The One Man That Can Tame The Beast That Is…Batista!
The One Man That Can Tame The Beast That Is…Batista!
by Dan Murphy
[Reprinted without permission from Inside Wrestling June 2004.]
The OVW standout has had a string of setbacks in WWE. Now that he has recovered his inner rage, he might just be unstoppable -As long as he doesn’t allow himself to be stopped.
November 28, 2001: Leviathan, the colossus known as ‘The Demon Of The Deep," steamrolls over Doug Basham to claim the Ohio Valley Wrestling heavyweight title.
OVW is at the top of it’s collective game, churning out promising WWe developmental talents on an almost weekly basis. Randy Orton. Brock Lesnar. John Cena. These are the names many observers expect will become the new face of WWE in the not-to-distant future.
But one star shine brighter than the rest. The new OVW champion stands 6’6", weighs 318 pounds and looks like the illegitimate ofspring of Hercules and a stone gargoyle. Leviathan has obvious star quality and potential; he is larger than life. The moment you look at him you know he’s a wrestler. he couldn’t be anything else.
But there was more to Leviathan than sheer size and impressive tattoos back then. His spear was vicious, rivaling Bill Goldberg’s in explosiveness and impact. His Demon bomb powerbomb variation was executed effortlessly against opponents of all shapes, styles and sizes. Yes, leviathan was a brawling power wrestler, but he was cut from the same mold as Goldberg, Hlk Hogan, and The Undertaker. To paraphrase Tom Petty, the future looked wide and open.
Leviathan did finally get the callup from WWE, but no one could have predicted the role with which WWE Creative would saddle him at the start. The monstrous Leviathan was recast as D-Von Dudley’s menacing evangelical sidekick, Deacon Bautista, on Smackdown. Almost instantly, Batista’s momentum evaporated. His aura -his "next big thing" credibility- was gone. Now he was simply another very big man with a very strange gimmick in a promotion peopled with the same.
Luckily for Batista, the Dudley Boyz reunited on Raw soon enough, forcing the repackaging of Deacon Batista. Batista was brought to Raw and paired with Triple-H, Ric Flair and Randy Orton as the enforcer figure in Evolution. It was a great role for the former OVW champion, instantly inserting him into some of the top fueds on Raw.
But just as things looked like they were turning around for Batista, the injury bug struck in the form of a triceps tear at a house show on March 1, 2003. he agrravated the injury in May and was out of action for nearly six full months before returning to Raw to collect the bounty Triple-H placed on Goldberg’s head.
Since his return, Batista has been wrestling with renewed detrmination, purpose, and, most importantly, fury. For the firsttime in two years, he looks like the old "Demon of the Deep" that so many experts pegged as a future world champion. Although he lost to Shawn Michaels at Armageddon in December, Batista recovered to team with Flair and win the Raw tag title from the Dudleys on the very same night. There’s little doubt that more championships will follow in short order. The key to Batista’s success has been his aggression -the same ingredient that first made him a star in OVW. he lost touch with that agression as Deacon Bautista and never had a chance to get into a rhythm with Evolution before he tore his triceps. Now he”s healthy and not just a little angry, there’s nothing standing in the way of his success.
Except for Batista himself.
WWE often encourages its wrestlers to showcase their true personalities to make them more marketable and media-friendly. This can be done through the off-the-cuff interviews or special video packages highlighting a wrestler’s hidden talent’s or interests. It humanizes the wrestler and shows the world there’s more to each superstar than meets the eye.
"Batista needs to resist the urge to show the fans any more about himself than they need to know," said OVW matchmaker Jim Cornette. He’s a one-man gang, a walking, talking crime spree. We don’t need to know what kind of food he likes or if he’s got a puppydog at home. All we need to know is what we see in the ring. If he sticks to that and keeps up his intensity, he could be something really special."
Batista would be well advised to follow the lead of The Undertaker, a man who kept the aura of mystery about him firmly in place and kept his personal interests and personal life far from the fans for the longest time. Undertaker stayed on top by letting his character evolve through the years, but always acting in line with that character. You never saw the Undertaker doing a spinnarooni or dancing with Rikishi. If he did, the damage to the Undertaker character would have been significant and probably irreparable.
Case in point: The Big Show. Show debuted in WWE as a monster, but when he lost his steam, he let his lighter side show through. While fans enjoyed his appearances as the Showster (a Hogan parody), Showkishi, ansd Shownan the Barbarian, those light-hearted goofs damaged his credibility and made it harder for the fans to accept him as a monster heel again.
"No one wants to see Batista clowning around," Cornette said. "And no one needs to see him that way. I think, at this stage, people are starting to wonder who far he could go if he wasn’t playing spoiler for Triple H. If he plays his cards right, he could be a top contender for Hunter’s title. Call it momentum or what have you, but Batista has something special going for him right now. The last thing he needs to do is move from the take-no-prisoners persona he has now. If he loses his momentum again, he might never recover it."
Cornette is right: Batista is at a critical juncture of his career. His critics say he is injury prone, as a result of his densly muscled physique. It’s hard to dispute that. So he needs to do everything he can while training to minimize the chances of him suffering similar injuries in the future.
Others say he lacks drive and direction and predict he’ll get caught up in meaningless fueds without ever realizing his his main event potential.
"I’m not quite ready to to say he’ll certainly be Raw champion yet, but I agree that Batista is on the right path, " said WWE expert Thomas Pilliard. "He seems to have that proverbial fire in his belly right now, and he needs that. If he loses focus or allows himself to be sidelined with another major injury, he could see his championship window close. But if Batista remains healthy, he could become Raw’s franchise player."
The Biblical Samson lost his legendary strength when Delilah cut his hair. Batista gets his drive from his inner rage. If he loses that rage, he loses everything. Batista is in charge of his own destiny.
