by Dave Batista
That was too easy a target. I snuck on into Hooters and grabbed one of the waitresses. I paid her a hundred bucks to go and take his hat off his head, rub it on her ass, and say, “Batista says hello.”
I understand he wasn’t all that thrilled about it.
SHOWDOWN WITH UNDERTAKER
One of the biggest story lines I was involved in during 2007 was with Undertaker, a conflict that took us up to WrestleMania 23. He and I began working together a few months, leading up to a confrontation with Cena and Shawn Michaels at No Way Out. We had a falling-out beforehand—which contributed to Cena pinning ’Taker at No Way Out—and headed into a showdown at WrestleMania.
Our key confrontation began at a Raw show in February 2007, right around the time I started on this book.
On the Raw show, we did a thing where John Cena, Bobby Lashley, and myself went out and Undertaker chose from among us for a WrestleMania opponent. He chose his opponent by chokeslamming me to the canvas, which is a heck of a way to say let’s rumble. The crowd got into it. I think for one thing, they didn’t expect two guys from SmackDown!, both of whom were babyfaces, to fight. And they knew that Undertaker was undefeated, and that I was champion, so it was going to be a great match no matter what happened.
But there were a couple of things that I was disappointed with.
I was really hoping that we would make the announcement on SmackDown! I’m a SmackDown! guy and Undertaker’s a SmackDown! guy, and I was hoping we could make it there.
We’re the same company, but there is some competition between the shows. I think it was a little unfair not just to the wrestlers but to the fans. And it would have been a hell of a show for SmackDown!
Our viewers deserve the best show possible. There’s definitely an overlap in the audiences, but a lot of the people who tune into SmackDown! really only have that one chance a week to watch wrestling, and I felt that they deserved this show. It’s not just me being competitive with Raw. I think part of my job is to stick up for the fans and give them a voice.
My character was really developed on Raw and I still feel a lot of loyalty to the show and the guys there. But at the same time, I’m at SmackDown! now and I have to take responsibility and help lead the way there. I take a lot of pride in that.
But it’s not my decision to make. After I give my opinion—politely—other people get to decide. That’s their job.
QUESTIONS MAKE THE STORY
I also thought the physicality between Undertaker and myself came too soon. It immediately put our No Way Out match in a different light and put a damper on the big picture. It also took a little of my credibility away. Going into WrestleMania, against Undertaker’s 14–0 record there, I felt I needed all the credibility I could get. The fact that it was going to be a babyface-babyface match made it even more important that I be considered a legitimate contender. I wanted people to believe that I could stand up to him.
The great thing about me and Hunter going into WrestleMania 21 was that there were so many unanswered questions coming into the show. We’d hardly even touched, let alone had a match. So I think that the fans really wanted to know what the answers were going to be. We left them wanting to see that physicality, wanting to get their questions answered. Here we started out with an answer, really—Undertaker snagging me and chokeslamming me tells you he has the upper hand.
I had no problem with the chokeslam itself; it was where it came in the story. It doesn’t really matter to me whether people are booing me or cheering—I want them to be entertained. I want them to watch the show. It’s about the big picture.
I wasn’t too happy about it, but it was one of those things where Vince had a feeling on it, and we have to go with that. We have to trust him, because obviously the man knows what he’s doing.
WRESTLEMANIA
The WrestleMania match was a dream come true for me. I’d been on the road for weeks promoting it—it was the month from hell—and of course I knew what the outcome was going to be, but when we got to Detroit it was just unbelievable. Over eighty thousand people. It was incredible.
I was so psyched up because working with ’Taker was a dream match of mine. It couldn’t’ve worked out any better. Everything we did was just great.
Even though I was dropping the title, it still felt good. The year before, when I had to surrender it because of injuries, that was just fucking brutal that night. If I have to drop the championship belt, I want to drop it right in the middle of the ring. I think every good wrestler wants to do that. That’s the way it should be.
