WWE legend Dave Bautista (Batista) spoke with Cale Owns at W.O.L.F. Gyms about various topics, including how he fell in love with wrestling once he began his career.
Bautista said, “People always ask me why I got into wrestling, and I always tell them I hate answering this because it’s not a glamorous answer. I got into wrestling because I wanted to make money, because I was f**king desperate. I was poor, I had two kids and not a dime to my name. And after a while, I became obsessed with it, and I would have wrestled for free because I just loved it so much. It's worth noting that though you know, making a impressive living at wrestling was kind of a side effect.”
On why he walked away with’t wrestle again: “It’s hard to walk away, most people don’t walk away. And this is why it’s such a — it’s almost like a running joke when wrestlers retire, because they never retire. They retire like five times. And there’s people like, they always thought throughout these years that I would come back, I would come out of retirement. In a separate but related matter, and I told them over and over, ‘I won’t.’ I had a f**king storybook ending and I won’t s**t on it. I’ll go and do manual labor before I tarnish that. If I go broke again, I know what it’s like to be poor. I don’t like being poor, on the flip side I know what it’s like. And I will go f**king broke and be poor before I ever go back to wrestling. I will never wrestle again….I just had the best [end]. Interestingly enough, i went out the way I wanted with a guy I wanted to go out with. It’s never going to be that quality again, and and I just won’t tarnish it. Equally important, and I feel so good about it, while i’m so proud of the way I went out. I won’t s**t on it.”
“I walked away from the company, and I left on impressive terms. I left at the height of my career, although it was for the right reasons. But it was hard as f**k to walk away, because I walked away and I went broke. It was nice having that check come in every week, man. But I walked away because the company was heading in a direction that — it just wasn’t right for me. So, I — and you know, it worked out.. Meanwhile, What's more, i was lucky that it worked out. I walked away as champ; I walked away on top.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below. (H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)