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The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was given the “main event” position on the four-match Kickoff show at tonight’s (Sun., April 7, 2019) WrestleMania 35 event from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. WWE was live on the USA Network for it, and they were always going to showcase this match but had added reason with the guest appearances of Michael Che and Colin Jost.
They’re of “SNL” fame, if you didn’t know.
Like with the women’s battle royal, special entrances were reserved for a few. That included the aforementioned comedy talk show hosts, the man they built a feud with going into this show, Braun Strowman, and the Hardy Boyz.
Here was the order of elimination:
- Curtis Axel
- Lince Dorado
- Tyler Breeze
- EC3
- Shelton Benjamin
- Bo Dallas
- Heath Slater
- Titus O’Neil
- No Way Jose
- Karl Anderson
- Rhyno
- Bobby Roode
- Gran Metalik
- Kalisto
- Chad Gable
- Konnor
- Viktor
- Luke Gallows
- Otis
- Tucker
- Jinder Mahal
- Luke Harper
- Ali
- Apollo Crews
- Andrade
- Matt Hardy
- Jeff Hardy
- Michael Che
- Colin Jost
The eliminations came fast and furious right off the start, a necessary evil considering there were roughly 30 wrestlers in the ring at the bell. Jost and Che immediately ducked under the rope and hid under the ring so they didn’t have to actually participate in the match.
At least not at first.
When they came back in, Matt and Jeff Hardy were in the process of trying to get Strowman over the top rope. They pitched in to help but failed. Strowman, of course, eliminated the Hardys so to get to a top three situation: Strowman, Jost, and Che.
Jost introduced a therapist, who got beat up. Che was first out, with a simple slap to the head. Jost then messed around and came close to getting Braun out when he ducked a big boot and Strowman ended up hung up on the top rope.
But it was never really in doubt, was it?
Strowman recovered and threw the SNL guy out and that was that.
Get complete WrestleMania 35 results and coverage of the entire card here.