What’s the story?
Former WWE superstar Batista was recently interviewed by Daily Dead at the ongoing Sundance Film Festival. During the conversation, he told them about how he was ‘screwed over’ by the WWE during his final run for the company in 2014 and also revealed why he refused to work with Daniel Bryan after WrestleMania 30.
In case you didn’t know…
Batista left WWE for the first time in the year 2010 only to make a return to the company in January 2014. He participated in the 2014 Royal Rumble match and last eliminated Roman Reigns to win the match for the second time in his career. At WrestleMania that year, ‘The Animal’ faced off against Daniel Bryan and then champion Randy Orton for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, where Bryan won.
Batista, Orton and Triple H briefly reformed their former faction, Evolution, and they engaged in a feud with The Shield. This turned out to be Batista’s final storyline with the WWE as he departed for the promotion of his film, Guardians of the Galaxy, but did not join back post that.
The heart of the matter
Talking about his 2014 run in the WWE, Batista claimed that it was pathetic as the company ‘screwed him over’ and left him frustrated. He wished people knew how hard he had worked to give them his best possible performances. However, it found it nearly impossible to deal with the company and felt that it was a nightmare. The 6-time WWE world champion stated:
“It really sucked. It didn’t have anything to do with me or anything, there was just a lot going on behind the scenes. It was the company, man. They really just screwed me over. I was banging my head against the wall every day.
It’s one of those things, I wish people knew how hard I fought to be there and how hard I fought to just give them the best matches and performances that I could. But it was an everyday struggle dealing with the company. It was such a f***ing nightmare.”
‘The Animal’ revealed that he stretched his last WWE run for an extra month before leaving for his film’s promotion during which they wanted him to work another pay-per-view with Daniel Bryan. According to him, that did not make any sense as he and Bryan already had a great match at WrestleMania 30.
Instead, he asked them to carry on with the Evolution storyline, which had just started at that point, and they did it for some time. However, soon after he, Orton and Triple H became a strong unit, they split up the faction prompting Batista to question them about what was wrong with them.
Here’s what Batista had to say:
“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 were actually nice enough to let me stay an extra month. They 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.
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?”
What next?
Since his Hollywood career is going along quite nicely with a number of films lined up for release throughout 2017 and beyond, it is unlikely that we may see Batista make a return to the WWE at least in the near future.
Sportskeeda’s Take
Judging from Batista’s point of view, it certainly appears that it was primarily the WWE’s fault which caused them to lose out on an athlete like him. However, it is equally important to look at things from the company’s perspective, too, before arriving at a conclusion.
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