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Batista works to be big dog in wrestling world
WWE star grew up in northern Virginia.
Date published: 7/19/2004 TALK ABOUT WRESTLING ON FREDTALK Dave Bautista gets a lot of ribbing about his three Yorkshire terriers. Afterall, the WWE star who's better known as Batista is a 6-foot-3, 275-pound macho man, and the dogs are barely bigger than his meaty hands. "I get a lot of grief about the dogs all the time," he said with a laugh. "I'm a fairly large guy and I've got three tiny dogs." The 35-year-old Bautista grew up in Arlington and Alexandria and now lives in Reston with wife Angela and the yip-yapping pooches. He has something of a home match tonight when WWE Raw comes to MCI Center at 7:45 tonight. He started lifting weights at Wakefield High when played football and wrestled there. That eventually led to pro bodybuilding. But there's not much money in bodybuilding, so Bautista worked as a bouncer at several D.C. bars, including Lulu's and the Bank. A friend got involved with the the WCW, and that led to a tryout for Bautista. WWE owner Vince McMahon liked what he saw in Bautista and signed him, then sent him to the Wild Samoan Training Center in Pennsylvania to learn the WWE way of doing things. "I had trained for years just to be big and not to be athletic," Bautista said. "The transition was really tough. I'd lost so much flexibility and agility and endurance and wrestling takes a lot of those things, especially endurance--especially when you're throwing around guys who weigh 300 pounds, and doing that for 30 minutes at a time." Bautista is anxious to show what he can do in the theatrical part of pro wrestling. "I don't know if I've really found my niche in that department yet," he said. "There hasn't been an opportunity to get a whole lot of microphone time," Bautista said. "I don't feel uncomfortable with that. That's never been the hard part for me. I've always wanted to be in entertainment." He said Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock are obviously skilled at the theatrical part of the business. Bautista said The Rock is much better at that part than at actual wrestling. "The Rock is much more comfortable out of the ring than in it," he said. "His skills really shine thorugh when he's got the microphone. And I'd say Chris Benoit is an incredible athlete, but when it comes to the enterainment part, I don't know how comfortable he is." To reach Michael Zitz, call 540/374-5408 or email him at mikez@freelancestar.com
Date published: 7/19/2004
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