Former WWE Champion Batista recently spoke with Uproxx about various topics including coming up with his name in WWE, the storyline with D-Von Dudley, and more. Here are the highlights:
Reflecting on his Deacon Batista storyline with D-Von Dudley:
“Only in WWE. When I first came up, I did this character called Deacon Batista, so it was the same last name, but I was working with this guy named D-Von Dudley and he was doing this televangelist preacher type deal where he was collecting money and I held this big, goofy box and I was a security guard of his money box. So ridiculous. It was horrible.”
Receiving his ring name:
“I actually didn’t. All right, here’s the funny thing about that, because when I was …when I went up, when I was called up from OVW, which was our training facility, they changed my name and changed it to ‘Batista.’ I didn’t realized they changed the spelling of it. Well, I was told the reason they did that was so people would be able to pronounce it easier, and then I was told later by another wrestler, he said, ‘No, you dummy. They did that so they could own it. They just can’t own your name. They changed the spelling, now they own it.’ Which was true. I left WWE without my wrestling name, went back to my real name, and started over.”
You can read the entire interview here.
