Batista Unleashed (12 page)

Even though D-Von could start a party just by walking into a place, he was also one of those guys who, no matter where we were or how much time we had, would manage to find a gym and work out. It always amazed me. And he didn’t just get in the gym and do a light workout, he busted his ass. He did cardio, a run, a full workout. Then he’d go and do a match.

He also kept the guys off my back a little bit. Pro wrestling can be real competitive. It’s a cutthroat business. Certain guys are afraid for their spots, and they want to stab you in the back. They will give you shit, give you grief just as easily as they’ll look at you. D-Von prevented a lot of that by taking me under his wing.

I got away with certain things that I think most rookies don’t. Showing up late, cutting in line at the airport. Little things to outsiders, but big things to veterans in the business.

See, veterans like D-Von are afforded certain liberties. He didn’t have to show up to the arena early. He could come when he wanted. Which was fine for him, but it wasn’t fine for me, not really.

D-Von had all the airline perks that come with being a veteran, not to mention he was a frequent flier. He let me check in with him, so I didn’t have to wait in long lines. Truth is, all the rookies had to wait in long lines, and it looked bad for me to go up in front of all the veterans or other guys that had been around longer than I had and breeze through. There are a lot of traditions in this business, and you don’t do stuff like that. But I got away with it because I was with D-Von. He made sure I never got slapped for it.

In a lot of places we had main locker rooms and TV locker rooms. There’s a pecking order. The older guys who have been around longer use the TV locker rooms, where things aren’t as crowded. D-Von would always dress there, and he let me come in. He kind of let me ride his coattails a little bit. Like I say, these things seem like simple things, but in our business, they’re not. They’re traditions that I was breaking or at least bending, but I was afforded the right to get away with it because I was with D-Von.

Eventually, though, I realized that I had to break away from D-Von and do the right thing on my own. I was almost like a kid who has to leave his parents’ house to start earning respect as an adult. I started going to the arenas early, working out, showing my respect for the traditions. D-Von, of course, knew what was going on and let me go ahead on my own. He’d kind of showed me the ropes, then sent me off on my own.

He was always very encouraging. He always said the company had big plans for me. He’d always tell me that. I really respect him and appreciate everything he did for me, giving me what was like a high school education in wrestling. He’s a great dude. I love him.

I’M D-VON’S BITCH

Of course, he did bust my chops.

One time, we made this bet. We were in Albuquerque, New Mexico. D-Von was always late to the building and I’d give him shit. D-Von said he was going to come early and work out with me. I was being a smart-ass and said, “If you get to the building early, I’ll run around the building naked.”

Here’s a rule of thumb: never make a bet with a veteran.

I got to the building two hours early…but he was already there, waiting.

“Come on,” he told me. “Let’s go.”

I started to take my clothes off. Black Jack Lanza came up and said,

“No, no, you can’t do that. You’re going to get us in trouble if you do that.” There were fans outside and everything.

That didn’t get me out of my debt, though.

D-Von told me that instead of running around the building naked, I had to give him twenty-five push-ups.

“Pshh. Big fucking deal,” I said. “I’ll drop down and do ’em with one hand.”

He stopped me.

“No, I want them individually,” he explained. “And every time after you do a push-up, you have to scream, ‘I’m D-Von’s bitch!’”

The deal was, I had to do them whenever and wherever he said. No matter what. Even if it was in the middle of a fucking airport.

We’d be out and he’d mutter, “Gimme one.”

I’d drop down and shout, “I’m D-Von’s bitch!”

Loud, too.

It got to the point where I wouldn’t even think twice about it. I actually did all but seven. He let me out of the last seven for some reason that I don’t remember now, but I had definitely paid off the debt. To welch would have been unthinkable.

Yeah, I had really good times with D-Von. He was a really good dude.

THE EDGE OF A PIT

I was excited to be up in WWE, but the truth was, I was having a hard time in the ring. I really was not picking it up when I first came in.

Partly, it was because I was always so tense, always trying to remember what I was supposed to do instead of actually doing it. I was always afraid of fucking up. And I still didn’t have the skills that I needed for big-time wrestling.

Some people started wondering whether I could make it at all. So did I. The more I screwed up, the more tense I got, and the worse I looked. I had no clue what I was doing and I was lost on the road. My marriage was starting to struggle a little bit because I was always gone. It was extremely rough.

Then, without explanation or warning, they pulled me out of the Reverend D-Von gimmick. They didn’t tell us why; they didn’t even build a story around it. Which really killed us. One week, I just flipped out on D-Von for really no reason. The next week, I came out on TV and basically killed him, I mean I just beat him in the ring. It was a real short match. I don’t know if it was even five minutes long. I came out, and he got on me for a minute or so, then I just nailed him with a Batista bomb. And that was the end of me and D-Von.

They never explaned why or what happened; we just went our separate ways. D-Von continued the Reverend gimmick for a short time after that. He reunited with Bubba on
Raw
later on that year.

I wrestled on my own, but I felt like I was in big trouble. My career looked like it was going to wash out. I felt confused, depressed, trapped, embarrassed—you name it. After all those years struggling to climb up a mountain, I stood at the edge of a pit, ready to fall in.

