Aleister Black stated that WWE chose not to go with him as Randy Orton’s WrestleMania 41 opponent because him taking a loss in his return didn’t make sense.“They were toying with a bunch of ideas. I know at one point there was this conversation about, ‘Oh, maybe he's coming back to wrestle Randy Orton at Mania.’ That was an actual thing that was discussed, but you also have to understand that wasn't an isolated thing—more like they'll check a list of names and be like, ‘Oh, maybe it's this person. Hey, why don't we get so and so.’ It was counter-argued quickly because they were like, ‘Well, we don't want him to lose coming back at WrestleMania. That doesn't make any sense.’ They felt that they wanted to give it the right attention, and they wanted it to be specifically about me, which I'm very grateful for.”