From Suplexes to SAG Cards: Dave Batista

"Finger on throat means death!"

Hope you all read my previous post in this series on John Cena, a.k.a. Peacemaker. If not, check it out here (Always be Plugging!)

This time I’m going to highlight a different journey. However, one that overlaps with Cena’s, as they were in-ring rivals for a few years as top guys in WWE during the mid-2000’s. This post will cover David Michael Bautista Jr., or just Batista, as he was mostly known in wrestling. Or Drax if you prefer.

By all accounts, Dave had a rough upbringing, growing up in a crime-ridden area of DC in the early 70’s. Reportedly, by the time he was nine, there had been 2 dead bodies in his front yard, and another one not too far away (he didn’t kill them as far as I know, but still… scary.) At that point, his mother (his parents had split by then) moved Dave and his sister out to San Francisco, hoping for a fresh start. At 13, he was getting into trouble, and according to his wikipedia page, he was stealing cars. At 13. That is kind of insane to me, but Batista was obviously bigger than I was at that age. His mother sent him back to DC to live with his father hoping a positive male influence would straighten him out, but by the time he was a senior in high school, his Dad kicked him out of the house and he was living on his own. Fortunately, he had discovered the weight room by that time, so he was getting big and feeling himself. He later credited working out with helping him stay out of trouble. His first job when he was 17 was at Olympus Gym in Falls Church, VA. He also started taking jobs as a nightclub bouncer at that age, which is pretty funny because he couldn’t even legally get in, but he could kick people out.

The money was good, and he had 2 young kids at home to feed, so the next thing Dave knew was that ten years had gone by and he was still working at nightclubs. Things started to take a turn when he was arrested after a fight broke out outside the club he was working at and sentenced to one-year probation. One Christmas, he had to borrow some money to buy presents for his kids, and that was apparently the motivation to do something a little more with his life. So, at 31, he decided to try his hand at pro wrestling. For people who don’t know the answer to the question, “How do I become a pro wrestler?” well, it’s like a lot of other things: you go to school.

At the time, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) had a wrestling school in Georgia called the Power Plant, so Dave enrolled in that. The classes were run by a former preliminary wrestler named Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker (If you ever turned on WCW Saturday Night on TBS in the early 90’s, you probably saw Parker being beat up by a bigger star.), who is listed at 5’8” but that’s probably an exaggeration. Parker ran Batista and his other trainees through the ringer, and told Dave that he would never make it in the wrestling business because he had no coordination. Batista hated him so much that eventually he switched to a different wrestling school, one that was affiliated with the WWE and run by Afa of the legendary Wild Samoans. Side note: WCW had suffered some hard financial times by then and in 2001 was purchased by WWE, so it was definitely the right move. Parker was pretty much never heard from again.

After around six months at the school, Afa thought he was ready to move up and called the WWE talent department, and Batista was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling and to train with the big boys (and that is no exaggeration. As I pointed out in my Cena post, OVW was flush with future stars.) He was rechristened Leviathan, and his gimmick was to basically be big and scary. To get into character, he bought fangs and a big chain to wear around his neck while he wrestled, which his fellow trainees hated because they would accidentally punch it while they were in the ring with him. Remember, these guys are not supposed to hurt each other.

In May 2002, Batista made his debut on WWE television on an episode of Smackdown as Deacon Batista. He was basically the heavy for another wrestler named Reverend Devon, an evil man of the cloth who preached that everyone needed to repent (I think. I’m going by memory and it was a short-lived gimmick.). Batista’s job was to hold the collection box and basically watch and learn from Devon, who was a veteran. The pairing didn’t last too long, and Batista turned on Devon and beat him in a match, and struck out on his own. By the Spring of 2003, he was put in the top heel group Evolution, teaming with fellow OVW alum Randy Orton, Triple H (current COO of WWE) and the man who would teach him everything about looking and acting like a star, the legendary Ric Flair.

In the group, the young, handsome Orton was supposed to be the breakout star, but behind the scenes, as well as in front of the cameras, support started to grow for Batista. He had a cool, quiet demeanor until he stepped through the ropes, when he would just smash his opponents. The company still tried to push Orton as their top guy throughout most of 2004, but by early 2005, it was clear Batista had taken that spot, and in the main event of Wrestlemania 21, the kid from the ghettos of DC was crowned champion, overthrowing Triple H for the top spot.

Over the next five years, Batista was a major star and multi-time champion in the company, but by 2010, in his early 40’s and racking up injuries (He had a legitimate compressed spinal fracture), he took time away from wrestling to concentrate on acting. He got a few small parts in big projects and big parts in small projects before James Gunn pushed heavily for him to play Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel originally had other people in mind, but went with Gunn’s choice, and ultimately decided it was the right one after seeing the finished product. The simple-minded and metaphorically-challenged Drax was the perfect role for big Dave, who had the chops to handle the tragic backstory of the character and the comedic timing to deliver the humorous lines. Drax is also a big-ass, scary alien.

At the time, however, the jury was still out on whether or not Guardians would be a success, or the MCU’s first big flop. With the film scheduled to debut later in the year, Batista returned to the WWE in early 2014, and was pushed as a returning hero. He originally thought WWE would promote the movie while he was appearing on their TV, but since nobody had ever heard of most of the characters, they never even mentioned it. Plus, WWE fans had seen this before, and were not cotton to a guy who had been gone for a couple years immediately being pushed to the top. The fans were instead rallying behind a smaller, hard-working babyface named Danial Bryan, and Batista was booed relentlessly in all of his appearances, even though he was supposed to be the good guy. Dave himself even pushed that he should have returned as a heel, and by March, he was turned, with he and old pal Randy Orton losing to Bryan in the main event of Wrestlemania 30.

Over the next two months, Batista would team with orton and Triple H in the reunited Evolution and drop main events to the up and coming group known as The Shield. By June, Batista, realizing that WWE was not going to hype up Guardians and he would just be losing to everyone, quit the company, citing “creative differences.” By the end of summer, Guardians had become the highest-grossing August release ever, and Dave Bautista, the actor, could pretty much write his own ticket after that. He would go on to appear in several more Marvel films, the James Bond film Spectre, the Dune remakes, Blade Runner: 2049 and many others. He did make a short return to the wrestling ring in 2019 to end his career properly, losing to Triple H in a Career-Ending Match at Wrestlemania 35. Despite age catching up to him (he was 50 by that point), Dave put forth his best effort, but he clearly had outgrown professional wrestling. Still, he wanted to put the final stamp on his extraordinary career and go out on his back, losing to his mentor.

But it certainly was an extraordinary career. Starting in wrestling at that age, he knew he had a small window to succeed, and he worked hard to do just that. When he started feeling the pain of years of taking bumps, he embarked on a new journey, and he was able to bring his experiences in life and in the wrestling business to his roles and became a pretty recognizable star in Hollywood. Although a little less recognizable these days, as he has lost a lot of weight but is leaner than he was as a wrestler. At 56, he says he feels better than ever.

Out of all the wrestlers who turned to acting, Dave Bautista’s is probably my favorite story. He could have stayed a wrestler and made good money coming back a couple times a year for a big payday, but he decided to apply what he learned as a wrestler to his acting roles. And he doesn’t always play the bodyguard or the scary bad guy. Being Drax showed the world what a wrestler is capable of on the big screen. As of this writing, his IMDB lists 12 upcoming projects. Other than The Rock, he might have the most successful post-wrestling career of them all, and I’d put their careers up ainst each other any day. Maybe in a steel cage!

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