Batista

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[goc]

I know a lot of people are going to look at his name and immediately dismiss him but that would be unfair. He has some really good high points with the HHH feud, the series with Undertaker & some of the Cena matches. He would probably benefit well from a retrospective view because he got stuck working long feuds with guys he had bad chemistry with like JBL, Khali & Booker T that caused him to get shit on more than he deserve at the time. He also had some really great tag matches with Rey against MNM.

[benjaminkicks]

Batista has always been a personal favorite of mine. I enjoy most of his work I've seen. Not sure if that makes him "Greatest Wrestler Ever" material, but I thought he would be worth nominating to see if a case for him can be made.

 

I will say that I think he has a sneaky long list of good to great matches throughout his run. The series with Triple H, Undertaker, and Cena are all great, and he had very good feuds and PPV matches with guys like Edge, HBK, Orton, Mysterio (both as a tag team and as enemies), Eddie, and Jericho, plus some great work last year in the Mania main event and the Evolution/Shield matches.

 

I'm curious to see people's thoughts on him, and I hope he can get some real consideration and not just passed over because of previously conceived biases.

[Grimmas]

I'm glad the Rey-Batista tag team was mentioned. I think there match against Jeri-Show from the Hell in the Cell ppv was WWE match of the year that year.

 

I've always been found of Batista. With the right opponents (not Khali or other lugs) he was always real good. I will have to take a long hard look at him.

 

Actually, none that it is brought up, I should really go and watch those ppvs from 05 to 12 where I was watching the shows very sporadically.

[BigBadMick]

Batista has always been a personal favorite of mine. I enjoy most of his work I've seen. Not sure if that makes him "Greatest Wrestler Ever" material, but I thought he would be worth nominating to see if a case for him can be made.

 

I will say that I think he has a sneaky long list of good to great matches throughout his run. The series with Triple H, Undertaker, and Cena are all great, and he had very good feuds and PPV matches with guys like Edge, HBK, Orton, Mysterio (both as a tag team and as enemies), Eddie, and Jericho, plus some great work last year in the Mania main event and the Evolution/Shield matches.

 

I'm curious to see people's thoughts on him, and I hope he can get some real consideration and not just passed over because of previously conceived biases.

Yeah, that's a good overview.

He had a really good 2005 until drafted to Smackdown,

a 2007 that got kicked into high gear with the undertaker feud (I wasn't looking forward to their mania match and was very pleasantly surprised),

and was a complete revelation in the late '09 - Spring '10 heel role. And added to his resume with last years stint.

 

A few other highlights here and there, but long spells of injuries and poor performances in 05 - 07 and 08 - 09 do blight his run overall....

[benjaminkicks]

The injuries definitely hurts his case. If he hadn't gotten injured so much throughout his main run from '05 to '10, I think he would've most likely had some more high end matches to add to his resume.

[Matt D]

Is there something written somewhere about Batista as a draw. Just curious.

[Quentin Skinner]

Batista was always good for what he was, but his heel work was phenomenal. I take his peaks over Orton's.

[benjaminkicks]

Is there something written somewhere about Batista as a draw. Just curious.

I don't have numbers, but I think there were times during his '05-'09 run that he was the #2 draw behind Cena, and probably #1 draw on SmackDown.

 

Of course I could just be thinking that because he was booked that way. Not fully sure how he compared as a draw to other guys like Edge, Taker, or Orton.

[Jimmy Redman]

Batista is a guy who has a longer list of matches than you'd think on the surface.

 

vs Hunter - Vengeance 2005 (HIAC)

w/ Rey vs MNM series on Smackdown, late 2005/early 2006

vs Undertaker - WM23, Backlash, SD Cage Match, Cyber Sunday and Survivor Series 2007

vs MVP - Smackdown throughout 2008

vs Shawn - ONS 2008 (Stretcher Match)

vs Cena - Summerslam 2008, WM26, Extreme Rules 2010, OTL 2010

vs Rey - Smackdown late 2009

 

That MVP series is something I had forgotten about until this moment. It's the randomest thing on paper but God damn if they didn't have a really good series of matches on Smackdown. I think it was early 2008. For some reason they meshed really well together.

 

Speaking of, he and Undertaker had insanely good chemistry together. Every match of theirs was good stuff. What's even cooler about it was how unexpected it was. By early 2007 Batista hadn't really had a great match since the Hunter HIAC, and Undertaker wasn't in a good place then either in terms of great matches. When Batista defended the belt against Kennedy at the 2007 Rumble, it was Ken Kennedy who dragged him kicking and screaming to a good match, and I'm not kidding. So when Dave claimed before WM23 that he and Taker were going to steal the show it was laughable, given their form at the time and Cena/Shawn being the main, but then they went out there and just killed it, and it was a real revival for both guys as in-ring workers.

