During a 50-minute interview with former WWE writer Alex Greenfield on the MLW Writers’ Room podcast, Dave Bautista voiced his annoyance with his most recent WWE run, citing numerous examples why he felt disrespected and why his experience was so bad.
Below is a recap courtesy of Reddit user, GoodGuyRev:
- Batista was discouraged from the moment he returned. He wanted to come back as a heel and cut a promo in the ring re-introducing himself to the audience, WWE wanted him to be a babyface and brought him back in a segment involving several other people.
- Looking back, he is not happy with his physique and wishes he would have gotten himself into better shape before returning. In an effort to get more acting gigs, he stayed away from bodybuilding prior to the return.
- He argued with Vince and creative virtually every day.
- When he left WWE shortly after WrestleMania XXX, he wanted to return around SummerSlam to cross promote his movie, Guardians of the Galaxy. He spoke to Triple H and Stephanie about it, knowing Guardians would be a major hit and could get WWE some publicity, but they doubted him and completely blew him off. They snidely told him, “We don’t even know if the movie is gonna be any good” and that was the end of it. He felt they didn’t have any faith in him or his potential as an actor.
- Batista and Randy Orton did a number on Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania, but he couldn’t believe that WWE told Daniel Bryan to no-sell the effects. He felt this buried him and Orton. He was also pissed off The Shield split up literally the night after Evolution them look like a million bucks.
- He thinks The Shield was split up way too soon. After Evolution made them look like a million bucks, the only thing fans were talking about was his #Bluetista outfit.
- Batista thinks it became trendy to boo him and he couldn’t understand that. He came back for the fans and had no problem putting guys like The Shield and Daniel Bryan over. He was really confused by the reaction.
- During his first big run with the company, when he was on par with John Cena, he strongly resented that WWE gave Cena all the movie roles and had nothing for him. Batista saw that WWE wasn’t looking out for him in that way, so he started auditioning on his own in hopes of landing some movie roles. WWE told him, “You are our property. Get dressed and get to work.” He was denied lots of money and opportunities, which is what led to his initial departure.
- He suffered a broken back in his last match (during his first run) against John Cena.
- On his last day with WWE (during his first run), virtually nobody said goodbye to him or thanked him for his contributions. Security escorted him out of the arena – no “Let’s keep in touch” or “See you later.” This put everything into perspective.
