Sandow returned to television on the November 11, 2015 episode of "Main Event" as his original "Intellectual Savior" character, defeating Heath Slater. Following that, Sandow never won another televised match for WWE. At the 2016 Royal Rumble kickoff, Sandow and Darren Young failed to qualify for the Royal Rumble match when they lost a four-way tag team match. In February, after Sandow posted a tribute to his grandmother on Twitter, possibly indicating her recent death, WWE allowed Sandow to take time off to spend time with family. At WrestleMania 32, Sandow was quickly eliminated from the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal by Shaquille O'Neal. Sandow returned to "Raw" on April 25, but his match against Baron Corbin never started due to Dolph Ziggler attacking Corbin; with "Pro Wrestling Torch" describing that Sandow's appearance "got one of the best reactions of the night". Corbin defeated Sandow in under two minutes on that week's "SmackDown". On the May 2 episode of "Raw", Sandow competed in a battle royal for a shot at the WWE United States Championship, but was eliminated early in the match; the "Wrestling Observer" wrote that "his elimination was one of the louder reactions in the match". Then, Sandow's final two televised matches for WWE saw him lose to Titus O'Neil on "Main Event" and Darren Young on "Superstars"; Sandow wrestled the latter match as a heel.