When WWE star refused to face Daniel Bryan because "that didn't even make sense"

The biggest moment of Daniel Bryan's WWE career came in April 2014 when he defeated Batista and Randy Orton in the WrestleMania 30 main event. Following the monumental triumph, WWE's higher-ups had two pay-per-view bouts in mind: Bryan vs. Kane and Bryan vs. Batista.

The match against Kane headlined Extreme Rules 2014 and ended with Bryan successfully defending his newly won WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The bout against Batista was originally penciled in for Payback 2014, but it never came to fruition.

In a 2017 interview with Daily Dead, Dave Bautista (aka Batista) said he rejected the idea of challenging Bryan for the title:

"What most fans don't realize is that I stayed an extra month. The reason I had to leave was because I had to go and do press for Marvel for Guardians of the Galaxy. They [Marvel] were actually nice enough to let me stay an extra month. They [WWE] wanted me to stay that extra month and work with Daniel Bryan at another pay-per-view, but I just thought that didn't even make sense."

Bryan missed Payback 2014 due to a neck injury, meaning the match almost certainly would not have taken place even if Batista had agreed. A week after the show, The Leader of the Yes! Movement was forced to relinquish the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

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Why Batista didn't want to face Daniel Bryan again

The WrestleMania 30 main event ended with Daniel Bryan making Batista tap out. The following night, The Animal reunited with his Evolution stablemates Randy Orton and Triple H to begin a new rivalry with The Shield.

Instead of losing another match to Bryan, Batista thought it made more sense to help make Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins look good:

"We were just starting the Evolution thing, so why couldn't we run with that instead of me putting Daniel over again, which I just did at WrestleMania? We're not going to have a better match there than we did at Mania. Let's just work more with Evolution and build these guys up. So we did. Then right after we built the hell out of them and they were so strong as a unit, they broke them all up. I said, 'What is wrong with you guys?'"

Evolution suffered back-to-back defeats against The Shield at Extreme Rules 2014 and Payback 2014. As part of the storyline, Batista quit WWE after the second six-man tag team loss.

Would you like to have seen a one-on-one title match between Batista and Daniel Bryan? Let us know in the comments section below.