This was our first match ever. Leading up to it we had a house show and a triple threat; during that, we had about five seconds of interaction. But we didn’t want to give away too much. Nobody had ever seen us go.
Even though we’d never worked together, we just had automatic chemistry at WrestleMania. It was just a magic night.
When I made my entrance, it took forever to get to the ring. The arena and stage were so damn big. I had to stand in the ring and catch my breath for a minute. Then Undertaker started making his entrance—it was so damn eerie. It didn’t seem real. I turned to Charles Robinson, who was our ref, and said, “This is like a dream.”
A scary one.
The match was fifth, which ’Taker and I both felt was kind of a slap in the face. I thought our match had really sold. Our story was the biggest story going into ’Mania. Putting us on fifth was a little insulting.
Leaving Undertaker to the mercy of Cena and HBK.
When I found out we were going to be fifth, Michael Hayes and Pat Patterson were there. Pat said, “It might be a good thing. Do you want to follow Shawn?”
Meaning Shawn Michaels, who was wrestling John Cena for the WWE title in what became the final match.
Automatically I said, “Fuck yeah, we want to follow Shawn. We can follow anybody.”
Pat Patterson died laughing because he loves the cockiness and competitiveness of wrestlers, but I did truly believe we could follow anybody.
I should say that for a lot of my better matches, the biggest matches of my career, I’ve had Michael Hayes and Pat Patterson working with me as agents. They were both on my WrestleMania 23 match with Undertaker, and my Hell in a Cell match with Triple H. I want to thank them for that. They’ve helped me tremendously.
But I guess management didn’t think we were the main event at that WrestleMania. I think we proved them wrong, because the fans really responded to us. I thought we stole the show, and that our match was by far the best of the night.
A lot of times big guy–big guy things sound good on paper—you think it’s going to be the clash of the titans, but I don’t know, they just don’t come off. They just don’t gel. But even though ’Taker is taller and heavier than I am, he works like a hundred and fifty pounder, and I think that was one of the keys to this match. He was just amazing. In fact, I learned a lot from him just by working with him. I felt kind of like a sponge, absorbing his lessons.
At one point in the match he hit me with a shoot right hook that got me right on the jaw. “Shoot” as in real, as in son of a bitch, that mother hurt.
He got me right on the fuckin’ button. You can tell if you watch it carefully. I fell back against the ropes, kind of dazed. He knocked me silly. I was dizzy, and it took me a couple of seconds to clear my head.
I thought it was just a potatoey slip, no big deal, but when I came back to throw the next big punch he said, “That was a receipt. You broke my eardrum.”
I said, “Oh fuck, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, come on, man. Come on,” he told me, and we carried on from there.
I still don’t know where it happened. I didn’t ask, either—it’s one of those things you don’t want to keep bringing up.
When I came off after the match, I screamed out to Pat Patterson and anyone else who could hear, “Fuckin’ follow that.” I knew we’d had a great show.
Besides the story coming in, we had so many milestones in that match. ’Taker
has never held the World Heavyweight title; he’s held the WWE title but never the World. We had never worked with each other. It was a big babyface-versus-babyface match. And it was the first time anybody had ever kicked out of my finish.
I don’t know where ’Taker is in his career. From what I’ve heard, he may be winding it down, and if so this was his last big title run. To me, that’s got main event written all over it. I thought we should have ended that show with Undertaker holding the championship belt in the air.
But I think we stole the show anyway.
The only way it could get better would be if it were a Hell in a Cell match. That’s my next dream match, Hell in a Cell with the Dead Man.
DREAM MATCHES
Speaking of dream matches—one of the guys I would have just loved to have been in the ring with in his prime was Hulk Hogan.
I have no idea what a match with him would have been like. He doesn’t have to do a whole lot to get the fans involved. They’re automatically sucked in. I would imagine that if we had a match, it would have been him kicking my ass a whole lot. Me bouncing around for him like a Ping-Pong ball. Then somewhere at the end, it would have been me lying on my back.
