After reading his surprisingly excellent autobiography, I wondered if there was anything that could be including in a Batista documentary that I would find compelling to watch, given how open he was in the book, and also the relatively short length of his wrestling career.  I shouldn’t have worried, because Batista’s life is a great story, and the addition of other people appearing to deliver their soundbites to add to the story really fleshed things out.

We start with a video package where they use still photos with the WWE commentary from the time of the big moments from Batista’s career.  This is something I’ve not seen before on a WWE DVD documentary, but I thought it was a great touch and a fantastic addition to their usual production, really meshing well with the operatic background music that sped up the further down Batista’s career the clips got.

Then we cut to Batista driving in his car, and some old news clips of Washington DC in the 1970s are shown, as he talks about how growing up all he saw was fights and violence, and how rough an area it is outside of Capitol Hill.  But you can definitely sense his pride in being from there, as later he states that although he (like a lot of wrestlers) currently lives in Florida, he will definitely move back to DC once he’s retired.  We’ll see about that.  His mother appears on the DVD for the first time, and says she’s so proud that she’s from DC that when she went into labour with Dave, she was in Maryland, and managed to get his father to drive him back into DC so he’d be born in a hospital in Washington.

Then they are shown outside the house Batista grew up in, where he lived in the basement with his mother and sister, and where now it’s surrounded by some more modern buildings, it used to be the projects and although it’s clearly a better standard of housing Batista seems taken aback that it’s not the same rough neighbourhood he grew up on. 

At a young age, Batista moved to San Francisco where, in the words of his mother “everybody used to get shot in my front yard” but Batista kept getting in trouble, so he went to Virginia to live with his dad at age 14.  Dave clearly has some issues with his father, outright calling him a bad influence, and talking about how he doesn’t feel any connection with him.  They then talk about high school and his wrestling coach talked about how Batista had great ability but would make mistakes due to starting late meant he had a lack of experience against people his age.  Strange that in WWE at various stages his gimmick has pretty much been that he has all the physical tools to beat anyone yet makes dumb mistakes when he lets his emotions get the better of him, as that seemed true to life now.

We then get lots of Batista’s old friends talking about how he discovered weightlifting, which Batista says is the first time he really felt at home doing something.  By this time, it was clear that Dave had decided high school wasn’t for him, and he quickly got jobs working at his local gym and also as a bouncer.  Can you imagine drunken pricks starting shit at a nightclub and here comes BIG DAVE, you’d be scared shitless.  Batista was very in demand as a bouncer, and it’s not surprising, given his intimidating look and the fact that he was already jacked by this point.  But Dave, despite talking fondly of his bouncer days, admits that life kind of got on top of him as he went from bar to bar working and “suddenly it’s ten years down the road and I’ve got two kids” as though that stuff just happens out of nowhere. 

He then talks about meeting Angie, who is the wife he cheated on with Melina and numerous others while she had cancer, but given the obvious affection that they both speak of each other during this documentary it’s clear that there’s still a lot of love there.  Batista was seeing someone else at the time, but admits that he knew from the first time he met Angie he’d marry her.  They both talk about falling for each other pretty much immediately, and getting married really quickly, which they both say was the happiest day of their life. 

Then, really late in life as compared to most people, he got started in wrestling when he saw adverts for try-outs in WCW, allowing WWE to use some stock footage of the Power Plant in the documentary here.  Dave talks about Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, who was the head trainer at the power plant then, and buries him as being an insecure bullying prick, who made Batista run until he threw up, then trashed him by saying he’ll never succeed in wrestling (although on the documentary Dave worded it as “you’ll never succeed in sports entertainment” but people in real life outside the WWE don’t say stupid crap like that), and says he used it as motivation to prove him wrong and shove it in his face.  Anybody that saw the wrestling edition of Louis Theroux Weird Weekends will have seen this side of Parker, and you have to say that one pleasant side-effect of WCW folding is that this insecure prick doesn’t have a job in the business anymore.

Batista and Angie then talk about packing their bags and moving to Pennsylvania to enrol in the Wild Samoans’ wrestling school. Afa talks about when he first saw Batista he thought he was a diamond in the rough, and the big star he’d been looking for all these years.  Not saying that’s hindsight talking, but how many times do you hear that from the trainer of someone that went on to be a star? To be fair, Dave is full of praise for Afa, even going so far as to say he was the father figure he’d never previously had, so clearly they would’ve had a close relationship.  Finally, when Afa felt Batista was ready, a call was made to WWE, and Batista got his move to OVW, training under Jim Cornette. 

