The following are highlights of a recent Chad Dukes Wrestling Show WrestleMania Spectacular interview with Batista:
On his return to WWE: “I left for very specific reasons and the reasons were because there were certain opportunities I wasn’t getting when I was with the company, and we were so locked down and I mean when you’re under contract with them you’re pretty much limited to the things, you can do. You really can’t do anything else in the company without their say so and they weren’t…certain guys were getting opportunities that I wasn’t getting and I wasn’t real cool with that. So I left to accomplish certain things, and I felt like once I accomplished them, I always wanted to come back. At the end of the day I love professional wrestling. I really, I really do, man. So it’s not like I never planned to come back, I wanted to come back sooner. It’s just that you know it took me longer to accomplish certain things that I really want to accomplish. I didn’t want to be working and do one movie a year. It’s just I was out there auditioning and stuff, these were the jobs I was getting, and once I landed it, you know the Marvel deals, I felt like I accomplished everything I wanted to and then some. We didn’t come back and demand a lot of money you know I didn’t say, ‘I’m not doing house shows I’m only doing Monday Night Raw.’ I mean I said, ‘I’ll do Smackdown, I’ll do house shows.'”
On being selective with film roles: “I got offered a lot of roles, coming out of wrestling, on stuff that was going straight to DVD and it wasn’t the stuff that I want to do and I really wanted like, really good projects. I really, I really had a passion for acting and I really wanted to become a better actor. So I passed up on a lot of that stuff and held out for like better roles, and stuff that will put me in the next to guys were really established actors, so I could kinda learn from, so it wasn’t easy man. I got out there and pounded the pavement.”
On his heat with Daniel Bryan fans possibly coming from a 2011 tweet: “For some reason I think people thought that I didn’t like Daniel Bryan or I had this personal thing. I said a comment, I had one comment about him when he first won the world heavyweight championship and I was like, I was in shock and I said, “Okay.” Because I just didn’t get it. The reason I didn’t get it because it was too soon and that’s my personal opinion. I felt it was way too soon and they did that constantly over and over. I thought they, they just slap the title on people like, way too fast. It’s like, I think sometimes that they used the title, I might get a little grief for saying it, sometimes I think they use the title to get guys over. I thought it just, they did it, it was premature. I never had a problem with him being you know, World Heavyweight Champion, I just thought that they did it way too fast.
You can’t convince me that some body else was a bigger supporter of Daniel Bryan cause I mean that was years ago, before everybody was you know on his jock, when they wanted me to job him out, and I was like, “Hell no.” He’s just too good. He had been coming around for years and I could never figure out why they didn’t give him a job, but he had come out and they wanted me to work a match with him, and squash him and I was like, “No, not gonna happen.” He’s way too good man, we could have a good match, and we did. I mean we gave ‘em a version of what they wanted, but we gave ‘em a hell of a match. It looked like a competitive match. When at the time it’s not with what they wanted.”
On current WWE Superstar who are impressing him: “I love Bray Wyatt. I love him. I love that whole gimmick, that whole Wyatt Family gimmick, but Bray I think he’s gonna be a huge star. I get caught up in this guy, man. When I watch him he’s one of those guys. He’s another guy, I mean he doesn’t look like a stud. He’s not a statue of a man, but he is athletic as you can get, that kid can move man. He is agile, he is a stud man. That kid is as an athlete. He gets when he cuts a promo, you just get sucked in man. He is hypnotizing. When I talk to him like personal, on a personal level, he’s one of those kids who’s not afraid to learn, he has no ego. He’s still learning and he knows he’s still learning and he’s not afraid to ask questions, and I think that’s why he’s going to be so good. Cause he’s this good right now and he still wants to learn. I love the whole Shield gimmick, everyone’s real focused on Roman, and I think he’s definitely going to be a huge star, but Dean Ambrose to me, he’s the star of that.”
Check out the complete interview at ChadDukesWrestlingShow.com.