But it would have been a great match.
There’s a lot of guys that I would have loved to be in the ring with. Can you imagine tag teaming Arn Anderson? Hell, I wish I could just crawl inside of Arn’s brain for ten minutes. It’d be incredible.
I’m such a big Four Horsemen mark, I would have loved to have been part of that.
Stone Cold is another guy that I would have loved to wrestle with during his prime. Just the electricity he generates is incredible. I told him that recently and his answer was, “Ah, I was just havin’ fun.”
DON’T LET ME FORGET CHAVO OR DUSTY
I just realized that I’ve written nearly the entire book and not mentioned either Chavo Guerrero or Dusty Rhodes. They’re two great guys who have been incredibly important to me.
Chavo—also known as Chavo Jr.—is the son of wrestler Chavo Guerrero (aka Chavo Sr., aka Chavo Classic), Eddie Guerrero’s brother. Wrestling is in that family’s genes. If I could choose a brother, I’d choose Chavo Guerrero. Enough said.
Wrestling fans probably most remember Dusty Rhodes for his legendary feuds with the Four Horsemen. Now he works behind the scenes as a booker. Dusty has not only been a very strong influence in my career but I also believe that he is the coolest human being on the face of the Earth. And that’s really saying something, because I’ve met a lot of people.
I’m not lumping them together—they’re pretty different guys, each with his own achievements—but I don’t want to let this book go without mentioning them and how much they mean to me.
BACKLASH
The sequel to WrestleMania 23, Backlash, featured another great match between ’Taker and me. We were debating on the finish right up until the end. We were doing a huge stunt at the end—a spear from me that drove us both off the stage, flying down and ending up unconscious. It sounded incredible, but when we went through it in rehearsal we weren’t that impressed with it. We were debating right up until the end to decide what the ending would be. We were literally talking about it on our way to the ring. Undertaker said keep your ears open, we might pull an audible at the end. But it came off so good that it would have been completely unnecessary to add on.
We were both injured coming into the match. Most people knew about my hamstring tear.
It had happened a few weeks before, when I was in Europe doing a match with Fit Finlay. It was obvious right away; I tried rubbing it out but I could barely get through the match. It wasn’t serious enough to have surgery, but it definitely had an effect on my wrestling; hamstring injuries are hard to work with. They don’t heal up very fast.
I wrestled with tape on my leg for a few weeks. The funny thing about that is, some guy on the Internet was convinced—absolutely convinced—that I was faking the injury and wore the tape to cover a new tattoo. He was absolutely positive that I had a new tattoo I didn’t know about.
Anyway, Undertaker tore his biceps on the same tour. Kane and MVP were also hurt. As a matter of fact, we had to start doing six-man Tag Team matches on the tour to camouflage the injuries that a lot of us had. At one point, I think only Fit Finlay wasn’t hurt.
Wait, I take that back: he had his thumbnail ripped off. He had a big bandage on it—we ribbed him good for that. We’re all beat up—me with my leg, ’Taker with his arm, MVP with his back, and Fit with the bad thumbnail…
It was a tough tour. We did something like twelve cities in twelve days. There were detours everywhere, and Italy had this new law where you couldn’t have a bathroom on a bus, so we were constantly stopping: a two-hour ride would take six hours at least.
When we got back, Undertaker knew that he was going to have to have surgery after Backlash, because his biceps was completely detached at the tendon. So we had one final Cage match on TV, because we couldn’t wait for the next Pay-Per-View, which was the original plan. Undertaker had only a small window of opportunity to get his biceps fixed before it couldn’t be fixed at all.
It’s too bad, because the original plan was great. We were going to have a Cage match that would end up in a draw again. Then the Pay-Per-View after that we were going to do the Hell in a Cell showdown that I’ve always dreamed of. But we had to get the title off ’Taker because he was going into surgery and was going to be out for a while.
