Backstage News On The Original Plans For Batista’s Heel Turn

As previously reported, WWE had a segment scripted into Monday’s RAW that was originally intended to feature the heel turn of Batista. As we saw as the week played out, they decided to push the turn back to Tuesday’s SmackDown taping.

The original plan reportedly called for Randy Orton to come out and talk about the fans boo’ing Batista, and claim that they like him more than Batista. That, mixed with the loss to Alberto Del Rio, was intended to set the stage for Batista “snapping” and turning heel on the fans. The idea was that Orton “unleashed The Animal.”

Instead, the decision was made to tone down the segment for RAW and save the actual turn for SmackDown. The original idea also called for a slow turn, with a few segments and matches over the course of a week or so building to it, but they ultimately decided to do the actual turn on Tuesday.