Photo 4

Things are a little off at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Sunday morning when I arrive. There’s a problem with the tunnel that leads into the dressing room. When I get there, the local security people want me to park my car in the main lot and then walk around to the locker room. That means I’ll have to run a gauntlet of a few hundred fans standing nearby. The ten-minute walk will turn into an hour-long autograph session, and I’ll be late for the show. Not to mention give my security people hives.

They finally find an alternate route for me, and one of the local security people volunteers to show it to me. We take a few turns around the campus and pull up in front of what looks like a bunker left over from World War II. There’s a door at the side that looks about wide enough for a lawn mower to squeeze through.

“This is it?” I ask as the door opens.

“Yeah,” says the security guy. He starts to get out—I think he’s under the impression we’re walking from here.

But I’m running pretty late.

I hit the gas and squeak the rental car in through the door. The passage winds underground for what seems like a mile, twisting and turning and not getting any wider as we go. But if you’re a wrestler, you’re used to squeezing through tight spaces.

Just about when I’m thinking we’ve taken a wrong turn and gone to Kansas or something, a slit of fluorescent light pokes through the blackness to my left. There’s the backstage area, blocked off by a collection of trash canisters. I zip in between them and hop out, tossing the security guy the keys.

“Back it out for me, would you?”

Rumor has it he took early retirement rather than try to squeeze back through the maze.

As the show gets going, it’s clear that the audience is a little flat. We can feel it backstage. The fact that the Super Bowl is in a couple of hours may have something to do with it, or maybe it’s the heating system, which is fighting a losing battle against the subarctic chill outside. Whatever it is, things just aren’t clicking. The wrestlers ahead of me put a lot of extra effort into the show, trying to break through the wall and get the audience inside, but the wall is back and thicker than ever when my match is announced.

Then Ken Kennedy comes out and does this simply great bit. He takes the place over. He starts talking about the Super Bowl and Chicago, pretending at first to be a fan and then, of course, revealing himself as anything but. He’d done something similar the night before, but this afternoon it has real bite. He starts dancing on the Bears—and me—saying we’re all going to choke and riling up the crowd.

But that’s just for starters.

Someone near the ring yells at him, “You suck!” Kennedy grabs the mike and starts dishing it back.

“I suck, huh? I suck? You’re the one that sucks…”

I’m sure the audience has heard what he says dozens of times, but somehow he makes it sound original. Within a few seconds, he has the whole arena pissed at him. If there wasn’t an army of security between him and the fans, for sure a couple of good ol’ boys would come and take him out.

But that’s my job. My intro hits and I stalk out. The place isn’t just with me—they are riding my back into battle: it is time to put serious hurt into this bastard Mr. Kennedy.

That’s what this business is all about. You pray for guys like Kennedy, guys who not only can get the crowd up, but who you can really work with. Guys you can click with. Those are the guys you are going to draw a crowd with. It has to be babyface and heel. Me and Hunter. Me and Eddie. Me and Kennedy. Hunter and Shawn. Stone Cold and The Rock. It’s magic.

Victory is not going to be easy today, though. We start out with me pushing him around, but soon he’s found my weak knee and he is on it, pounding me relentlessly. I go down. He has his heat—he really has his heat. He’s on me, and the fans are on their feet. This is a championship match, and he is wiping my ass all over the ring. I don’t think a championship has ever changed hands in a nontelevised event, and these fans know that.

Or at least they did when they came in. Now they’re not so damn sure. And in fact, it looks like Kennedy’s strategy of stomping my leg is going to win.

“Who sucks now?” he yells, and the place rises to its feet in a rage.

“Batista!” they’re yelling. “Batista!”

What they mean is, get the hell up and pound this guy like we know you can. Come on. Come on!!

I use their energy to get up, banged-up leg and all. With the crowd’s help, it looks like I might be able to take care of this bastard. But he’s got one last trick, tangling my leg with his and pressing until the blood drains from my lower body. I half slip the hold but then I’m over backward, and he’s got both of my shoulders down. The ref counts one, two—with every ounce of sweat and strength I break it and the crowd…the crowd just explodes.

It is a beautiful thing, a really powerful thing. Because now they’re in the ring with us. We’re pushing down this bastard Mr. Kennedy, and all the other bastards that have disrespected them in real life. I make the pin and the crowd roars, knowing the victory is as much theirs as it is mine. Their champion has kicked ass, and they’ve forgotten all about the Super Bowl and the cold and all the other bullshit. They go home happy.

In some ways, a show like today’s is more satisfying for a wrestler than one where the crowd is up from the very beginning. You’ve got to work harder. It’s more gratifying when you can start with a crowd that’s not very lively, not very loud, not very excited, and by the end of the match, you have them standing on their feet, completely sucked in, their disbelief completely suspended. That’s what it’s all about.

Certain matches just feel like main events, like big fight matches. This one, even though it was a house show in a chilly arena, had that feel.

Personally, I’ve never seen a title change on a non-TV match, and I think most if not all the fans at the show today knew that. But we made them believe it could happen. We gave them their money’s worth. And even if we had to work a lot harder because they were a rough crowd, that’s what it’s all about. Man, that’s what it’s all about.

That’s why some days, we don’t get much sleep, but we push on anyway. We’re tired. It’s freezing out here, and the people want to go home and watch the Super Bowl. But we still get the people up on their feet at the end of the match. That feels really good. It’s kind of a high, kind of an addiction to this business.

And while the fans are on their way home to go watch the Super Bowl, I grab my things and get on my way to Omaha.