Cornette at the time did say that the three people in OVW who would main event WrestleMania within five years were Matt Morgan, who Cornette has always had an inexplicable hard-on for, Batista and John Cena. On those two he was totally correct.  Jim Ross talks about Batista having the “x-factor” that they look for in their major superstars right away, and Randy Orton and John Cena both comment on seeing star quality and great physical presence upon first seeing him.

Over clips of the Leviathan gimmick, Batista talks about the big chain he used to wear and how the other guys hated it because it’d hurt their hands when they punched him there, and also he used fake fangs to get a more intimidating look (not that he needed it when jacked to the gills), but hated it because the fangs would always fall out during matches, which somewhat tarnishes the tough guy image.  Batista gives Cornette a lot of credit for helping him to get ready for the bigtime in terms of how to carry himself, and teaching things like backstage etiquette, which has always been a minefield in WWE.

Then we move to Batista getting his big break, working as Deacon Batista, alongside Reverend D-Von during his short-lived run apart from Bubba after the original WWE Draft and roster split in 2002.  Dave puts over D-Von bigtime for being a huge help to him, and in a moment of humbleness that most top guys in wrestling really don’t have,  he admits that having him in the bodyguard role was the right move as he wasn’t really ready to be a star by himself yet, and Finlay talks about training with Batista personally in Florida, which is something that WWE does quite a lot with guys like Finlay and also Jamie Noble, as they’re amongst the best in the company as far as getting the basics down. 

This of course led to Batista getting the role as the enforcer in Evolution, and HHH says that the thing that most impressed him about Batista was his athleticism for such a big guy.  Batista puts over how much he learned from travelling with Flair and HHH, just picking their brains and soaking up all the knowledge he could from them, which is really the old school way of doing things.  Dave talks about Armageddon 2003 as a break-out night for him, as he first had a singles match against Shawn Michaels, and then later in the show won the tag team titles alongside Ric Flair, which Batista calls maybe the proudest moment in his career alongside WrestleMania 21.

Michael PS Hayes and Triple H then get into some revisionist history (or some would call out and out lying) trying to portray Orton as the guy that was always meant to be the big star of Evolution, but Batista surpassed him and got the push Orton was supposed to get.  Of course, nobody brings up that they made the utterly retarded decision to turn Orton babyface when he was such a natural heel, but I guess HHH couldn’t possibly have been booked to look weak and be usurped as Evolution leader because he’s the game, he’s the almighty superstar and blah blah blah and all that bullcrap.

That said, Batista did get great. I particularly remember one backstage segment on RAW when HHH was talking about himself and how great he was, then he and Flair left the room, and Batista just stared at the World Heavyweight Title and the crowd went fucking crazy, so it’s clear that after the false start with Orton they were begging for somebody to kick HHH’s ass, and Batista went on a meteoric rise, winning the Royal Rumble by last eliminating John Cena only two months after doing clean jobs to Maven on RAW. 

Hayes puts over Batista and Cena being the final two in the Rumble match as a big moment since at that point they’d chosen those two to strap the rocket to and be the big stars.  They don’t show the moment that everybody else remembers that Rumble match for, that being Vince McMahon coming down to the ring and tearing both quads.  Then clips are shown of Batista’s babyface turn as HHH was trying to con Batista into jumping to SmackDown to face JBL, but Batista was having none of it and powerbombed HHH through a table.

Batista then talks about how nervous he was in the leadup to WrestleMania 21, knowing he would be wining the title and closing the show, and he was the guy they expected to carry the company in the future, which lead to clips of him winning the title, and then the really cute story of him meeting Angie backstage and proposing to her, giving her the special moment that they didn’t get when they were first married, which is a really cool thing.

Once he was the champion and the poster boy for the company, Batista was on the road more and more, and this is the point where his marriage started to fall apart, as they were one of those couples that did everything together and went from that to only seeing each other a couple of days a month, and when you’re in one of those super-close relationships where you can’t be apart, it’s no surprise that the strain of wrestling travel will make them lose the connection they once had.  Of course Dave was also fucking anything he could get his hands on which I guess didn’t help matters.  Batista and his family had by now moved to Florida, to attempt to rescue the marriage, but his daughter was pregnant, and decided she would wait until the birth in order to move over there with the rest of the family.  Yes, big Dave is a grandfather.  During this time, Batista and Angie got divorced, and his daughter broke up with the father of her child, who then passed away in a car accident shortly afterwards, which was a huge hammer blow that tore his and his daughter’s life apart, clearly something that shook him up.

While all these family problems went down, in WWE Batista was also having issues as he got moved to SmackDown, just a couple of months after doing an interview with the UK Sun where he slated the brand and the wrestlers on it for putting forth no effort and basically sucking, which didn’t make him the most popular guy backstage once he moved there, as you can imagine.  Michael Hayes hilariously tries to kayfabe here, talking it up as just being part of the inter-brand rivalry between RAW and SmackDown, when actually it was just a guy pushed to the top with his head in the clouds talking without thinking about his words, and people getting pissed about it. 