I worked with ’Taker a lot in 2007, before his surgery. Everywhere we went, we tore the house down. It was such a good learning experience for me. ’Taker is truly a ring general. He’s also a real good guy. We had a chance to hang out, have a few drinks together on tour. I mentioned earlier that I had some heat with him when I came over to SmackDown! because of some things I said. I think he’s finally forgiven me for that, and I think he enjoyed working with me.
Every night after a match he’d say he was proud of me. It may seem like a simple thing, but for me being in there and earning his respect—it’s icing on the cake. I put everything, my passion, my soul, into this business, and having someone with the legendary status of Undertaker saying he’s proud of you, having his approval: I can’t put it into words, I guess.
I know he was crushed about giving up the title. No one wants to give up the title because of an injury, especially someone like Undertaker, who’s so proud. And at the same time, we had such a good thing going that it was a real heartbreaker to have to stop it. Our feud was awesome for SmackDown!, awesome for the business.
The first replacement plan called for Kennedy to cash in his Money in the Bank contract, which he had won at WrestleMania. He’d have then taken the title. In the meantime, I would have worked into a thing with Fit Finlay before getting my chance to go after the title.
But then we thought that Kennedy had a torn triceps—it turned out he didn’t need surgery, though he was out for several weeks—so we had to change things again. Edge won the Money in the Bank contract from Kennedy, then cashed it in and took the title off of ’Taker in a match that Mark Henry was also involved in.
EDGE
When Edge came in and won the championship, he really was picking bones that night—Undertaker had been wiped out not just by me, but by Mark Henry, who’d come out afterward and made a statement. So the crowd really considered him a heel. He just had tons of heat.
Edge and I worked a lot together when I was in Evolution. He was a big babyface back then and we bounced around a lot for him. In 2007, the story came full circle, with him as heel as I chased the title, trying to get it back.
We hadn’t worked in a while, but the chemistry was still there. Actually, I’ve never seen Edge have bad chemistry with anyone. He’s just a great worker. I love working with him. Once you know you’re clicking with a guy, it’s easy. With the story line we built—him coming in and stealing the title that I was chasing—the crowd was already there. Undertaker and I had had three wars, and they were really mad that he
came in and stole that away.
One thing I’ve always liked about Edge, he takes the crowd on a ride. He’ll go back and forth, back and forth, taking them up and down. That can make a real difference—it separates the men from the boys.
MOVIES
Since I got into this business when I was already older than most guys, I understand that my career isn’t going to stretch forever into the future. As long as I can stay in shape, I intend on wrestling. But I don’t want to get to the point where I’m just doing it to make a paycheck. I want to be able to walk away from this healthy and happy, with all my wits about me. I don’t intend on waiting until I’ve had one too many chair shots to the head.
There are other things I’m interested in. For one, I’m pursuing other aspects of entertainment. I’d really like to branch out and do some movies. I’m really big into superheroes and sci-fi. I can’t tell you how jealous I was of Triple H when he got the role of Jarko Grimwood in Blade: Trinity, the 2004 movie that pits Blade—a vampire hunter—against a group of vampires out to take over the earth. It’s the third movie in the series.
I did get a chance to appear on a television show, Smallville, the series that deals with Superman’s teenage years, before he heads to Metropolis. It wasn’t a very good experience overall, but I did like it because I’m a big superhero buff. And seeing all the details that went on with a production like that was pretty interesting.
I was real intimidated, because I’m not a professional actor. I do a little acting here and there on the show, but I was worried about how the other actors would be toward me. But Tom Welling, who stars as Clark Kent, was more than gracious. He was helpful and very polite, making me feel at ease and giving me a lot of tips.
The part itself was pretty one-dimensional—I was a bone-sucking monster. But in the script, at least, I had a few decent lines that made the character a little bit more interesting.