After The Bell, Lashley opened up about just how hard it was to see his match come and go with no real clarity on the situation.

“Our business is very troubling at times and is very stressful mentally. You want to know where you're at, and if you're talking about the last kind of break that I took, the situation involving WrestleMania really hit me pretty hard,” Bobby Lashley said via Fightful. “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, and I've worked my a** off, I train hard all the time, everybody knows that's just me. When that big show came around, I didn't have a spot at WrestleMania. Trying to hold it in, but when you have your kids calling when you're supposed to be there, I'm there in Los Angeles ready to go, you know? The whole time I'm just thinking, call me in, coach, call me in, I'm ready. Then my kids, after the first day, called [and asked], ‘Hey dad, are you going to be on? If you're gonna be on we'll fly up there, we want to see you' because they've been to everything like that. That was kind of a bit of a mind trip, to take a backseat at a time like that.”

Would it hav been cool to see a Lashley-Wyatt match at WrestleMania 39? Yes, considering everything fans know now, getting to say goodbye to Wyatt on the grandest stage of them all would have been incredible. Unfortunately, that match will have to go down as one of the great what-ifs of professional wrestling.

Bobby Lashley discusses getting into business with the Street Profits.

Elsewhere in his After The Bell appearance, Bobby Lashley discusses his new association with the Street Profits and how, after seeing his own match at WrestleMania 39 disappear, it made sense for him to diversify his portfolio in the WWE Universe.

“But then looking at the landscape of some of the guys in the business, I'm looking at who are those guys that fit that same ideal that I was in,” Bobby Lashley said. “The first people that came into the mind were The Street Profits. Guys are extremely talented, take the gloves off they can whoop anybody in the business. But they're sitting back eating catering, not getting spotlighted, don't have titles, not in the title picture. It's like, god man. It's the same thing that we did before when I had The Hurt Business, it was a lot of guys with huge amounts of potential that weren't getting their just due. So that's kind of been my [purpose] in this business all along, I'm that guy that if you need me for something, I can be there for you. If you need me to represent the company, I can represent the company as a professional wrestler, I can represent the company as a businessman, I can represent the company anyway you need it to be represented at a high level. But the spotlight is what is important in this business.”

Booking Bobby Lashley in WWE can be difficult, as when he isn't wrestling for a title or holding a title, he really doesn't have a defined place, as he's just too big, imposing, and protected to have 50-50 booking unless WWE really leans into flukey finishes a la his feud with Austin Theory. Allowing Lashley to manage other Superstars keeps him on television and working without having to wrestle all the time or be fully invested in a singles storyline.