Dave then talks about his friendship with Eddie Guerrero, and with all the problems going on in his life personally and professionally, Dave talks up Eddie as being the guy who propped him up, and who was the first guy on SmackDown to accept him and let him know he was the guy the company should get behind and he had to be a leader.  Angie talks about how the time spent with Eddie was the happiest she’d ever seen Dave, so of course he was devastated when Eddie passed away, and Dave cries even now speaking about it, and you can definitely tell it’s genuine, and quite emotional to watch.  This links to a short segment about Rey Mysterio, and Rey and Dave became a tag team, winning the titles in a short feud with MNM where they had some great matches and showed excellent chemistry as a team.  Dave talks about how Rey has became a great friend to him now.

Following this, we get more interviews with Batista’s childhood friends talking about how he’s still the same guy and success hasn’t changed him.  He then talks about his Fillipino heritage, and how they treat him like a gigantic star over there.  JR compares him to Manny Pacquiao, who Batista has accompanied to the ring on some of his recent boxing bouts including his win over Oscar De La Hoya, and while that may be taking things too far, he is a national hero over there, because he’s like the superhero who goes to the US and makes it big, much the same way as Bret Hart in Canada.

With Batista as the focal point of the company, he suffered a torn bicep in a house show match against Mark Henry, which he describes as not realising what had happened at first because a big splash knocked the wind out of him, before it hit him that his bicep was screwed.  Then clips are shown of the segment where he had to forfeit the title, which was truly one of the best segments of the decade, a really emotional moment that had people crying in the audience, showing that people can be hooked on wrestling even in this internet-savvy age, and people do connect to the top guys like Big Dave just as much as people did in the old days to the stars of past eras.  HHH talks about how some people never recover from major injuries (knowing HHH I’m sure that’s a dig at somebody but I can’t place it) yet Dave got the surgery done and immediately set to work on getting healthy and coming back.

When Batista was back from injury, the World Champion was King Booker, and Batista talks about how they had some personal problems, by which he means they got in a fight backstage at the SummerSlam photo shoot that year and Booker owned him, to the point that Vince McMahon, showing a real 70s rasslin attitude that he’ll never admit to, really had to be convinced to put the belt back on Batista even though he was the obvious choice.  Eventually, in a nice bit of symmetry, at Survivor Series 2006 Batista won the World Title back in the same building he’d had to forfeit it in January. 

This led to the classic Batista/Undertaker match at WrestleMania 23.  I remember at the time Batista had done interviews saying they’d have the best match on the show, and felt they should close the show ahead of Cena/Michaels.  I remember at the time laughing at this viewpoint, but they went out and stole the show.  Cena/HBK was an excellent match and I’m not putting that bout down, but Batista/Taker felt far more epic and worthy of being a WrestleMania main event, and Finlay and Jim Ross both put this over as being the kind of match that anybody in the wrestling business should be proud of.  Batista talks about going backstage and yelling “follow THAT” as he got through the curtain.

After a few rematches with Taker, which HHH put over as all great matches, Batista then worked with Edge after Edge jumped to SmackDown and won the World Title.  Edge talks about being surprised by how great Batista was in the ring, and how much he enjoys working with him, as various talking heads discuss the impact that working with Undertaker and Edge had on Batista, calling it the time that he was able to put the little things together to become a great wrestler.  Edge in particular puts over Batista being able to still get sympathy as a babyface despite being such a big guy, with the dynamic of Edge as the cowardly heel who manipulates situations and always manages to avoid having Batista get hold of him and kill him – a blowoff which never happened as Edge got injured and Batista only got the title after a short run by The Great Khali. 

We then jump to the post-WrestleMania 24 feud between Batista and Shawn Michaels, after Ric Flair retired.  The promo work here showed signs of why Batista will be better as a menacing heel, even though in his eyes he was right and he was able to portray that with conviction on TV.  HHH talks about the feud as helping Batista put the finishing touches to himself as a top worker in terms of the small nuances and character moments, then we helpfully get a major one of them, as Batista destroys HBK in a stretcher match, and says “I’m not sorry and I don’t love you” before the last powerbomb, a play off the famous Flair/Michaels WrestleMania ending. 

The closing segment of the DVD sees various people talk about Batista’s fan appeal, and how he can parlay that into other avenues, such as his guest appearance on Smallville and making the cover of Muscle & Fitness.  But then he talks about how he feels that in wrestling his best days are ahead of him, despite his late start (he’s already in his 40s), and says that he wants to work for WWE after retirement as well by taking an agents job.  That’s an interesting note to end things on.