 

He always worked well with Rey, whether as a little buddy tag team, or turning heel on him and ripping him to shreds. I really like that period, there's a match they have on SD just before Dave's heel turn, and they work it face vs face but you can see Batista getting increasingly frustrated as the match goes on and he can't put him away. He really projects that sense of "yeah he's cute and everything, but come on guys, this midget isn't on my level" which is a key part of his heel turn when he finally snaps; his incredulity that Rey thinks he can compete with him, and his embarrassment that Rey actually CAN compete with him.

 

There are a lot of positives to Batista. Like I said, a lot more meat there than you'd expect at first glance. I'm not sure if I've talked myself into voting for him, but he's in the conversation.

[NotJayTabb]

I've got Big Dave placed somewhere between 95-115, so he's battling with 20 other guys for the final spots on my list. He was a guy who kept trying to improve himself when he didn't have to, when he was already a main eventer, which I appreciate, and he racked up a good resume of matches due to it. He grasped how to wrestle like an explosive power wrestler, yet could be a convincing seller too, especially when up against someone like Khali who was an equal or superior physical presence.

[Loss]

Batista is by no means a lock, but I like him enough to at least consider him. He had a certain quality that guys like Dusty or JYD had, in the sense that a huge part of their appeal is being Dusty or being JYD. Part of what I like about Batista is his ability to be Batista. It never seems forced or inauthentic, and it makes buying into his matches a much easier proposition.

[Benbeeach]

I think it says something for all the muscle bound freaks that never make it that we consistently roll our eyes at, Batista is one that actually did, and did in a spectacular way. Never became a super worker but became more than competent and like others said, never stopped trying to improve, even when he was getting close to and well past the big 4-0.

Not sure he should get extra points for not being Mason Ryan, but a guy like Bobby Lashley is right there with comparable physique and exponentially more physical and athletic gifts, and I'd probably take Batista in every measure that there is as it pertains to rating a pro wrestler without giving it a second thought.

Is he the only net positive in HHH's dossier?

[Parties]

I like him and he has several good matches (the MNM series with Rey being outright great). If this was Top 100 Most Charismatic 21st Century Workers, he'd be there. But I don't see how he's close to Top 100 all-time.

[NotJayTabb]

On 1/21/2016 at 5:46 PM, Loss said:

Batista is by no means a lock, but I like him enough to at least consider him. He had a certain quality that guys like Dusty or JYD had, in the sense that a huge part of their appeal is being Dusty or being JYD. Part of what I like about Batista is his ability to be Batista. It never seems forced or inauthentic, and it makes buying into his matches a much easier proposition.

Going back over guys I voted for last time who've not been discussed so far. The above quote from Loss really resonated last time, I think that was a good part of my reasoning for including Big Dave :-D. Had him at 90 in 2016, don't think he's likely to make the cut this time. As far as long time modern main eventers in WWE go, I think he's comfortably behind Cena and Roman, both in match quality and length of run, but I'd still have him ahead of someone like Rollins, which I think goes back to his authenticity. 

[Tetsujin]

The CM Punk WHC match is a great example of him selling for a smaller guy without losing any of his big powerhouse aura.

[DMJ]

I'd have to look back at my list as I'm not sure he made it last time...

And I think he would this time around.

I've been watching some 2008 WWE PPVs for my blog and I've been pleasantly surprised at just how good Batista is. Like, he's legitimately fantastic.

The stretcher match against Shawn Michaels at One Night Stand 2008 is a match that I don't recall seeing on anyone's shortlist of great WWE matches from the 2000s, but it is damn good and arguably one of Shawn's best matches post-comeback, even if you're wishy-washy on Shawn's histrionics. Here, its earned because Batista just mauls him.

More recently, I watched his match against Edge from Night of Champions 2008 and, again, I'm left feeling like this was almost a Batista carry job. Batista takes a terrific table bump early in the match from a baseball slide-dropkick, all of his power moves look great and impactful, and his energy and connection to the crowd means this one never really slows down or gets boring (even when Edge's offense starts getting repetitive). There are moments to nitpick, including the overbooked finish, but Batista's actual performance is really good.

IIRC, this was a point in time when Batista was very unpopular in the IWC and he was even considered "lazy." Ironically, from what I've watched recently, its actually Cena who was having the uninteresting, cookie-cutter matches and Orton and Triple H's feud wasn't great either. Of the three, at least for this brief stretch, Batista was having much better, more interesting, more dynamic matches. And his character work was cooler too. I think its one of those things where he was unappreciated at the time, but on re-watch, the lightbulb goes off and you go "Oh, yeah, now I get why the live audiences always went batshit for this guy: he was an awesome powerhouse."