Overall, although there were some things that this documentary skipped over or missed out on providing details, in some ways it was understandable, and Batista has lead a very interesting life that I feel like I learned a lot about.  WWE have been fantastic with their documentaries, it’s definitely a major strength of the company.

The extras for this set are a few outtakes and additional stories from the documentary, as well as two discs of matches.  Unfortunately, the copy of the set Silvervision sent me didn’t include disc 2, so I’ll just list the matches included here with some thoughts from memory rather than only reviewing half the matches.

Leviathan v. Danny Basham – OVW November 28, 2001.  Never seen it, but would be cool to see him at such an early stage in his career.

Batista v. Kane – WWE Armageddon 2002. Never seen it.

Batista v. Shawn Michaels – WWE Armageddon 2003. Never seen it.  Wow, really not doing too great here am I? Batista talks very highly of it in the documentary so I would’ve been interested to see this.

Batista & Ric Flair v. The Dudleys – WWE Royal Rumble 2004.  This was a tables match, and I have definitely seen it, but have no memory of it at all.

Batista v. Chris Jericho – WWE Vengeance 2004.  If this is the match I think it is, Batista absolutely blasted Jericho with a lariat that gave him a black eye or a broken nose or something.  He was still very clunky and clumsy in the ring at this point, so it wasn’t very good even though Jericho had experience at carrying big guys by this point, having worked with Nash and Hogan a lot just prior to this.

Royal Rumble Match – WWE Royal Rumble 2005.  This is Batista’s big win, and I’m assuming they only show it from his entrance, or maybe even just as it gets down to him and Cena.  By this point people were into Batista bigtime and couldn’t wait for him to win the World Title.

Batista v. Triple H – WWE WrestleMania 21.  This is the match that completed Batista’s elevation to superstardom, as HHH bled buckets for him and put him over huge.

Batista v. Triple H – WWE Vengeance 2005.  This was a Hell In A Cell match that main evented one of the better split-brand-era WWE PPVs. A weapon-filled bloodfest that further solidified Batista as the man when a lot of people were expecting the title to go back on HHH.

Batista v. JBL – WWE SummerSlam 2005.  In his autobiography, Batista openly admitted that he was unhappy with his matches against JBL, and I definitely recall sharing that feeling, although the ending of Batista hitting the Batista Bomb on the ring steps was cool.

Batista v. Eddie Guerrero – WWE No Mercy 2005.  This was a fantastic match, the last great match of Eddie’s life as he was doing the “I’m still cheating but trying to mend my ways” thing and Batista was the guy who was able to catch him out when he’d try to cheat.  That was a really cool premise, and they delivered it in the ring fantastically. 

Batista v. King Booker – WWE Survivor Series 2006.  A crowning moment in Batista’s career as it’s winning the World Title back.  Match wasn’t great, but far better than their earlier bout at SummerSlam where they clearly hated each other and just fucked up a load of stuff.

Batista v. King Booker v. Finlay – WWE SmackDown December 1, 2006.  Saw it when it happened, have no memory of it whatsoever.  I recall that the next PPV had Batista & Cena v. Finlay and Booker in a tag match, so maybe the heels laid him out which lead to the PPV match?

Batista v. The Undertaker – WWE WrestleMania 23.  Great match, the best match of Batista’s career, and worth watching for anybody interested in wrestling even in a small way.

Batista v. Edge – WWE One Night Stand 2007.  This was a steel cage match, and I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen it, which is surprising given how much I love Edge.

Batista v. The Undertaker – WWE Cyber Sunday 2007.  This was another excellent match, and saw Batista finally get a victory over Taker, with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the guest referee.

Batista, Triple H & Ric Flair v. Randy Orton, Edge & Umaga – WWE RAW December 10, 2007.  This was from the 15th Anniversary 3-hour RAW special, as Orton went heel when they’d plugged an Evolution reunion, and it lead to a really fun tag team match that ended with Batista’s team standing tall at the end.

Batista v. John Cena – WWE SummerSlam 2008.  This was the match that WWE threw together on two weeks of build, one of their dumbest decisions in recent years, but it was good from what I recall and definitely had the big match feel you would expect of the first singles match between two of the biggest stars in the company.  I just wish, like I’ve been saying with the recent Undertaker/Jericho singles matches, that they’d have waited and done it at a WrestleMania where it could’ve been built up as something special.

Batista v. Randy Orton – WWE Armageddon 2008.  Never seen it, but I believe this is where they did an injury angle where Orton punt-kicked Batista and took him off TV for a few months, which is a bit of a downer to end the DVD set on.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com